5 ms·

I pay five figures a month for my "$domain" ad. It's not cheap by any means, but we're forced to buy, otherwise our competitors steal our traffic.

by hendi_ 7y ago

lonelappde 7y ago
"Steal"? If customers searching for your brand are happy to buy from your competitor with a different name, maybe your brand isn't so strong? And if you are profiting from advertising your brand to people who don't choose your product over alternatives, isn't your marketing just "stealing" purchases from competitors?
- kempbellt 7y ago
  Yeah, that's not how it is working right now. It's more like: User: "Google, how do I get to Costco?" Google: "Here are directions to Target." User:"But I asked for directions to Costco." Google: "Target gave us a lot of money. So, firstly here are directions to Target. If you still want Costco, keep scrolling, but Target is great. You should shop here." When you literally search for one brand and the first result is a competitor, just because they bought out the ad space for your brand name's keywords, that is theft, imo. Or extortion if you'd prefer. It's at the very least, extremely disingenuous and sleazy. Customer loyalty is looking up the preferred brand to begin with.
  - pb7 7y ago
    Why does Google owe you traffic?
    - lwansbrough 7y ago
      Google shouldn’t be a purveyor of brand quality in the case where the user has made an explicit request. If a user types in “shoes” should they 100% get shoes.com as the first result? Of course not. But Expedia? It feels wrong not to make that the first result.
      - pb7 7y ago
        Expedia is indeed the first result for "Expedia", after the 0-2 slots of advertising that may or may not be Expedia. If Google can't monetize the search results page, why are they obligated to provide the search results in the first place? Until Google recoups the costs by showing ads, the relationship between Expedia and Google is one sided: Google provides a lot of traffic to Expedia with nothing in return. How is that fair?
    - scrollaway 7y ago
      Google owes mostly-unbiased accuracy to the internet at large. They built their brand and reputation on that. It should not be possible to purchase a shortcut on the accuracy, especially someone else's.
      - pb7 7y ago
        It doesn't owe anyone anything. It trades this unbiased accuracy for eyeballs on its advertising, the same advertising that many folks in this comment section are condemning. Without the advertising, Google doesn't owe anyone anything. It's not a charity.
        scrollaway 7y ago
        Its a sad world you live in where businesses don't owe you to behave ethically. You'll probably figure out at some point that they do, and that this whole law thing is a proxy for ethics we put in place so that we can punish people that don't. Until then, live in your world.
        pb7 7y ago
        I live in the same world you do, minus that smug sense of entitlement to products and services others provide.
    - kempbellt 7y ago
      If I promise to give you a truthful answer to a question you ask, "What's 2+2?", and then I say, "5" (because math teachers pay me to give that answer), the same argument could be made. Why do I owe you a fulfilled promise? Because I said I'd be honest? Why do I owe you honesty about my honesty? Reductio ad absurdum If I build a search engine and promise that it will give accurate and honest results to your search queries, and then it doesn't do that... why do I owe you? "I didn't force you to trust me" is the most childish way to try and weasel out of broken promises there is. To answer your question though - they don't, but it makes them a shitty company to lie to/manipulate their users.
      - pb7 7y ago
        It's lying insofar as grocery stores having two brands of chips on an endcap that you see first before you get to the actual aisle with the other 30 brands is lying.
        kempbellt 7y ago
        More like specifically asking a clerk where the Lays Salt & Vinegar chips, and they walk you to the chip aisle and respond with "Here are the Doritos", but sure...
        pb7 7y ago
        Except this store only makes money on showing you where the chips are and not on the sales so if they can't show you the Doritos first, there's no store and no chips of any kind. If that's what you'd prefer, then pretend the store doesn't exist and go to a different one.
        TheUSSR 7y ago
        That's not the only way they make money though. Even if it was the only way they make money, giving accurate results in those cases is the cost of keeping your users for cases you can serve them ads that are relevant. The only reason they got big was their accurate results so it is a shitty thing to do.
    - ck425 7y ago
      It doesn't. And I totally understand from a business point of view why they do what they do. This is an unfortunate side effect of the monopoly they have on web search, which due to network effects and aggregation is unlikely to go away. The only real solution is to regulate this to make competition fairer again.
  - hartator 7y ago
    To be fair, they don’t do that on Google Maps. However they will push their own Google Flights service when searching for United. Eg “Book United” redirection to Google Flight.
  - Guest0918231 7y ago
    I imagine it kind of like this... Two stores, A and B are competitors. I visit company A and say that I'll stand at the entrance of their competitor, store B. I'll tell each customer trying to enter store B about store A and attempt to refer them, as long as store A pays me $0.50 for each person I try to send their way. This works, some people that drove to visit store B now go to store A instead. Now, store B is getting annoyed at me "stealing" their customers, but I have a solution. I tell store B the more money they pay me, the less likely it is that I'll refer their next customer to store A. So, store B starts paying me $1.00 each time someone tries to enter their own store, and in return, I do nothing but stand there. A year goes by and I'm standing at the entrance of every store in the country. I collect a dollar when someone tries to enter every store, and I do nothing but let them pass.
  - sytelus 7y ago
    That's naive way of looking at things. Do you know how many brands and trademarks exist in the world? It's over 40 million! Do you know how many brands easily gets mixed up with normal English? When someone searches for best buy, do they always want to go to best buy store? When I type subway, do I want a sandwich shop or subway station? Doing things at scale is very different. And you can't be unfair to small brands while only taking care of big brands. While I understand your issue, there is no clear cut solution here.
- akcreek 7y ago
  I can't speak for the OP, but in our situation, the customer doesn't realize they are buying from a competitor. We regularly get support requests from customers we can't find an order history for. It's almost always the case that they ordered from someone else thinking they were ordering from us. They searched our name, clicked the first result, and placed the order. We've even seen this happen with repeat customers of ours. It's tough since Google allows the ads to be very confusing, but then we also have competitors who have blatantly copied our style, content, and have even named themselves in a similar manner. We also spend just under five figures a month on branded keywords to combat this. We rank #1 organically for all of them, but there are always 3-4 competitors bidding on them so we only get a small portion of that traffic if we don't pay for those keywords and get the #1 paid spot as well. Even with that in place people will still get duped and click ad #2, #3, or #4 that go to competitor sites.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
endgame 7y ago
Similarly with GTLDs. Many companies have to register their own .sucks so someone else doesn't stand a website up there. What a pointless waste of money.
- donmcronald 7y ago
  And .sucks is expensive for a TLD. I also hate .co. They're basically a top-level typo-squatter IMO.

I pay five figures a month for my "$domain" ad. It's not cheap by any means, but we're forced to buy, otherwise our competitors steal our traffic.

by hendi_ 7y ago

I pay five figures a month for my "$domain" ad. It's not cheap by any means, but we're forced to buy, otherwise our competitors steal our traffic.

lonelappde 7y ago

"Steal"? If customers searching for your brand are happy to buy from your competitor with a different name, maybe your brand isn't so strong? And if you are profiting from advertising your brand to people who don't choose your product over alternatives, isn't your marketing just "stealing" purchases from competitors?

kempbellt 7y ago
Yeah, that's not how it is working right now. It's more like: User: "Google, how do I get to Costco?" Google: "Here are directions to Target." User:"But I asked for directions to Costco." Google: "Target gave us a lot of money. So, firstly here are directions to Target. If you still want Costco, keep scrolling, but Target is great. You should shop here." When you literally search for one brand and the first result is a competitor, just because they bought out the ad space for your brand name's keywords, that is theft, imo. Or extortion if you'd prefer. It's at the very least, extremely disingenuous and sleazy. Customer loyalty is looking up the preferred brand to begin with.
- pb7 7y ago
  Why does Google owe you traffic?
  - lwansbrough 7y ago
    Google shouldn’t be a purveyor of brand quality in the case where the user has made an explicit request. If a user types in “shoes” should they 100% get shoes.com as the first result? Of course not. But Expedia? It feels wrong not to make that the first result.
    - pb7 7y ago
      Expedia is indeed the first result for "Expedia", after the 0-2 slots of advertising that may or may not be Expedia. If Google can't monetize the search results page, why are they obligated to provide the search results in the first place? Until Google recoups the costs by showing ads, the relationship between Expedia and Google is one sided: Google provides a lot of traffic to Expedia with nothing in return. How is that fair?
  - scrollaway 7y ago
    Google owes mostly-unbiased accuracy to the internet at large. They built their brand and reputation on that. It should not be possible to purchase a shortcut on the accuracy, especially someone else's.
    - pb7 7y ago
      It doesn't owe anyone anything. It trades this unbiased accuracy for eyeballs on its advertising, the same advertising that many folks in this comment section are condemning. Without the advertising, Google doesn't owe anyone anything. It's not a charity.
      - scrollaway 7y ago
        Its a sad world you live in where businesses don't owe you to behave ethically. You'll probably figure out at some point that they do, and that this whole law thing is a proxy for ethics we put in place so that we can punish people that don't. Until then, live in your world.
        pb7 7y ago
        I live in the same world you do, minus that smug sense of entitlement to products and services others provide.
  - kempbellt 7y ago
    If I promise to give you a truthful answer to a question you ask, "What's 2+2?", and then I say, "5" (because math teachers pay me to give that answer), the same argument could be made. Why do I owe you a fulfilled promise? Because I said I'd be honest? Why do I owe you honesty about my honesty? Reductio ad absurdum If I build a search engine and promise that it will give accurate and honest results to your search queries, and then it doesn't do that... why do I owe you? "I didn't force you to trust me" is the most childish way to try and weasel out of broken promises there is. To answer your question though - they don't, but it makes them a shitty company to lie to/manipulate their users.
    - pb7 7y ago
      It's lying insofar as grocery stores having two brands of chips on an endcap that you see first before you get to the actual aisle with the other 30 brands is lying.
      - kempbellt 7y ago
        More like specifically asking a clerk where the Lays Salt & Vinegar chips, and they walk you to the chip aisle and respond with "Here are the Doritos", but sure...
        pb7 7y ago
        Except this store only makes money on showing you where the chips are and not on the sales so if they can't show you the Doritos first, there's no store and no chips of any kind. If that's what you'd prefer, then pretend the store doesn't exist and go to a different one.
        TheUSSR 7y ago
        That's not the only way they make money though. Even if it was the only way they make money, giving accurate results in those cases is the cost of keeping your users for cases you can serve them ads that are relevant. The only reason they got big was their accurate results so it is a shitty thing to do.
  - ck425 7y ago
    It doesn't. And I totally understand from a business point of view why they do what they do. This is an unfortunate side effect of the monopoly they have on web search, which due to network effects and aggregation is unlikely to go away. The only real solution is to regulate this to make competition fairer again.
- hartator 7y ago
  To be fair, they don’t do that on Google Maps. However they will push their own Google Flights service when searching for United. Eg “Book United” redirection to Google Flight.
- Guest0918231 7y ago
  I imagine it kind of like this... Two stores, A and B are competitors. I visit company A and say that I'll stand at the entrance of their competitor, store B. I'll tell each customer trying to enter store B about store A and attempt to refer them, as long as store A pays me $0.50 for each person I try to send their way. This works, some people that drove to visit store B now go to store A instead. Now, store B is getting annoyed at me "stealing" their customers, but I have a solution. I tell store B the more money they pay me, the less likely it is that I'll refer their next customer to store A. So, store B starts paying me $1.00 each time someone tries to enter their own store, and in return, I do nothing but stand there. A year goes by and I'm standing at the entrance of every store in the country. I collect a dollar when someone tries to enter every store, and I do nothing but let them pass.
- sytelus 7y ago
  That's naive way of looking at things. Do you know how many brands and trademarks exist in the world? It's over 40 million! Do you know how many brands easily gets mixed up with normal English? When someone searches for best buy, do they always want to go to best buy store? When I type subway, do I want a sandwich shop or subway station? Doing things at scale is very different. And you can't be unfair to small brands while only taking care of big brands. While I understand your issue, there is no clear cut solution here.
akcreek 7y ago
I can't speak for the OP, but in our situation, the customer doesn't realize they are buying from a competitor. We regularly get support requests from customers we can't find an order history for. It's almost always the case that they ordered from someone else thinking they were ordering from us. They searched our name, clicked the first result, and placed the order. We've even seen this happen with repeat customers of ours. It's tough since Google allows the ads to be very confusing, but then we also have competitors who have blatantly copied our style, content, and have even named themselves in a similar manner. We also spend just under five figures a month on branded keywords to combat this. We rank #1 organically for all of them, but there are always 3-4 competitors bidding on them so we only get a small portion of that traffic if we don't pay for those keywords and get the #1 paid spot as well. Even with that in place people will still get duped and click ad #2, #3, or #4 that go to competitor sites.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

endgame 7y ago

Similarly with GTLDs. Many companies have to register their own .sucks so someone else doesn't stand a website up there. What a pointless waste of money.

donmcronald 7y ago
And .sucks is expensive for a TLD. I also hate .co. They're basically a top-level typo-squatter IMO.