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Although I'm sure you're correct, this is a very short-sighted mentality, which I believe to be the downfall of most big corporations (short-term thinking). Po

Although I'm sure you're correct, this is a very short-sighted mentality, which I believe to be the downfall of most big corporations (short-term thinking). Power users definitely know the difference between paid results and real results, and over time will steer everyone they can off of Google if it persists in showing a lack of respect for the intelligence of its users. It might take a long time, but some will leave, and over time more will follow. But that won't show in the next quarter's projections, and after that it will be too late.

theseatoms 11y ago
I tend to agree with your line of thinking, but what's the first alternative to Google right now? DuckDuckGo?
Analemma_ 11y ago
> Power users definitely know the difference between paid results and real results, and over time will steer everyone they can off of Google if it persists in showing a lack of respect for the intelligence of its users. When I start seeing technical people, HN comments, etc. advocating for using Bing instead of Google, I'll believe this. I don't think it's ever gonna ever happen. Google's power users are, if anything, an even more captive and loyal audience than Joe Public, and they know it.
imron 11y ago
Exactly. There's a reason I switched from altavista to google back in the late nineties. I'm sure altavista was guided by various metrics too, but those weren't the metrics that I as a search user found important.
- rsync 11y ago
  It's odd you would say that because, looking back, no search engine has ever been more precise or feature filled than altavista was. You could do very complex boolean logic searches with multiple, nested (()) and "" ... As opposed to google where even the "allinsite:" tag does not even function properly anymore, and where half of your search results will not even contain your search terms. I really miss altavista, actually ...
  - imron 11y ago
    I don't miss scrolling past a page of ads before getting to search results. You are right that Google deciding to 'helpfully' remove terms from my search query is frustrating.
larzang 11y ago
Power users have ublock installed and don't see any of this anyway.

theseatoms 11y ago

I tend to agree with your line of thinking, but what's the first alternative to Google right now? DuckDuckGo?

Analemma_ 11y ago

> Power users definitely know the difference between paid results and real results, and over time will steer everyone they can off of Google if it persists in showing a lack of respect for the intelligence of its users. When I start seeing technical people, HN comments, etc. advocating for using Bing instead of Google, I'll believe this. I don't think it's ever gonna ever happen. Google's power users are, if anything, an even more captive and loyal audience than Joe Public, and they know it.

imron 11y ago

Exactly. There's a reason I switched from altavista to google back in the late nineties. I'm sure altavista was guided by various metrics too, but those weren't the metrics that I as a search user found important.

rsync 11y ago
It's odd you would say that because, looking back, no search engine has ever been more precise or feature filled than altavista was. You could do very complex boolean logic searches with multiple, nested (()) and "" ... As opposed to google where even the "allinsite:" tag does not even function properly anymore, and where half of your search results will not even contain your search terms. I really miss altavista, actually ...
- imron 11y ago
  I don't miss scrolling past a page of ads before getting to search results. You are right that Google deciding to 'helpfully' remove terms from my search query is frustrating.

larzang 11y ago

Power users have ublock installed and don't see any of this anyway.