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It could be just me, but could you point out where the comment says he likes to be connected to advertisers? The thing is, personally I prefer getting inte

It could be just me, but could you point out where the comment says he likes to be connected to advertisers? The thing is, personally I prefer getting integrated results from Google's other search services when I do a Google search. I like getting Google Maps results when I search for a location, I like getting Google Flights results etc. When I do a Google search I am not just using it as a simple website search. I want it to use it to search the whole Google suite of services. If they are forced to stop doing this it will make my search experience worse for me. Random, maybe silly idea. Maybe they could start providing two search streams. One would just be a simpler website search while the other would be a more involved google services search as well as a general website search. This way search users could explicitly say that they want to see direct integrated results from the whole Google ecosystem.

jasode 9y ago
Maybe you're not seeing it because you're looking for literal exact words. Instead, look for meaning ... such as the one embedded in this sentence: >I prefer getting integrated results from Google's other search services when I do a Google search. One example of "other search services" is Google Shopping. It's the retail advertisers that sponsor their ecommerce buying links to Google Shopping. Hence, the "advertisers connection to users". Btw, there are also other posters making similar comments about the convenience of Google "connecting users to advertisers". Like the previous example, you won't see it if you're looking for that exact phrasing. E.g. another comment by cyxxon: "Currently Google's services just so damned conveniently integrated": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14644100 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14644100
- _Codemonkeyism 9y ago
  Ah, "the words are what I mean them to be". Can't argue anymore then.
  - jasode 9y ago
    There's no need to play semantic games. Let's say I'm looking for a Seagate 10 TB harddrive. The Google Shopping results would look something like this: https://www.google.com/shopping/product/3954751729784172026?prds=scoring:tp https://www.google.com/shopping/product/3954751729784172026?... That example "connects me, the user, to the advertisers". Seriously, without playing the game of "words are anything I want them to mean just to win an argument"... what would _you_ call the mechanism of those Google Shopping results? <Genuinely confused here.>
    - yorwba 9y ago
      > That example "connects me, the user, to the advertisers". But did you want to be connected to the advertisers, i.e. those who paid Google to give their product a better placement, or did you want to be connected to the sellers, ranked by how desirable their product is to you?
      - jasode 9y ago
        I see your differentiation of advertisers-vs-sellers but it doesn't apply because, yes, I do wanted to be connected to those advertisers. The Google Shopping page clearly shows the message "Sponsored (i)" at the top of the results. Click on the "(i)" for more info and it says: "Products and offers that match your query. Google is compensated by these merchants." I'm using the Google Shopping as it's deliberately designed: connect me to the advertisers. I think the confusion is that regular search results (e.g. search for "how to concatenate a string in PHP?") is a "pull" mechanism in which Google spiders webcrawls and scrapes from pages like StackOverflow. You expect some sort of pagerank curation without requiring StackOverflow paying money to Google. Nevertheless, Stackoverflow answers often show up at the top. On the other hand, the Google Shopping is a "push" mechanism where the advertisers pay to place their links there. The advertiser/sponsor model is basically how all the major comparison shopping sites work. I don't know of any reputable/reliable price comparison site that uses a "pull" mechanism to scrape prices across multiple retailers that covers most products. If it does "pull" price data, it tries to derive income via techniques like affiliate url links for commissions. Camelcamelcamel uses a pull mechanism but it only scrapes Amazon and not the other retailers like Best Buy, Newegg, etc. To turn this around, let me ask you... what price comparison website connects me to sellers instead of advertisers? (A site like Ebay connects me to "sellers" but doesn't include results from multiple major retailers such as Amazon.)

jasode 9y ago

Maybe you're not seeing it because you're looking for literal exact words. Instead, look for meaning ... such as the one embedded in this sentence: >I prefer getting integrated results from Google's other search services when I do a Google search. One example of "other search services" is Google Shopping. It's the retail advertisers that sponsor their ecommerce buying links to Google Shopping. Hence, the "advertisers connection to users". Btw, there are also other posters making similar comments about the convenience of Google "connecting users to advertisers". Like the previous example, you won't see it if you're looking for that exact phrasing. E.g. another comment by cyxxon: "Currently Google's services just so damned conveniently integrated": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14644100 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14644100

_Codemonkeyism 9y ago
Ah, "the words are what I mean them to be". Can't argue anymore then.
- jasode 9y ago
  There's no need to play semantic games. Let's say I'm looking for a Seagate 10 TB harddrive. The Google Shopping results would look something like this: https://www.google.com/shopping/product/3954751729784172026?prds=scoring:tp https://www.google.com/shopping/product/3954751729784172026?... That example "connects me, the user, to the advertisers". Seriously, without playing the game of "words are anything I want them to mean just to win an argument"... what would _you_ call the mechanism of those Google Shopping results? <Genuinely confused here.>
  - yorwba 9y ago
    > That example "connects me, the user, to the advertisers". But did you want to be connected to the advertisers, i.e. those who paid Google to give their product a better placement, or did you want to be connected to the sellers, ranked by how desirable their product is to you?
    - jasode 9y ago
      I see your differentiation of advertisers-vs-sellers but it doesn't apply because, yes, I do wanted to be connected to those advertisers. The Google Shopping page clearly shows the message "Sponsored (i)" at the top of the results. Click on the "(i)" for more info and it says: "Products and offers that match your query. Google is compensated by these merchants." I'm using the Google Shopping as it's deliberately designed: connect me to the advertisers. I think the confusion is that regular search results (e.g. search for "how to concatenate a string in PHP?") is a "pull" mechanism in which Google spiders webcrawls and scrapes from pages like StackOverflow. You expect some sort of pagerank curation without requiring StackOverflow paying money to Google. Nevertheless, Stackoverflow answers often show up at the top. On the other hand, the Google Shopping is a "push" mechanism where the advertisers pay to place their links there. The advertiser/sponsor model is basically how all the major comparison shopping sites work. I don't know of any reputable/reliable price comparison site that uses a "pull" mechanism to scrape prices across multiple retailers that covers most products. If it does "pull" price data, it tries to derive income via techniques like affiliate url links for commissions. Camelcamelcamel uses a pull mechanism but it only scrapes Amazon and not the other retailers like Best Buy, Newegg, etc. To turn this around, let me ask you... what price comparison website connects me to sellers instead of advertisers? (A site like Ebay connects me to "sellers" but doesn't include results from multiple major retailers such as Amazon.)