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Google just last week announced a drop in profit, so expect more of these types of “optimizations” over the coming months. Over the past 6 months they’ve alrea

Google just last week announced a drop in profit, so expect more of these types of “optimizations” over the coming months. Over the past 6 months they’ve already increased the font size of SERPs, made their ads look even more similar to organic results, and started showing multiple results from the same site in the top 5 results for highly competitive terms. All of these “optimizations” are designed to encourage more ad revenue. Plus their Google Ads account managers have become hyper aggressive in pushing their keyword and bidding AI, which according to our tests increase costs per conversions.

MayeulC 7y ago
But isn't Google going to realize that there isn't such a thing as infinite growth? I get that they got used to tremendous growth in the early days. But it has to stop at some point. Same is true for the economy (we "fix" that with inflation). And they're probably going to be split up before they reach the theoritical maximum. Couldn't they just be nice neighbors and not squeeze the last drop of milk out of us. I'd wager that the drop in productivity caused by Google, Facebook and the advertisement-based business model that they encourage dwarfs their revenue by several orders of magnitude.
- izacus 7y ago
  > But isn't Google going to realize that there isn't such a thing as infinite growth? Google (and other corps) will realize that when stock market will stop demanding infinite growh and not a cent sooner. Leaderships don't get paid in user happiness, they get rewarded by stock value. And stock market demands infinite unbounded growth for all eternity.
- jjohansson 7y ago
  Google is getting hammered by Amazon for product-centric searches, while Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn are eating into their ad share. Bing is also surprisingly resilient, taking big steps with their search targeting capabilities. There is significant resentment towards Google in the SEM community (and by people overall). Subjectively, their results have gotten significantly worse over the past 1.5 years. Search is ripe for disruption.

MayeulC 7y ago

But isn't Google going to realize that there isn't such a thing as infinite growth? I get that they got used to tremendous growth in the early days. But it has to stop at some point. Same is true for the economy (we "fix" that with inflation). And they're probably going to be split up before they reach the theoritical maximum. Couldn't they just be nice neighbors and not squeeze the last drop of milk out of us. I'd wager that the drop in productivity caused by Google, Facebook and the advertisement-based business model that they encourage dwarfs their revenue by several orders of magnitude.

izacus 7y ago
> But isn't Google going to realize that there isn't such a thing as infinite growth? Google (and other corps) will realize that when stock market will stop demanding infinite growh and not a cent sooner. Leaderships don't get paid in user happiness, they get rewarded by stock value. And stock market demands infinite unbounded growth for all eternity.
jjohansson 7y ago
Google is getting hammered by Amazon for product-centric searches, while Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn are eating into their ad share. Bing is also surprisingly resilient, taking big steps with their search targeting capabilities. There is significant resentment towards Google in the SEM community (and by people overall). Subjectively, their results have gotten significantly worse over the past 1.5 years. Search is ripe for disruption.