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The redesigned version of Google Search that is being A/B tested no longer shows links. Despite being a developer, I'm anxious to click search results, especial

The redesigned version of Google Search that is being A/B tested no longer shows links. Despite being a developer, I'm anxious to click search results, especially because when results are filtered to be from the last day or week, they are full of phishing sites and pages with scraped content that immediately redirect to malware. This change can't possibly be beneficial to users. It makes people even more ignorant about the technologies they depend on, and exposes them to further risk of being exploited. UPDATE: This is the new design I've seen, the domains are missing: https://i.imgur.com/5RTdXI1.png https://i.imgur.com/5RTdXI1.png

hombre_fatal 7y ago
They took urls away and then added this: https://i.imgur.com/RI4xxgs.png https://i.imgur.com/RI4xxgs.png For example, searched "hierarchy" and it'll show "en.wikipedia.org > wiki > hierarchy" above the wikipedia search result. > This change can't possibly be beneficial to users. You're right if the url/domain isn't even shown at all. But I can think of a few benefits of showing the domain as it currently does, like to avoid phishing. It also basically parses the url and interprets it for less-technical users which is something that more-technical users are already doing when they read the url. I don't think it's so bad as a default if there's a config option for displaying the full url for more technical users, or the necessary data available to at least write a browser extension.
- dessant 7y ago
  Multiple versions are being tested. The one I've seen does not contain the domain, not even in a tokenized form. It looked like this: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-is-testing-search-results-without-urls/329465/ https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-is-testing-search...
  - hombre_fatal 7y ago
    Yeah, the iteration I'm being served is definitely an upgrade over that. The one shown in your link is what I had previously, so it seems that mine is a refinement of it and a middle ground that I don't think is so bad.
    - boomlinde 7y ago
      I don't see the issue with showing both an URL and a tokenized representation, outside Google's seeming motive to "kill the URL". In both versions, information that would be immediately available in the URL is potentially left out, which can't possibly help prevent phishing unless Google goes out of their way to actually verify that websites are what they say they are. It's also hard to trust Google engineering to get something like this right after the Chrome "trivial subdomain" stripping debacle(https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=881694 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=881694).
- dmix 7y ago
  What happens when you click the down arrow next to the domain? Google cache/similar links? Edit: I can see it on all my searches on https://www.google.co.uk/ https://www.google.co.uk/ it is cache/similar
juped 7y ago
Surely these are just all ads? If not, that's a shame.
cytzol 7y ago
I'm in this A/B test too, and like you, it makes me anxious. I've become so accustomed to looking at the full URL (in green) of what I'm about to click on, that without having it there, I trust Google search results less as a whole. The one that got me was when a search result pointed me to a site that was something like: example.com/?ipaddr=10.3.4.3 And Google, in an attempt to be helpful, showed me this: example.com > ... > It makes people even more ignorant about the technologies they depend on, and exposes them to further risk of being exploited. This is the point. If you've ever viewed an AMP site using Mobile Safari, you'll still see "google.com" in the Location Bar, instead of the site's own domain name. Google's fix for this is to try to kill the URL.
gordaco 7y ago
I got this crap on my work PC, and it was the last straw for me. I've switched to duckduckgo (to train myself, what I did was actually change my dynamic bookmark, so that when I type "google X" it goes to the duckduckgo search page for X instead of google, as it used to do). This morning I tried entering google and it's showing the domains again, but I don't care any more, they've lost me.
nope96 7y ago
Speaking of recent Google changes - Has anyone else noticed Google has removed the 'sign out' link? Before, you could click the upper right corner icon and "sign out", but that is now gone and I cannot find any way to sign out of Google, anywhere!
- thegeekpirate 7y ago
  When I click on my profile icon at the top-right, I have a sign out button at the bottom of the menu (well, technically it's "Sign out of all accounts" since I'm logged into multiple), fwiw.
ShteiLoups 7y ago
At least in chrome, mousing over a hyperlink pulls up the destination address in the bottom left corner (for now).
shpx 7y ago
The URL is right there, above the search result title. Just the / has been replaced by a > and it's been made a more human readable. To the average person it's even more prominent now. I'm looking forward to this change. It will incentivise websites to make their URL paths more human readable because now their example.com > cgi > html > static > actually_human_readble_part.html noise is seen by everyone not just weirdos that look at the URL bar like me.
- thegeekpirate 7y ago
  You should take another look at the image—there's no domain suffix, and they've also removed any arguments in the URL, both of which are _incredibly_ important.
thegeekpirate 7y ago
This happened to me after I had formatted (new PC), and since I had just started using Firefox as my main browser and did not see this change on Chrome, I believed that Firefox had been gimped by Google in this specific manner. Needless to say, this was the straw that made me switch to DuckDuckGo instantly, and I've been happy with it, especially with the ability to use the Google bang (!g) in the infrequent case it's required. This has taught me a valuable thing about A/B testing though—don't make an experiment any longer than it needs to be, and a refresh should bring them back to the old behaviour, just in case it's bad enough to make them switch completely.
pkaye 7y ago
Is there a feedback button near the bottom? Maybe you can voice your concerns.
toast0 7y ago
After seeing these, I switched my phone and browser to search with DDG by default. Most of the time, I don't notice, although Google definitely catches news and blogs much quicker and has a bigger shopping portfolio. Other than those two, DDG has been good enough for me.
mar77i 7y ago
I wonder if Google does proper X-testing (X as in exodus), but I guess they don't take care about a couple users leaving, as they're still busy spreading through the rest of the world. I still hope that just means the clock's ticking for the next dot-com bubble to burst so that a new generation of websites could blow up big.

hombre_fatal 7y ago

They took urls away and then added this: https://i.imgur.com/RI4xxgs.png https://i.imgur.com/RI4xxgs.png For example, searched "hierarchy" and it'll show "en.wikipedia.org > wiki > hierarchy" above the wikipedia search result. > This change can't possibly be beneficial to users. You're right if the url/domain isn't even shown at all. But I can think of a few benefits of showing the domain as it currently does, like to avoid phishing. It also basically parses the url and interprets it for less-technical users which is something that more-technical users are already doing when they read the url. I don't think it's so bad as a default if there's a config option for displaying the full url for more technical users, or the necessary data available to at least write a browser extension.

dessant 7y ago
Multiple versions are being tested. The one I've seen does not contain the domain, not even in a tokenized form. It looked like this: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-is-testing-search-results-without-urls/329465/ https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-is-testing-search...
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  Yeah, the iteration I'm being served is definitely an upgrade over that. The one shown in your link is what I had previously, so it seems that mine is a refinement of it and a middle ground that I don't think is so bad.
  - boomlinde 7y ago
    I don't see the issue with showing both an URL and a tokenized representation, outside Google's seeming motive to "kill the URL". In both versions, information that would be immediately available in the URL is potentially left out, which can't possibly help prevent phishing unless Google goes out of their way to actually verify that websites are what they say they are. It's also hard to trust Google engineering to get something like this right after the Chrome "trivial subdomain" stripping debacle(https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=881694 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=881694).
dmix 7y ago
What happens when you click the down arrow next to the domain? Google cache/similar links? Edit: I can see it on all my searches on https://www.google.co.uk/ https://www.google.co.uk/ it is cache/similar

juped 7y ago

Surely these are just all ads? If not, that's a shame.

cytzol 7y ago

I'm in this A/B test too, and like you, it makes me anxious. I've become so accustomed to looking at the full URL (in green) of what I'm about to click on, that without having it there, I trust Google search results less as a whole. The one that got me was when a search result pointed me to a site that was something like: example.com/?ipaddr=10.3.4.3 And Google, in an attempt to be helpful, showed me this: example.com > ... > It makes people even more ignorant about the technologies they depend on, and exposes them to further risk of being exploited. This is the point. If you've ever viewed an AMP site using Mobile Safari, you'll still see "google.com" in the Location Bar, instead of the site's own domain name. Google's fix for this is to try to kill the URL.

gordaco 7y ago

I got this crap on my work PC, and it was the last straw for me. I've switched to duckduckgo (to train myself, what I did was actually change my dynamic bookmark, so that when I type "google X" it goes to the duckduckgo search page for X instead of google, as it used to do). This morning I tried entering google and it's showing the domains again, but I don't care any more, they've lost me.

nope96 7y ago

Speaking of recent Google changes - Has anyone else noticed Google has removed the 'sign out' link? Before, you could click the upper right corner icon and "sign out", but that is now gone and I cannot find any way to sign out of Google, anywhere!

thegeekpirate 7y ago
When I click on my profile icon at the top-right, I have a sign out button at the bottom of the menu (well, technically it's "Sign out of all accounts" since I'm logged into multiple), fwiw.

ShteiLoups 7y ago

At least in chrome, mousing over a hyperlink pulls up the destination address in the bottom left corner (for now).

shpx 7y ago

The URL is right there, above the search result title. Just the / has been replaced by a > and it's been made a more human readable. To the average person it's even more prominent now. I'm looking forward to this change. It will incentivise websites to make their URL paths more human readable because now their example.com > cgi > html > static > actually_human_readble_part.html noise is seen by everyone not just weirdos that look at the URL bar like me.

thegeekpirate 7y ago
You should take another look at the image—there's no domain suffix, and they've also removed any arguments in the URL, both of which are _incredibly_ important.

thegeekpirate 7y ago

This happened to me after I had formatted (new PC), and since I had just started using Firefox as my main browser and did not see this change on Chrome, I believed that Firefox had been gimped by Google in this specific manner. Needless to say, this was the straw that made me switch to DuckDuckGo instantly, and I've been happy with it, especially with the ability to use the Google bang (!g) in the infrequent case it's required. This has taught me a valuable thing about A/B testing though—don't make an experiment any longer than it needs to be, and a refresh should bring them back to the old behaviour, just in case it's bad enough to make them switch completely.

pkaye 7y ago

Is there a feedback button near the bottom? Maybe you can voice your concerns.

toast0 7y ago

After seeing these, I switched my phone and browser to search with DDG by default. Most of the time, I don't notice, although Google definitely catches news and blogs much quicker and has a bigger shopping portfolio. Other than those two, DDG has been good enough for me.

mar77i 7y ago

I wonder if Google does proper X-testing (X as in exodus), but I guess they don't take care about a couple users leaving, as they're still busy spreading through the rest of the world. I still hope that just means the clock's ticking for the next dot-com bubble to burst so that a new generation of websites could blow up big.