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https://www.google.com/about/honestresults/ https://www.google.com/about/honestresults/ It's a little confusing to read now, so for context: at the time Google
by pushcx 7y ago
https://www.google.com/about/honestresults/ https://www.google.com/about/honestresults/
It's a little confusing to read now, so for context: at the time Google published this, it only put ads in the sidebar to the right of search results. This post was written to criticize the practice of putting ads atop search results, which competitors sometimes formatted almost indistinguishably from organic search results.
- ronilan 7y agoYour link is gold. A historic artifact. Amazing how clear the writing is, how simple the message. That’s, like, totally not the corpspeak Goog emits now on a daily basis. So, let’s do some digging. Earliest version of url dates back 4+ years. https://web.archive.org/web/20151213182805/https://www.google.com/about/honestresults/ https://web.archive.org/web/20151213182805/https://www.googl... Things were a little better than, but not by much. This has to be earlier. Ah, here is: https://books.google.ca/books?id=oNT3AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA289&lpg=PA289&dq=%22Why+we+sell+advertising,+not+search+results.%22&source=bl&ots=I6_PmXD7O5&sig=ACfU3U1QNk3FhKRMOa69ghaxkVA47C_nXg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiU8cDumZXnAhWRoJ4KHVD5DbQQ6AEwBXoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Why%20we%20sell%20advertising%2C%20not%20search%20results.%22&f=false https://books.google.ca/books?id=oNT3AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA289&lpg=P... This page is from a book by Douglas Edwards, employee number 59 published in 2011. The content of OP url, written by same, is dated March 2002. That company no longer exists. Goog should remove it from their website.
- ronilan 7y ago(And OT, or maybe not, as far as I can recall, AdWords was still CPM back then)
- amatecha 7y agoExcellent sleuthing -- makes sense that the message is so old. There's no way they would produce something like this today.
- microcolonel 7y agoThey'll fire all the people who made them this way, and get back to that, if they want to survive the next decade at their scale.
- samstave 7y agoOOPs - I did the same thing before reading your post...
- jaycroft 7y agoThe google books link appears to have died: "You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book" (I'm fairly certain that I have not viewed anything from this book, nor any book for that matter, this year.)
- dredmorbius 7y agohttp://gen.lib.rus.ec/search.php?req=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky%3A+The+Confessions+of+Google+Employee+Number+59+Douglas+Edwards&lg_topic=libgen&open=0&view=simple&res=25&phrase=1&column=def http://gen.lib.rus.ec/search.php?req=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky%3A+...
- sytelus 7y agoIs it ironic that the websites often involved in freeing up the knowledge ends up getting hosted in Russia?
- scandinavian 7y agoThe three IP's they return when you do a DNS lookup originate form Rumania, Switzerland and the island country Saint Kitts and Nevis. The site was created by Russians though, just not sure it is hosted there anymore.
- hoseja 7y agoImagine the sheer sociopathic effort it took to overtake Google. The power plays, the backstabbing, the greed. Oh, to be a fly on those walls.
- microdrum 7y agoOh my god, that page is going to disappear soon now.
- dougb5 7y agoThe post was written to criticize "paid placement" search engines like Goto.com/Overture (see https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2002/03/04/how-overture-goto-works/ https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2002/03/04/how-overture-go... for details). I believe Google has put ads above search results for as long as AdWords has existed (since 2000).
- aabhay 7y agoVendors pay for placement throughout google's interface and search results, even if the 'list' of links is still 'organic'. For example, the placement of buy links for movies, flights, hotels, etc. Now with instant articles, google places content higher if it allows google to track and advertise within the article.
- cameldrv 7y agoNo, at the very beginning, Google only had the ads in little yellow boxes over to the right. They were very distinct. Then they started putting ads above the search results, but they still had a yellow background. Then they got rid of the background, but the results were still fairly visually distinct from the ads, and there would only be one or two ads above the search results. Now they just put this tiny little box that says "Ad" next to the ad, and they're no longer easily visually separable from search results. Also, very often the first screenful of results is entirely ads. The overall experience has massively degraded. The other thing I've noticed is that more and more of the top results are from garbage content farms. Filtering this kind of crap out was the original reason Google existed and everyone switched to them, but they're failing at it now. IMO Google is overripe to be replaced with something better.
- dougb5 7y agoTop ads in fact came first, in 2000, and were there through the launch of AdWords. History: https://searchengineland.com/google-adwords-turns-15-a-look-back-at-the-origins-of-a-60-billion-business-234579 https://searchengineland.com/google-adwords-turns-15-a-look-...
- 7y ago
- amatecha 7y agoOh wow, the irony.
- samstave 7y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20151213182805/https://www.google.com/about/honestresults/ https://web.archive.org/web/20151213182805/https://www.googl... https://i.imgur.com/cPQmHB0.png https://i.imgur.com/cPQmHB0.png
- rdiddly 7y agoAmazing. File under not being evil.
- winrid 7y agoYou can tell that's old because it's only ~200kb...
- IanSanders 7y agoAnd even that can be considered excessive for what it is. Sad.
- thedailymail 7y agoThis bit from the 1998 paper by young researchers Brin and Page, in which they introduce a novel search engine called 'google,' is also fun and instructive: "It is clear that a search engine which was taking money for showing cellular phone ads would have difficulty justifying the page that our system returned to its paying advertisers. For this type of reason and historical experience with other media [Bagdikian 83], we expect that advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers." http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html
- j1elo 7y agoI searched for "google search advertisement" in the period 2000 to 2005, looking for screenshots of how Google ads have changed in style and placement over the years. Turns out the first result was this page... oh, the irony.