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I've been in this A/B test for a couple of months now, so I've had time to adjust, and I still hate it. I've just become so used to seeing the complete URL in g

by cytzol 7y ago

I've been in this A/B test for a couple of months now, so I've had time to adjust, and I still hate it. I've just become so used to seeing the complete URL in green. The complete URL! If you hover over the results, you'll see that they like to take bits like numeric components or the query string out. This is part of Google's attempt to de-prioritise the URL. Their destructive AMP service confusingly shows you Google's domain instead of the website's — and as they can't fix that without losing out on tracking, they're trying to change what the URL means. Thanks for ruining the Web, Google.

reroute1 7y ago
To be fair didn't internet marketers ruin things first by cramming keywords in URLS and page titles to game search engines?
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
  Two wrongs...
  - reroute1 7y ago
    Just saying IMO Google isn't ruining the internet. Of course every decision being scrutinized they can't have a perfect record. They have a search engine that due to it's popularity is the target of all kinds of stats gaming and optimizing, While at the same time trying to grow a profitable product. So it's not like there are simple solutions or easy quips like Google Ruined the Internet. It sounds like a lazy argument.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
sophiebits 7y ago
AMP obscuring the URL is a side effect of the current technical implementation, not a goal – and they are working to fix it: https://searchengineland.com/google-announces-signed-exchange-solution-to-deliver-amp-speed-to-publisher-urls-315504 https://searchengineland.com/google-announces-signed-exchang...
- basch 7y ago
  Cloudflare has an option for native AMP urls, at your own domain, as well.
  - tunetheweb 7y ago
    Is any site using this? It requires a special certificate and signing your content (which admittedly Cloudflare will take care of for you) but even then it’s only for Chrome and Firefox and Apple have said they won’t support it. Over a year after announcing it I’ve yet to find a single site that does this.
- sukilot 7y ago
  To users, side effects are the same as goals. We have nothing to judge a vendor on except observed behavior.
- slavik81 7y ago
  The parent mentioned that: "as they can't fix [the URL appearance] without losing out on tracking, they're trying to change what the URL means."
- JohnFen 7y ago
  Yes, and that fix is worse than the original problem.
- dmitriid 7y ago
  It's the intended side-effect. For the longest time ever AMP wouldn't even acknowledge it's a problem (oh, we just provide the standard, it's the browsers' fault). Then Google relented and provided a non-solution in the form of an obscure bar on top of AMP pages (in which the link to the original page is deliberately designed to not look like a link). The signed exchanges is a bone thrown towards standards committees after all the damage has already been done. And the "solution" has been directly called by Mozilla harmful, they are not going to implement it. Safari shares Mozilla's concern.
- gpvos 7y ago
  Actually, that so-called "fix" obscures the actual Google URL where the content is served from.
ping_pong 7y ago
How is hijacking the domain with Google for AMP not anti-competitive? I'm surprised a class action lawsuit hasn't erupted because of that.
- texasbigdata 7y ago
  Also what is the technical benefit? On android it feels like a downgrade
  - drusepth 7y ago
    What makes you think it feels like a downgrade? AMP results seem to, on average, load faster with a better UI to me.
    - nostrebored 7y ago
      Not sure why this is being downvoted. I encourage people to visit the non-AMP version of smaller news providers. Enjoy the popups, video ads, autoplay, bloated sizes, etc.
      - JohnFen 7y ago
        Whenever I get an AMP page, I always go to the non-AMP version, even for smaller news providers. I find the non-AMP version to be superior every single time, but I use NoScript so I don't see the popups, video ads, autoplay, etc.
      - Iolaum 7y ago
        If you use adblocking addons you don't get many of those.
        bashinator 7y ago
        Or even reader mode - I don't mind flashing the cruft for a few seconds while I turn it on, and it's the best of all worlds. The site gets their ads (briefly) loaded, and I get a clean page to read.
kllrnohj 7y ago
> This is part of Google's attempt to de-prioritise the URL. URLs have always been an implementation detail and not a user feature. From the very beginning it was intended that users would follow links, not type in URLs. HTML was built on hiding URLs behind text. Then AOL keywords happened. Then search explosion happened. And short URLs. And QR codes for real-world linking. And bookmarks because yet again typing in URLs is not a major driving use case. Typing in un-obfuscated URLs has almost never been a key feature or use-case of the web. If anything URL obfuscation is a core building block of the web and is a huge reason _why_ the web skyrocketed in popularity & usage. Don't pretend that somehow AMP obfuscating URLs will be the death of the web. The web exploded in growth despite massive, wide-spread URL obfuscation over the last 20 years. Nothing is actually changing here.
- sukilot 7y ago
  Let's distinguish between obfuscating the query parameters, the the path, and the domain. They are different things, and the domain name especially is a major security boundary.
  - kllrnohj 7y ago
    Most of what I mentioned did obfuscate the domain name. Users do not care about domain name security boundaries - that's yet again an implementation detail. An important one, but still not something most users recognize or care about. Hence, you know, why phishing is so successful.
    - masswerk 7y ago
      Users used to care about paths and other descriptors. A decade ago, we were fighting for human readable resource locators. However, users have been taught progressively to ignore them as too complex. (Just the same as it happened for any advanced, but user accessible browser controls.) Why is it that 25 years into web usage, any controlled access is deemed too complicated? (Mind that other technologies were already approaching the end of their lifespan at a similar age. The web is neither new nor disruptive anymore.)
dang 7y ago
A few weeks ago, I changed my browsing and searching habits purely to get out of that A/B test bucket. Now it looks like we're all in it.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Now that is an admission.
- exikyut 7y ago
  I am very curious how you achieved that!
baxtr 7y ago
Google hates strong SEO sites, because they won't make them any money. So that's a clever way of pushing them further down. I wondered when all results on the first page will be Ads only.
- rijoja 7y ago
  Do they really? Wouldn't a "strong SEO" site be ideal for their spiders?
  - xenocratus 7y ago
    I think the idea is that a strong SEO site doesn't have to pay to be seen through searches.
    - dmix 7y ago
      There will still be 2-4+ ads above the fold of the real "good SEO" results anyway.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    If you have good SEO and drift to the top of queries that actually are relevant for your site then you don't need to buy as many Google ads.
    - brennebeck 7y ago
      Wouldn’t having strong SEO incentive competition to buy ads? Of course it also incentives them to work on SEO, but the only way to ‘get above’ a top ranking site would be to buy an ad, no?
      - Retric 7y ago
        Increasing costs for your competition is a net win for you.
        7y ago
johnnycab 7y ago
>Thanks for ruining the Web, Google. I posted the solution below, which I found a few days ago. The script will work with greasemonkey and tampermonkey, it will provide you with results similar to the ones before the change. If you also use uMatrix, there will be no ads. https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/395257-better-google https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/395257-better-google
- idclip 7y ago
  F (4 later setup)
- catalogia 7y ago
  > "the solution" That's a solution, but not a particularly great one since it requires too much from the user to see mass adoption.
  - userbinator 7y ago
    That still requires somewhat less from the user than my solution: a filtering proxy. On the other hand, the latter enables a far more customised browsing experience and one that isn't restricted to a single browser on a single computer. ...which brings me to another great point this illustrates: if you want to customise your experience, if you want to be able to control how you see the Web, then you need to make an effort, and the amount you exert is essentially proportional to how much you can change. Yet the majority of users have shown that they are willing to take whatever Google throws at them with little opposition. I find that a little sad and ironic in this era of "everyone can code" propaganda (I've seen even Google advertises something like that on its homepage); or perhaps the latter is just an attempt to increase the population of intelligent yet docile and obedient corporate drones... I know developers --- web developers --- who really hated the changes yet made no effort to fix it themselves, despite almost certainly having the skills to.
    - hiram112 7y ago
      What kind of filtering proxy are you using?
noja 7y ago
I can't mentally parse the results anywhere near as fast as I used to be able to. It's horrible.
- IanSanders 7y ago
  Mission accomplished?
  - colejohnson66 7y ago
    Depends on what Google’s mission is. If it’s to show you ads, it doesn’t matter how long you’re on their page as the destination will (almost certainly) have more. If it’s to help you, it’s not successful.
    - IanSanders 7y ago
      >mission Making profit, obviously. You to be less efficient at distinguishing ads and results, increasing time you look at ads, increasing chances of you interacting with ads.
Waterluvian 7y ago
I'd love to learn what % of A/B tests get rejected after the test has concluded. I suspect there's naturally a laundry list of biases that all the work we designed and implemented needs to succeed or boy do we look silly.
imron 7y ago
> I've been in this A/B test for a couple of months now, so I've had time to adjust, and I still hate it Me too. It just looks ugly.
- spookthesunset 7y ago
  I think half of it is the ugly font they are now using. Ugly is the perfect way to describe it. Google is really not good at creating beautiful products...
  - elsewhen 7y ago
    My understanding is that they are optimizing for revenue per visitor per month- they are not trying to make the most visually appealing product.
    - rocqua 7y ago
      That's a scary optimization to make if it starts costing you visitors.
      - imron 7y ago
        They'll make it up in volume /s
    - spookthesunset 7y ago
      Clearly. It looks like dogshit....
dragonwriter 7y ago
> Their destructive AMP service confusingly shows you Google's domain instead of the website's No, it doesn't. It's actually served from Google's URL, but it (the AMP service) shows you the original site URL (well, it shows the domain by default but that's a button that expands to the URL if you click it.) Your address bar shows you the Google URL, but that's not misleading, either, since what the address bar has always shown is what location content is being served from, not a content identifier distinct from the mechanics of content distribution. > they can't fix that without losing out on tracking Nah, they could track of they worked like a classic CDN
- perl4ever 7y ago
  I mean, I generally get the gist of what you are saying, but you are saying "no, you're confused, it's not misleading..." It's kind of like saying "no, you don't have hypochondria, it's all in your head!"
therealmarv 7y ago
If you want a favicon fix. Use this CSS userstyle https://userstyles.org/styles/179230/google-search-old-style https://userstyles.org/styles/179230/google-search-old-style with Chrome/Firefox extension "Stylus".
naravara 7y ago
>Thanks for ruining the Web, Google. When does the mass-migration to DuckDuckGo go mainstream?
- wolco 7y ago
  It slowly moves a little bit more each day. Not useful results will change habits.
- Polylactic_acid 7y ago
  I use duckduck go on mobile because it doesn't prevent me from saving images.
- ShorsHammer 7y ago
  It has certainly got some mainstream attention recently: https://twitter.com/jack/status/1199783221162053633?lang=en https://twitter.com/jack/status/1199783221162053633?lang=en https://www.businessinsider.my/twitter-jack-dorsey-duckduckgo-search-google-2019-11/?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.my/twitter-jack-dorsey-duckduckg...
- Retric 7y ago
  Might be now? I just swapped my default search to DuckDuckGo. I have been having several issues with google search recently, this just seems like a good time to make the jump.
  - naravara 7y ago
    Yeah for a long while I felt like an idiosyncratic person for using it and it did feel like a minor sacrifice. Nowadays it really does seem like a competitive platform on quality. Slightly less good at parsing the semantics, but much better at actually showing me search results instead of ads.
  - tomaszs 7y ago
    I switched yesterday. I love it does not try to guess what i search for
- 7y ago
wolco 7y ago
They could fix this for publishers who point a subdomain that way. Or url rewrite the address to the publishers.
d1zzy 7y ago
> and as they can't fix that without losing out on tracking Tracking what users click to as the result of a search is critical feedback information for training your models/algorithms, it's not just about "hey let's see where this user goes to fine tune ad targeting for them". And, AFAIK, every search engine out there does it(?)
- JohnFen 7y ago
  Perhaps so, but I still find it highly objectionable.
  - d1zzy 7y ago
    Just search in a private window then, the part of the tracking that I assume you find objectionable (gathering info on what sites the current user visits) goes away when you close the window while the part that helps the search engine (and thus results in better search results for everyone) still works. Now sure, we can argue that maybe the company should provide options where you can say "you can use what I click on for search training but not for targeted advertising" (I think Google does provide a set of options that pretty much disable all web history/targeted ad collection), assuming you believe they follow through. But the company needs to pay for its services somehow so I can't blame them for tying the two types of tracking together, I still have tools as a user (private window) to avoid it if I care enough to.
- floriol 7y ago
  They can track it with a simple js onclick handler, or a simple redirect on their server, that's not the problem. (They do both btw.) The problem is that they want to track what I do on the links I already clicked - which is absolutely none of their business.
cmroanirgo 7y ago
There are alternative search engines of course. I use StartPage which has the benefit of local results (but can be fully anonymous) but still uses Google search results. DDG is a great alternative, but isn't for me. And then there's Bing
- leokennis 7y ago
  Just FYI, Startpage was recently acquired by a shady company.
  - pferde 7y ago
    Huh, you're right, this flew completely below my radar. https://restoreprivacy.com/startpage-system1-privacy-one-group/ https://restoreprivacy.com/startpage-system1-privacy-one-gro...
  - cmroanirgo 7y ago
    Wow. Did not know that, time to move along then. DDG here we go. That said, their privacy policy still looks pretty strong: https://www.startpage.com/en/search/privacy-policy.html https://www.startpage.com/en/search/privacy-policy.html ...and at the end of the day, who is actually better out there, and that can prove that no data is leaking? Maybe running your own searx is the only option? (http://asciimoo.github.io/searx/ http://asciimoo.github.io/searx/)
    - karinakarina 7y ago
      Startpage person here ️. Maybe I can shed some light on this. Last year, Startpage announced an investment in Startpage by System1 through Privacy One Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of System1. With this investment, we hope to further expand our privacy features & reach new users. Rest assured, the Startpage founders have control over the privacy components of Startpage (https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/1275/0/what-is-startpages-relationship-with-privacy-onesystem1-and-what-does-this-mean-for-my-privacy-protections https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Artic...). Also, a couple of things that set Startpage apart from DDG: 1) We're HQ'ed in the Netherlands, ensuring all our users are protected by stringent Dutch & EU privacy laws, 2) we give you Google results without tracking, 3) with Anonymous View you can visit results in full privacy.
cmonnow 7y ago
> I still hate it I left a strongly worded feedback on their form
- taywrobel 7y ago
  Just wait until their feedback forms get ads.
- sundarurfriend 7y ago
  I'm sure a sentiment analysis bot looked at it and added a '-1' somewhere in their databases.
- ringzero 7y ago
  It's funny to think that, of all the products Google kills on the regular, the one thing most everyone wants them to be done with (AMP) is probably gonna stick around forever.
rawoke083600 7y ago
> Thanks for ruining the Web, Google. Wow...
acvny 7y ago
What a bad thing this AMP is... it is very hard to go directly to the website. Good that only shitty news outlets use it though
mekster 7y ago
> Thanks for ruining the Web, Google. So, they helped make the web a far easier place to look around on things for a few decades and one layout change and you call them that they ruined the web? It's easy to be on the barking side.
- tomc1985 7y ago
  It's likely a distaste at the culmination of a lot of anti-customer moves that Google has made over the last few years Barking side, indeed
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- jansan 7y ago
  Google gave us a lot, but that does not mean they should not be criticized. Without emotion I can say that using Google is far worse today than it was in the early 2000s. Besides delivering the results in a much more readable format, at that time we were able to search specifically in forums and there were a lot of advanced features like "linkto:" that are not supported anymore. The problem I see is that Google does not care about us Geeks anymore. They are 100% focused on consumers now, and that sucks a lot.
  - goatinaboat 7y ago
    They are 100% focused on consumers now, and that sucks a lot. Focused on exploiting consumers, that is. Consumers are the livestock in Google’s factory farm. They are actively hostile to end users now.
  - mekster 7y ago
    Criticizing is fine, sure but calling them they ruined the web? A bit stretched?
- nikofeyn 7y ago
  that's a rather simplistic and faulty argument. there are plenty of things wrong with "lure and then abuse" scenarios, and it isn't really an argument at all to say "but look at all the good the lure phase did".
mikorym 7y ago
It's not just ruining the web, it's essentially dishonesty. Or if you are a pragmatist: lying.
nikofeyn 7y ago
google amp is a plague on the internet and should have been shutdown by regulators. it is definitely anti-competitive. i am sick and tired of our government completely slaving to the big tech companies when it comes to regulations and anti-competitive behavior. google amp on mobile overrides behavior on mobile, even on android, so instead of web links opening up in the respective and selected default app, it opens up the amp link within google search or the browser. there is no way to turn off this feature on any browser, chrome or not.
- tjoff 7y ago
  Unless I misunderstood, that is something you disable in each (google)app that has that "feature". In Gmail for instance: settings: General settings: Open links in gmail. Turn on for "faster" browsing. Default is on. Tip: Use firefox focus instead as the default browser to open all links. If the link warrants further look copy the url to your main browser. The above has nothing to do with amp. But to not detract, amp truly is a plague.
  - nikofeyn 7y ago
    if you use google search as your default search, then there is no way i know of to disable amp, no matter which browser you use, even if you request the browser to handle opening the link. google search passes the amp link to the browser.
  - rpastuszak 7y ago
    Thanks for the tip. Most of the people here would fix that somehow, e.g. by tweaking browser settings, finding and following comments like yours. But, why does someone who doesn't deal with tech have to think about that, and will they, should they? I find their UX approach to SEO more concerning than, say, scoring. For example, AMP pages will receive the same score as equally performant non-AMP content. However, they won't benefit from the carousel view, with instant page loads (prefetch), etc... Small changes like this, applied at a huge scale to a user base that just can't afford to constantly fight hostile UX are damaging, regardless if they come from Google, an airline site, your mailbox switching to "Promotions" at random intervals or Twitter not allowing you to permanently change the feed order. Internet feels more hostile than it used to. I don't mind the trolls (I can always block them) but I do mind that we depend on services that deploy hostile UX practices.
auiya 7y ago
> This is part of Google's attempt to de-prioritise the URL And people wonder why phishing is a thing?
joelthelion 7y ago
I hate to be that guy, but have you considered moving to another search engine? For example, DuckDuckGo is very decent once you adapt to it. And for the few cases where you absolutely need Google to read your mind, just add "!g" to your query and you're automatically there.
- laichzeit0 7y ago
  The thing which I use Google most for is typing some random place’s name in and it gives me that little card which shows how busy it typically is, what time it’s open, directions, contact number, etc. DDG just gives me a search result and 90% of the time that’s not what I want. I’m looking for information, not a list of URLs.
  - joelthelion 7y ago
    You can go straight to Google Maps for that. Or use the "!gm" bang in ddg :)
dangerface 7y ago
> I've been in this A/B test for a couple of months now, so I've had time to adjust, and I still hate it. I have been trying to switch from google to duckduckgo for years but its only the past few months that I have been successful and I have google to thank for that.
GrimReaperxXx 7y ago
Google is satanic. They a mirror of the Soviet Union. Google also works with 3rd party websites to blacklist IP addresses so you can never post on a forum . And people always say you get blacklisted because you spam. I think that's bull crap . I think people get blacklisted for their political beliefs.

by cytzol 7y ago

reroute1 7y ago

To be fair didn't internet marketers ruin things first by cramming keywords in URLS and page titles to game search engines?

SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
Two wrongs...
- reroute1 7y ago
  Just saying IMO Google isn't ruining the internet. Of course every decision being scrutinized they can't have a perfect record. They have a search engine that due to it's popularity is the target of all kinds of stats gaming and optimizing, While at the same time trying to grow a profitable product. So it's not like there are simple solutions or easy quips like Google Ruined the Internet. It sounds like a lazy argument.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

sophiebits 7y ago

AMP obscuring the URL is a side effect of the current technical implementation, not a goal – and they are working to fix it: https://searchengineland.com/google-announces-signed-exchange-solution-to-deliver-amp-speed-to-publisher-urls-315504 https://searchengineland.com/google-announces-signed-exchang...

basch 7y ago
Cloudflare has an option for native AMP urls, at your own domain, as well.
- tunetheweb 7y ago
  Is any site using this? It requires a special certificate and signing your content (which admittedly Cloudflare will take care of for you) but even then it’s only for Chrome and Firefox and Apple have said they won’t support it. Over a year after announcing it I’ve yet to find a single site that does this.
sukilot 7y ago
To users, side effects are the same as goals. We have nothing to judge a vendor on except observed behavior.
slavik81 7y ago
The parent mentioned that: "as they can't fix [the URL appearance] without losing out on tracking, they're trying to change what the URL means."
JohnFen 7y ago
Yes, and that fix is worse than the original problem.
dmitriid 7y ago
It's the intended side-effect. For the longest time ever AMP wouldn't even acknowledge it's a problem (oh, we just provide the standard, it's the browsers' fault). Then Google relented and provided a non-solution in the form of an obscure bar on top of AMP pages (in which the link to the original page is deliberately designed to not look like a link). The signed exchanges is a bone thrown towards standards committees after all the damage has already been done. And the "solution" has been directly called by Mozilla harmful, they are not going to implement it. Safari shares Mozilla's concern.
gpvos 7y ago
Actually, that so-called "fix" obscures the actual Google URL where the content is served from.

ping_pong 7y ago

How is hijacking the domain with Google for AMP not anti-competitive? I'm surprised a class action lawsuit hasn't erupted because of that.

texasbigdata 7y ago
Also what is the technical benefit? On android it feels like a downgrade
- drusepth 7y ago
  What makes you think it feels like a downgrade? AMP results seem to, on average, load faster with a better UI to me.
  - nostrebored 7y ago
    Not sure why this is being downvoted. I encourage people to visit the non-AMP version of smaller news providers. Enjoy the popups, video ads, autoplay, bloated sizes, etc.
    - JohnFen 7y ago
      Whenever I get an AMP page, I always go to the non-AMP version, even for smaller news providers. I find the non-AMP version to be superior every single time, but I use NoScript so I don't see the popups, video ads, autoplay, etc.
    - Iolaum 7y ago
      If you use adblocking addons you don't get many of those.
      - bashinator 7y ago
        Or even reader mode - I don't mind flashing the cruft for a few seconds while I turn it on, and it's the best of all worlds. The site gets their ads (briefly) loaded, and I get a clean page to read.

kllrnohj 7y ago

> This is part of Google's attempt to de-prioritise the URL. URLs have always been an implementation detail and not a user feature. From the very beginning it was intended that users would follow links, not type in URLs. HTML was built on hiding URLs behind text. Then AOL keywords happened. Then search explosion happened. And short URLs. And QR codes for real-world linking. And bookmarks because yet again typing in URLs is not a major driving use case. Typing in un-obfuscated URLs has almost never been a key feature or use-case of the web. If anything URL obfuscation is a core building block of the web and is a huge reason _why_ the web skyrocketed in popularity & usage. Don't pretend that somehow AMP obfuscating URLs will be the death of the web. The web exploded in growth despite massive, wide-spread URL obfuscation over the last 20 years. Nothing is actually changing here.

sukilot 7y ago
Let's distinguish between obfuscating the query parameters, the the path, and the domain. They are different things, and the domain name especially is a major security boundary.
- kllrnohj 7y ago
  Most of what I mentioned did obfuscate the domain name. Users do not care about domain name security boundaries - that's yet again an implementation detail. An important one, but still not something most users recognize or care about. Hence, you know, why phishing is so successful.
  - masswerk 7y ago
    Users used to care about paths and other descriptors. A decade ago, we were fighting for human readable resource locators. However, users have been taught progressively to ignore them as too complex. (Just the same as it happened for any advanced, but user accessible browser controls.) Why is it that 25 years into web usage, any controlled access is deemed too complicated? (Mind that other technologies were already approaching the end of their lifespan at a similar age. The web is neither new nor disruptive anymore.)

dang 7y ago

A few weeks ago, I changed my browsing and searching habits purely to get out of that A/B test bucket. Now it looks like we're all in it.

dredmorbius 7y ago
Now that is an admission.
exikyut 7y ago
I am very curious how you achieved that!

baxtr 7y ago

Google hates strong SEO sites, because they won't make them any money. So that's a clever way of pushing them further down. I wondered when all results on the first page will be Ads only.

rijoja 7y ago
Do they really? Wouldn't a "strong SEO" site be ideal for their spiders?
- xenocratus 7y ago
  I think the idea is that a strong SEO site doesn't have to pay to be seen through searches.
  - dmix 7y ago
    There will still be 2-4+ ads above the fold of the real "good SEO" results anyway.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  If you have good SEO and drift to the top of queries that actually are relevant for your site then you don't need to buy as many Google ads.
  - brennebeck 7y ago
    Wouldn’t having strong SEO incentive competition to buy ads? Of course it also incentives them to work on SEO, but the only way to ‘get above’ a top ranking site would be to buy an ad, no?
    - Retric 7y ago
      Increasing costs for your competition is a net win for you.
      - 7y ago

johnnycab 7y ago

>Thanks for ruining the Web, Google. I posted the solution below, which I found a few days ago. The script will work with greasemonkey and tampermonkey, it will provide you with results similar to the ones before the change. If you also use uMatrix, there will be no ads. https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/395257-better-google https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/395257-better-google

idclip 7y ago
F (4 later setup)
catalogia 7y ago
> "the solution" That's a solution, but not a particularly great one since it requires too much from the user to see mass adoption.
- userbinator 7y ago
  That still requires somewhat less from the user than my solution: a filtering proxy. On the other hand, the latter enables a far more customised browsing experience and one that isn't restricted to a single browser on a single computer. ...which brings me to another great point this illustrates: if you want to customise your experience, if you want to be able to control how you see the Web, then you need to make an effort, and the amount you exert is essentially proportional to how much you can change. Yet the majority of users have shown that they are willing to take whatever Google throws at them with little opposition. I find that a little sad and ironic in this era of "everyone can code" propaganda (I've seen even Google advertises something like that on its homepage); or perhaps the latter is just an attempt to increase the population of intelligent yet docile and obedient corporate drones... I know developers --- web developers --- who really hated the changes yet made no effort to fix it themselves, despite almost certainly having the skills to.
  - hiram112 7y ago
    What kind of filtering proxy are you using?

noja 7y ago

I can't mentally parse the results anywhere near as fast as I used to be able to. It's horrible.

IanSanders 7y ago
Mission accomplished?
- colejohnson66 7y ago
  Depends on what Google’s mission is. If it’s to show you ads, it doesn’t matter how long you’re on their page as the destination will (almost certainly) have more. If it’s to help you, it’s not successful.
  - IanSanders 7y ago
    >mission Making profit, obviously. You to be less efficient at distinguishing ads and results, increasing time you look at ads, increasing chances of you interacting with ads.

Waterluvian 7y ago

I'd love to learn what % of A/B tests get rejected after the test has concluded. I suspect there's naturally a laundry list of biases that all the work we designed and implemented needs to succeed or boy do we look silly.

imron 7y ago

> I've been in this A/B test for a couple of months now, so I've had time to adjust, and I still hate it Me too. It just looks ugly.

spookthesunset 7y ago
I think half of it is the ugly font they are now using. Ugly is the perfect way to describe it. Google is really not good at creating beautiful products...
- elsewhen 7y ago
  My understanding is that they are optimizing for revenue per visitor per month- they are not trying to make the most visually appealing product.
  - rocqua 7y ago
    That's a scary optimization to make if it starts costing you visitors.
    - imron 7y ago
      They'll make it up in volume /s
  - spookthesunset 7y ago
    Clearly. It looks like dogshit....

dragonwriter 7y ago

> Their destructive AMP service confusingly shows you Google's domain instead of the website's No, it doesn't. It's actually served from Google's URL, but it (the AMP service) shows you the original site URL (well, it shows the domain by default but that's a button that expands to the URL if you click it.) Your address bar shows you the Google URL, but that's not misleading, either, since what the address bar has always shown is what location content is being served from, not a content identifier distinct from the mechanics of content distribution. > they can't fix that without losing out on tracking Nah, they could track of they worked like a classic CDN

perl4ever 7y ago
I mean, I generally get the gist of what you are saying, but you are saying "no, you're confused, it's not misleading..." It's kind of like saying "no, you don't have hypochondria, it's all in your head!"

therealmarv 7y ago

If you want a favicon fix. Use this CSS userstyle https://userstyles.org/styles/179230/google-search-old-style https://userstyles.org/styles/179230/google-search-old-style with Chrome/Firefox extension "Stylus".

naravara 7y ago

>Thanks for ruining the Web, Google. When does the mass-migration to DuckDuckGo go mainstream?

wolco 7y ago
It slowly moves a little bit more each day. Not useful results will change habits.
Polylactic_acid 7y ago
I use duckduck go on mobile because it doesn't prevent me from saving images.
ShorsHammer 7y ago
It has certainly got some mainstream attention recently: https://twitter.com/jack/status/1199783221162053633?lang=en https://twitter.com/jack/status/1199783221162053633?lang=en https://www.businessinsider.my/twitter-jack-dorsey-duckduckgo-search-google-2019-11/?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.my/twitter-jack-dorsey-duckduckg...
Retric 7y ago
Might be now? I just swapped my default search to DuckDuckGo. I have been having several issues with google search recently, this just seems like a good time to make the jump.
- naravara 7y ago
  Yeah for a long while I felt like an idiosyncratic person for using it and it did feel like a minor sacrifice. Nowadays it really does seem like a competitive platform on quality. Slightly less good at parsing the semantics, but much better at actually showing me search results instead of ads.
- tomaszs 7y ago
  I switched yesterday. I love it does not try to guess what i search for
7y ago

wolco 7y ago

They could fix this for publishers who point a subdomain that way. Or url rewrite the address to the publishers.

d1zzy 7y ago

> and as they can't fix that without losing out on tracking Tracking what users click to as the result of a search is critical feedback information for training your models/algorithms, it's not just about "hey let's see where this user goes to fine tune ad targeting for them". And, AFAIK, every search engine out there does it(?)

JohnFen 7y ago
Perhaps so, but I still find it highly objectionable.
- d1zzy 7y ago
  Just search in a private window then, the part of the tracking that I assume you find objectionable (gathering info on what sites the current user visits) goes away when you close the window while the part that helps the search engine (and thus results in better search results for everyone) still works. Now sure, we can argue that maybe the company should provide options where you can say "you can use what I click on for search training but not for targeted advertising" (I think Google does provide a set of options that pretty much disable all web history/targeted ad collection), assuming you believe they follow through. But the company needs to pay for its services somehow so I can't blame them for tying the two types of tracking together, I still have tools as a user (private window) to avoid it if I care enough to.
floriol 7y ago
They can track it with a simple js onclick handler, or a simple redirect on their server, that's not the problem. (They do both btw.) The problem is that they want to track what I do on the links I already clicked - which is absolutely none of their business.

cmroanirgo 7y ago

There are alternative search engines of course. I use StartPage which has the benefit of local results (but can be fully anonymous) but still uses Google search results. DDG is a great alternative, but isn't for me. And then there's Bing

leokennis 7y ago
Just FYI, Startpage was recently acquired by a shady company.
- pferde 7y ago
  Huh, you're right, this flew completely below my radar. https://restoreprivacy.com/startpage-system1-privacy-one-group/ https://restoreprivacy.com/startpage-system1-privacy-one-gro...
- cmroanirgo 7y ago
  Wow. Did not know that, time to move along then. DDG here we go. That said, their privacy policy still looks pretty strong: https://www.startpage.com/en/search/privacy-policy.html https://www.startpage.com/en/search/privacy-policy.html ...and at the end of the day, who is actually better out there, and that can prove that no data is leaking? Maybe running your own searx is the only option? (http://asciimoo.github.io/searx/ http://asciimoo.github.io/searx/)
  - karinakarina 7y ago
    Startpage person here ️. Maybe I can shed some light on this. Last year, Startpage announced an investment in Startpage by System1 through Privacy One Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of System1. With this investment, we hope to further expand our privacy features & reach new users. Rest assured, the Startpage founders have control over the privacy components of Startpage (https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/1275/0/what-is-startpages-relationship-with-privacy-onesystem1-and-what-does-this-mean-for-my-privacy-protections https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Artic...). Also, a couple of things that set Startpage apart from DDG: 1) We're HQ'ed in the Netherlands, ensuring all our users are protected by stringent Dutch & EU privacy laws, 2) we give you Google results without tracking, 3) with Anonymous View you can visit results in full privacy.

cmonnow 7y ago

> I still hate it I left a strongly worded feedback on their form

taywrobel 7y ago
Just wait until their feedback forms get ads.
sundarurfriend 7y ago
I'm sure a sentiment analysis bot looked at it and added a '-1' somewhere in their databases.
ringzero 7y ago
It's funny to think that, of all the products Google kills on the regular, the one thing most everyone wants them to be done with (AMP) is probably gonna stick around forever.

rawoke083600 7y ago

> Thanks for ruining the Web, Google. Wow...

acvny 7y ago

What a bad thing this AMP is... it is very hard to go directly to the website. Good that only shitty news outlets use it though

mekster 7y ago

> Thanks for ruining the Web, Google. So, they helped make the web a far easier place to look around on things for a few decades and one layout change and you call them that they ruined the web? It's easy to be on the barking side.

tomc1985 7y ago
It's likely a distaste at the culmination of a lot of anti-customer moves that Google has made over the last few years Barking side, indeed
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
jansan 7y ago
Google gave us a lot, but that does not mean they should not be criticized. Without emotion I can say that using Google is far worse today than it was in the early 2000s. Besides delivering the results in a much more readable format, at that time we were able to search specifically in forums and there were a lot of advanced features like "linkto:" that are not supported anymore. The problem I see is that Google does not care about us Geeks anymore. They are 100% focused on consumers now, and that sucks a lot.
- goatinaboat 7y ago
  They are 100% focused on consumers now, and that sucks a lot. Focused on exploiting consumers, that is. Consumers are the livestock in Google’s factory farm. They are actively hostile to end users now.
- mekster 7y ago
  Criticizing is fine, sure but calling them they ruined the web? A bit stretched?
nikofeyn 7y ago
that's a rather simplistic and faulty argument. there are plenty of things wrong with "lure and then abuse" scenarios, and it isn't really an argument at all to say "but look at all the good the lure phase did".

mikorym 7y ago

It's not just ruining the web, it's essentially dishonesty. Or if you are a pragmatist: lying.

nikofeyn 7y ago

google amp is a plague on the internet and should have been shutdown by regulators. it is definitely anti-competitive. i am sick and tired of our government completely slaving to the big tech companies when it comes to regulations and anti-competitive behavior. google amp on mobile overrides behavior on mobile, even on android, so instead of web links opening up in the respective and selected default app, it opens up the amp link within google search or the browser. there is no way to turn off this feature on any browser, chrome or not.

tjoff 7y ago
Unless I misunderstood, that is something you disable in each (google)app that has that "feature". In Gmail for instance: settings: General settings: Open links in gmail. Turn on for "faster" browsing. Default is on. Tip: Use firefox focus instead as the default browser to open all links. If the link warrants further look copy the url to your main browser. The above has nothing to do with amp. But to not detract, amp truly is a plague.
- nikofeyn 7y ago
  if you use google search as your default search, then there is no way i know of to disable amp, no matter which browser you use, even if you request the browser to handle opening the link. google search passes the amp link to the browser.
- rpastuszak 7y ago
  Thanks for the tip. Most of the people here would fix that somehow, e.g. by tweaking browser settings, finding and following comments like yours. But, why does someone who doesn't deal with tech have to think about that, and will they, should they? I find their UX approach to SEO more concerning than, say, scoring. For example, AMP pages will receive the same score as equally performant non-AMP content. However, they won't benefit from the carousel view, with instant page loads (prefetch), etc... Small changes like this, applied at a huge scale to a user base that just can't afford to constantly fight hostile UX are damaging, regardless if they come from Google, an airline site, your mailbox switching to "Promotions" at random intervals or Twitter not allowing you to permanently change the feed order. Internet feels more hostile than it used to. I don't mind the trolls (I can always block them) but I do mind that we depend on services that deploy hostile UX practices.

auiya 7y ago

> This is part of Google's attempt to de-prioritise the URL And people wonder why phishing is a thing?

joelthelion 7y ago

I hate to be that guy, but have you considered moving to another search engine? For example, DuckDuckGo is very decent once you adapt to it. And for the few cases where you absolutely need Google to read your mind, just add "!g" to your query and you're automatically there.

laichzeit0 7y ago
The thing which I use Google most for is typing some random place’s name in and it gives me that little card which shows how busy it typically is, what time it’s open, directions, contact number, etc. DDG just gives me a search result and 90% of the time that’s not what I want. I’m looking for information, not a list of URLs.
- joelthelion 7y ago
  You can go straight to Google Maps for that. Or use the "!gm" bang in ddg :)

dangerface 7y ago

> I've been in this A/B test for a couple of months now, so I've had time to adjust, and I still hate it. I have been trying to switch from google to duckduckgo for years but its only the past few months that I have been successful and I have google to thank for that.

GrimReaperxXx 7y ago

Google is satanic. They a mirror of the Soviet Union. Google also works with 3rd party websites to blacklist IP addresses so you can never post on a forum . And people always say you get blacklisted because you spam. I think that's bull crap . I think people get blacklisted for their political beliefs.