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Note that they're banning bail bond ads, not links. This means if you search for "bail bonds" you'll see organic links but no ads. This is a crucial difference

by jfasi 8y ago

Note that they're banning bail bond ads, not links. This means if you search for "bail bonds" you'll see organic links but no ads. This is a crucial difference that this post seems to overlook. The search algorithm goes way out of its way to determine some measure of "legitimacy." Obviously this is a vague and hard-to-define measure, but the goal is commendable: show results that are both relevant to the user according to Google's relevance metrics and legitimate according to who links to it, quality of the page, freshness, etc. Whatever qualms you might have about the vagaries of the search algorithm, you can't dispute that it's difficult to game. Meanwhile ads are chosen by what brings the most long term value to Google. Gaming this system is much easier, and usually begins with paying more per click. This favors advertisers with higher margins, which is harmless for innocuous queries like "flowers" which make up the bulk of search ads. For bail bonds, however, this favors advertisers with higher margins, which in turn rewards exploitative providers over the legitimate bail bondsmen this author seems to think will be harmed. If anything, this is actually a boon to the more socially-minded bail bondsmen this article is concerned about: exploitative bail bonds businesses that go out of their way to saddle their customers with debt will not appear on the top of the page, raising more legitimate ones. Another point: one of the consequences of being able to pay for ranking is you can place ads on terms that are not really related to your business. For instance, "Home Depot" queries tend to show ads for Lowes and other competitors. In a similar way, searching for "bail bond counseling" and other terms tends to include at least one for-profit bail bond operation that offers no or nominal counseling. Meanwhile if there are no ads, then the legitimate counseling services will float to the top of the page. Likewise for queries for all the other services this article claims will be hurt. Source/disclaimer: These are my personal opinions as someone who works in ads at Google, (but was not involved in this decision). All my points come from publicly available info. Please don't mistake this for anything but my own views.

ksk 8y ago
>Whatever qualms you might have about the vagaries of the search algorithm, you can't dispute that it's difficult to game. Nothing personal against you, but as a user I find that google's algorithms are trivially gamed by the SEO industry. Apart from the ads themselves, I personally think a small ranking boost for pages that don't run ads will go a long way to clean up the search results.
- maccard 8y ago
  > I personally think a small ranking boost for pages that don't run ads will go a long way to clean up the search results. It's highly unlikely that google (a company whose business model is selling ads) will prioritise sites without ads.
  - ksk 8y ago
    It was unlikely that they would include an adblocker in their browser, but they did. Personally, I don't like Google as a company, but they do do weird stuff like that. They're going to still be making tons of money from paid ads in the search results, youtube, cloud services, and other google properties.
- SilasX 8y ago
  Exactly. Plus, the reason the organic BB links are better now is because they can advertise. When they money flows out of Google ads and back into SEO, that can distort the search results just the same. Google apparently knows (through its consultation with these thoughtful non-profits) which orgs aren't going to exploit those who need a bail bond. Why not use the ad space to point people to those orgs? (Per my other comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17022103 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17022103 )
asah 8y ago
this!!! --- I posted this on the blog: Google is banning ads aka paid placements - organic search results are still fine, including reviews of bail bondsmen, etc. Put another way, Google is simply refusing to profit from this industry and refusing to allow money to skew access to information. How again is this a bad thing???
enoch_r 8y ago
Will Google also be banning ads for health insurance companies, doctors, mortgage companies, and law firms? After all, these are crucial services, the choice of which can have major consequences! You make a convincing argument[1] that advertising rewards the most exploitative providers, so perhaps Google should ban their advertisements as well. Obviously this won't happen. I would argue that this is because bail bond services are demonized as exploiting the poor, while services white collar professionals typically use don't get the same treatment--precisely because it's easy to demonize something you will never need as predatory and useless. [1] Though I would dispute it: higher margin doesn't equal "more exploitative," which is why we make purchasing decisions by thinking about consumer surplus instead of about how high the producer's margins were. I might purchase a new flagship phone instead of a $150 knockoff even if the former has higher margins. Or I might purchase a cheaper, better laptop from a company with high margins (and a dialed-in supply chain) rather than a one-off build from someone who is barely covering their (much higher) costs.
- pjc50 8y ago
  > bail bond services are demonized as exploiting the poor Well, yes: they're a unique feature of the US justice system that allows people to be financially penalized by the police before any kind of trial. The entire system should simply be abolished.

by jfasi 8y ago

ksk 8y ago

>Whatever qualms you might have about the vagaries of the search algorithm, you can't dispute that it's difficult to game. Nothing personal against you, but as a user I find that google's algorithms are trivially gamed by the SEO industry. Apart from the ads themselves, I personally think a small ranking boost for pages that don't run ads will go a long way to clean up the search results.

maccard 8y ago
> I personally think a small ranking boost for pages that don't run ads will go a long way to clean up the search results. It's highly unlikely that google (a company whose business model is selling ads) will prioritise sites without ads.
- ksk 8y ago
  It was unlikely that they would include an adblocker in their browser, but they did. Personally, I don't like Google as a company, but they do do weird stuff like that. They're going to still be making tons of money from paid ads in the search results, youtube, cloud services, and other google properties.
SilasX 8y ago
Exactly. Plus, the reason the organic BB links are better now is because they can advertise. When they money flows out of Google ads and back into SEO, that can distort the search results just the same. Google apparently knows (through its consultation with these thoughtful non-profits) which orgs aren't going to exploit those who need a bail bond. Why not use the ad space to point people to those orgs? (Per my other comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17022103 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17022103 )

asah 8y ago

this!!! --- I posted this on the blog: Google is banning ads aka paid placements - organic search results are still fine, including reviews of bail bondsmen, etc. Put another way, Google is simply refusing to profit from this industry and refusing to allow money to skew access to information. How again is this a bad thing???

enoch_r 8y ago

Will Google also be banning ads for health insurance companies, doctors, mortgage companies, and law firms? After all, these are crucial services, the choice of which can have major consequences! You make a convincing argument[1] that advertising rewards the most exploitative providers, so perhaps Google should ban their advertisements as well. Obviously this won't happen. I would argue that this is because bail bond services are demonized as exploiting the poor, while services white collar professionals typically use don't get the same treatment--precisely because it's easy to demonize something you will never need as predatory and useless. [1] Though I would dispute it: higher margin doesn't equal "more exploitative," which is why we make purchasing decisions by thinking about consumer surplus instead of about how high the producer's margins were. I might purchase a new flagship phone instead of a $150 knockoff even if the former has higher margins. Or I might purchase a cheaper, better laptop from a company with high margins (and a dialed-in supply chain) rather than a one-off build from someone who is barely covering their (much higher) costs.

pjc50 8y ago
> bail bond services are demonized as exploiting the poor Well, yes: they're a unique feature of the US justice system that allows people to be financially penalized by the police before any kind of trial. The entire system should simply be abolished.