21 ms·

> Technically, when someone does a Google search for “Williams Sonoma Cast Iron Skillet,” they probably would have clicked on one of the first 10 organic result

> Technically, when someone does a Google search for “Williams Sonoma Cast Iron Skillet,” they probably would have clicked on one of the first 10 organic results, EVERY ONE OF WHICH leads to their website. But, y’know what ol’ Billy Ma’s performance marketers couldn’t then do: prove their value to their bosses. > [picture of that search term and williams sonoma ads with shopping links] The main problem here is that if Williams Sonoma was not advertising on that search term, Lodge and Food52 etc etc would, and then those companies would be above the Williams Sonoma organic placements. The spend is necessary in a defensive way because Google creates a bidding war even for the hyper relevant. edit: I just checked and if you search "williams sonoma skillet", if WS was not paying for [green] then the very first "result" (ad) would be Food52 [red] https://imgur.com/a/9Nnxs6h https://imgur.com/a/9Nnxs6h I just tried "airbnb paris" and the first result is, somewhat predictably, an ad that is not airbnb. But the second one is also an ad, this time from airbnb. So they clearly didn't keep their spend dialed down to zero, and are aware of the need to advertise on their own keyword.

dublinben 5y ago
Defensive spending to protect otherwise organic traffic could also be called extortion.
- earthboundkid 5y ago
  Forget about the corporate POV for a second, as a user, if I'm searching for X, I probably want X in my results, no? It's the fundamental contradiction in Google's search ads model. If Google delivers users the thing they want, ads by definition have to be things users don't want.
  - fabianhjr 5y ago
    Advertisements are fundamentally not what search service users want regardless of searching for a specific brand or not. (Its what advertisers want others to want)
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      If I’m searching for “Williams Sonoma 12 inch skillet”, advertisements for places selling it are a pretty large subset of what I want.
      - thegrimmest 5y ago
        Sure, but what about an ad from a competitor for a similar pan at a lower cost? Isn't that what advertising is all about?
        pbhjpbhj 5y ago
        Yes, i was thinking similarly. The GP wants links, not ads (specifically), but if the trustworthy domains are saying this particular skillet is low quality then you want that first, rather than an ad.
      - wormslayer666 5y ago
        If a search engine encounters the query "Williams Sonoma 12 inch skillet", retail outlets selling it should organically appear in results without the need for ads.
        sokoloff 5y ago
        If it’s $39.99 on W-S.com, I definitely want to see the place that’s willing to sell the same pan for $34.99, the EBay listing for $32.50, and the one selling a competing similar one for $29.99 even if those sites don’t have the organic search SEO juice to land in the top 10. As a Google search user, why wouldn’t I value these? If Google doesn’t serve them and another search engine does, I’d be inclined to switch to the other one.
        lmm 5y ago
        > If it’s $39.99 on W-S.com, I definitely want to see the place that’s willing to sell the same pan for $34.99, the EBay listing for $32.50, and the one selling a competing similar one for $29.99 even if those sites don’t have the organic search SEO juice to land in the top 10. But why would those sites not have the "organic search SEO juice"? If those sites are actually good places to buy that kind of thing, a good search engine should direct a user searching for that thing there.
  - computerphage 5y ago
    My "by definition" detector has fired. It says: that's not true by definition. Ads could instead also be things that users want. I do actually think you have a good point.
    - IggleSniggle 5y ago
      I like this pedanticism, but I still think you can even argue the "by definition" piece of it. I suppose it ends up being somewhat tautological in the end. If you really like Skillet X, and I ask you which skillet I should buy, and you tell me, "Skillet X," then it is not an ad. If you really like Skillet X, then somebody gives you $5 to recommend it if anybody asks you what skillet to buy, and then when I ask, you tell me, "Skillet X...I mean you should know that somebody gave me $5 to say that to you but honestly I was going to say that anyway" then is it an ad? It kinda intuitively feels to me like if it doesn't alter the result, it's not an ad, it's just somebody taking advantage of another person's willingness to hand them money and doing nothing in return.
      - aspenmayer 5y ago
        The unstated implicit assumption in the question being asked in both situations is this: you’re being asked for your unbiased opinion. All ads are inherently biased, but by not disclosing your compensation, you’re not answering the question as asked. This bias, even if disclosed, renders your recommendation, and our hypothetical innocent recommendation, suspect.
    - jayd16 5y ago
      I guess the argument is that if google could make the perfect search result, ad spending would, by definition either be exploitative of the advertiser by providing no change, or providing value by changing the results from perfection. In reality, Google is not perfect and you can argue that ads do provide value by promoting relevant content, even if its gameable by our capitalist system.
    - earthboundkid 5y ago
      Yes, it's by definition because the definition is tendentious. The definition: "If Google [meaning Google's organic results] delivers users the thing they want" The consequence: "ads have to be things users don't want" because advertisers whose product is wanted will be included whether they pay or not. Now, you could widen it to say, look Google is still delivering the thing users want, they just sometimes do it by organic results and sometimes do it by ads, but that's a very convoluted reading of the definition, which clearly is using Google as a stand in for "Google's organic results". The problem with my argument isn't that it failed to be a tautology. It's that the definition is questionable, and that's the profitable angle of attack: "users don't know what they want" "there can be multiple equally good options" etc. But saying it's not by definition is just silly. The definition is the whole thing up for debate!
  - thegrimmest 5y ago
    Right, but you may also be interested in an ad from a competitor for a similar product, especially if they were differentiated by price, no?
  - lifeisstillgood 5y ago
    >>> If Google delivers users the thing they want, ads by definition have to be things users don't want. Ben Evans has a tweet something like "half of facebook devs are working out how to code the algorithm to serve you just what you want to see, the other half are working out how to get the algorithm to serve you what advertisers want you to see. " We are doing something wrong
    - inthewoods 5y ago
      Natural outcome of all internet advertising based models imho.
      - earthboundkid 5y ago
        By any definition, a podcast is part of "internet advertising" but there's less conflict there. Sure, I want to hear the hosts and not the ads, but if the ad is relevant, I don't mind the interruption, and hey sometimes it's an interesting product for me. There's a tension between the content and the ads, but not a fundamental contradiction. No, this is the outcome of all interest targeting based models. You're interested in X, and they either don't show you X (to get X to pay) or they show you Y (which you aren't interested in) because Y paid. Whereas with demographic targeting, hey I'm in demographic X and wasn't looking for a Y now, but sure, I'll remember it for when I'm in the market for one later.
  - inthewoods 5y ago
    This is the fundamental issue with all advertising-based models. Eventually, they all run into the problem of having to continue to grow. The only way to continue to grow is to display more ads, thus compromising the user experience, which starts the downfall. AOL was a great example of this. Google seems to be heading this way. Google's original values were the ability to provide better search (common answer) and be fast (less common answer) - both of which were a complete contrast to the Alta Vista and other search engines. I could easily see Google facing disruption from a new player - but I don't think it will be another search engine. Probably a paradigm/systemic shift.
  - lern_too_spel 5y ago
    If you search for Hello Fresh, you'll get a Hello Fresh ad offering 14 free meals. If you search for Blue Apron, you'll get a Hello Fresh ad for 16 free meals. Firms are willing to spend more to win incremental business from a competitor, and consumers benefit. Now you could argue that the search engine should show organic results to help the consumer get the best deal, and I would agree with you.
  - tomjen3 5y ago
    I don't think it is that clear, actually. If I sell a car that is as good as the Ford one you searched for, but 80% of the cost, wouldn't you want that ad to appear when you searched for ford?
    - evanmoran 5y ago
      Respectfully, I’d want the car you mention included if I search for “full size sedan” or “alternatives to ford”, and not to appear if I search for “ford”. This is a pipe dream of course with the way AdWords works, but that is what I prefer :)
    - earthboundkid 5y ago
      If the discount car is relevant, then I want the search engine to show it to me whether or not you happened to pay them for an ad. And vice versa if it's not relevant. As a user, I don't care who is getting paid by whom; I care about seeing relevant content.
- gingerlime 5y ago
  Exactly. And it's bad for customers too. My mum (70) just fell for it, and she's pretty clued about computers and technology. She searched for a flight with Ryanair, so entered Ryanair on Google. First result was some scummy reseller, which sold her the same ticket for a higher price with some "extras". Bidding on a competitor's brand name keyword should be banned. But Google can't resist double-dipping.
  - thegrimmest 5y ago
    I mean.. RTFM? Look at the address bar? The branding of the site? Pay attention and be careful? This stuff only works on 70 year olds. It stands to reason it won't be viable in a few decades.
- pradn 5y ago
  This should be allowed, because this means smaller competitors have a shot at the customer base of a more established competitor. If we ban it, it's just shoring up established players.
  - desmosxxx 5y ago
    +1 this has happened to me before and I've ended up buying from a competitor before. We should promote competition.
- matsemann 5y ago
  Worst part is that the competitor has nothing to lose, so they basically will spend the whole margin of a sale on the ad. Which means that the original company has to do the same. Where I worked before, Google could get $4 for ever $1 we made. And we actually delivered the service, and people googled our name. Pretty crazy...
MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
> if Williams Sonoma was not advertising on that search term, Lodge and Food52 etc etc would If I as a customer am using such specific search terms, then I would assume that my intention is to find and possibly buy this specific product. The results of other brands might be annoying, but why should I click on them? The relevant results are still displayed on the first page.
- dabeeeenster 5y ago
  It's not about the customer, it's about the fact that the merchants have to pay the Google tax in order to play.
- gotmedium 5y ago
  I think there is an under-appreciated average search engine user in the comment: People will typically write their intent on the search engine even when they could simply directly to the website. Case in point: The top 10 bing searches are for websites, including FB, Google, Youtube [1]. This traffic is highly competitive and should (as in all competitive markets) be bid among competitors. https://ahrefs.com/blog/top-bing-searches/ https://ahrefs.com/blog/top-bing-searches/
  - lowbloodsugar 5y ago
    The address bar is the search bar. My wife never types "facebook.com". She types "facebook", gets the google search page, and then clicks on facebook from there. It pisses me off that if I start typing facebook, Chrome doesn't autocomplete to facebook.com. In contrast, if I'm in Safari, and type "n" I get "news.ycombinator.com" autocompleted.
    - pbhjpbhj 5y ago
      It must be a setting? Small business people in my area of UK have always done this, type in the box in the middle (usually Google, occasionally Bing or some other service). But my pretty tech-literate kids do it too, even when I show them how they 'should' do it and that is faster, and they don't need the extra click to get where they're going ... mad! On Chrome on Win10 as I use at work though, typing in the address bar, with my settings, I get auto-fill of addresses (the history search is noticeably missing vs Firefox) including the option to use 'tab to search' on a domain.
colinmhayes 5y ago
Freakonomics had an episode with an economist that worked with Ebay on ad buys. This sort of "buy ads on your own keywords" was shown to have zero impact on sales to the point that they cut completely stopped advertising when the search included "ebay".
- Lewton 5y ago
  I just searched for "ebay" on google and the top result is an ad for ebay.com?
- bombcar 5y ago
  This will work for someone like eBay (people searching eBay want eBay) but for other "brand-name" terms it may NOT work - people searching for Travelocity or whoever is the hotness there may be perfectly happy with the first "similar enough" link.
  - colinmhayes 5y ago
    There's no way to know until they do an A/B test like eBay did I guess. EBay was certain that they needed to do the on brand ads before this economist showed up too.
    - lazide 5y ago
      Even the eBay test can be misleading - if everyone sees competitor B anytime they search for eBay, eventually they are going to give it a try.
      - colinmhayes 5y ago
        They talked about this on the 2 hour long podcast. It was actually pretty funny too, I'd recommend it.
      - tomrod 5y ago
        This is untrue. A small proportion, but most people searching for something specific what that something that is specific. If I search for a Dell computer, no way will I buy Apple. Likewise if I use Bing to search for Chrome, no way will I download edge except for user error.
mdoms 5y ago
> if Williams Sonoma was not advertising on that search term, Lodge and Food52 etc etc would, and then those companies would be above the Williams Sonoma organic placements And if they were not above organically they would simply buy the advertising space that William Sonoma purchased. It's one of the slimiest things Google does - allows competitors to purchase advertising space on a query specifically crafted to find a particular source. It's nothing more than a shakedown. https://twitter.com/jasonfried/status/1168986962704982016 https://twitter.com/jasonfried/status/1168986962704982016
- vlovich123 5y ago
  Yeah, I think the only on-brand search ads that should be allowed are ones for totally unrelated products OR those ads are placed below what on-brand search results would provide. Google has no incentive to fix this though because it's an extra tax they charge the entire online advertising space (+ all the other search providers do it). Carefully crafted legislation could put an end to this tax.
  - AlexandrB 5y ago
    > Yeah, I think the only on-brand search ads that should be allowed are ones for totally unrelated products... The problem is that this is subjective and would need to be automated somehow. I think Google's original sin here is making the ads look so much like organic search results. Someone placing an ad against a competitors brand name would not be a huge issue if organic results were still front and centre like in the "good old days" of early 2000s Google.
    - mdoms 5y ago
      > and would need to be automated somehow Or Google, one of the wealthiest companies on the face of the planet, could hire some staff to handle this.
    - vlovich123 5y ago
      This is actually trivially automatable. First of all, brand keywords are something Google supports explicitly for this kind of targetting so they know from that direction. More generally though, if you paid for an advertisement and the natural search result has you first anyway, then you should not be charged for any clicks to this advertisement.
mbesto 5y ago
> The main problem here is that if Williams Sonoma was not advertising on that search term, Lodge and Food52 etc etc would, and then those companies would be above the Williams Sonoma organic placements. This is what is known as "on brand" Search ads. I like to call these effectively the "Google Tax" because publishers/retailers are forced to pay Google for the traffic they would have already received had the ad not been there. I've seen way too many companies look at their analytics and say "see we get 20x ROAS on on brand! why would we turn it off?!?". Because silly, people are already going to go to your site without you paying for the traffic. I wouldn't be surprised if 25% of Google's ad search revenues come from this.
- aesyondu 5y ago
  I purposely click the non-ad link when searching in Google (because I'm too lazy to type the full url). Does that help at all, i.e., prevents unnecessary ad spend from bidding?
  - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
    I do the same, but 99% of people do not, so it's really a drop in the bucket. I do wish there were some regulation such that if a user is searching for a trademarked or copyrighted term, that the best organic search result for that term should be required to show up first. I'm fine with showing competitor ads, but I don't think they should be able to show up above the trademark owner's ads.
    - figassis 5y ago
      And would be trivial for google, with all their content id tech
    - verve_rat 5y ago
      It feels like it is close (but not really) to a trademark violation. If I search for "A" and get a screen full of results for "B", if I need to scroll to even see mentions of "A", then that feels like it is really close to "passing off". I could see an argument for saying that this "passing off" causes customer confusion that requires trademark enforcement. I realise that would probably be an impossible argument to win under current law (IANAL), but it _feels_ so very close.
thegrimmest 5y ago
> Lodge and Food52 etc etc would And wouldn't any users who end up buying a Lodge pan have been legitimately converted by effective lodge advertising? I don't think anyone who's only interested in Williams Sonoma will just go ahead and buy a Lodge pan. Unless you're suggesting that simply because the user entered "Williams Sonoma" in the search bar that page somehow "belongs" to them, which seems a bit absurd.
naravara 5y ago
> The main problem here is that if Williams Sonoma was not advertising on that search term, Lodge and Food52 etc etc would, and then those companies would be above the Williams Sonoma organic placements. When you put it that way this sounds like racketeering.
- Kalium 5y ago
  If you take as a foundational assumption that the brand name in the search string means the traffic is in some sense owned by the brand, then you're absolutely right. It's essentially racketeering. Certainly brands often view traffic that way. Personally I resist the idea that a brand owns my attention because I used a keyword, but that's one of my many personal quirks.
  - naravara 5y ago
    It's a little dicer in the cases where we can pretty much infer that they're trying to get to a specific thing and would have happily used a direct URL to the page if they had the wherewithal to do so. In this case the ad placement is basically a brand trying to hijack my attention while I'm in the process of seeking a thing out. I struggle to think of a meat world analogy. It would be something like if I dialed my girlfriend up on the phone and, instead of routing me straight to her, I had to navigate through a switchboard asking me "How about talking to these sexy singles in your area instead?" And in order to prevent this, my girlfriend would then have to pay the company to route my call straight to her. Of course this isn't a perfect metaphor because there's a lot of different ways people use a search bar, especially now that search bars are merged into URL bars. But that sort of gets at what it is about this that feels sleazy.
    - Kalium 5y ago
      I think it's an excellent metaphor! I think it also exposes the core problem. The metaphor rests on knowing intent with certainty. It's perhaps possible that certain clarity and pretty much inferring might not always be the same, especially with how search and URL bars have merged. But I understand completely. If you genuinely feel like you know that person's intent with certainty, someone else having a crack at their attention along the way feels like a violation of your relationship.
NikolaNovak 5y ago
As an end-user, the results are insane. Opening google in incognito mode: If I search for "Toyota RAV4", the first (ad) result is "Hyundai Tuscon". If I search for "AWS Cert", my first (ad) result is "Microsoft Learn". Et cetera et cetera :|
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  What? That's not the case for me in incognito.
winternett 5y ago
There is absolutely nothing independently governing and monitoring whether performance is correct on ads. It's all done in private, and you're forced to compete against SEO and many other things to succeed on a daily and even minute-to-minute basis. This is the real price of a constant threat to Net Neutrality, and allowing one monopolistic company to dominate mobile devices, web browsers, search results, and the largest video service on the entire Internet. Their plan to corner and manipulate what everyone's freedom of choice and to secure their funnel of permanent revenue is considered cute to investors, but no one realizes how bad this will get in 5 more years. Of course the numbers are fudged when you consider how they've turned analytics on their once very useful platform into a confusing mess, and when they announced that they were going to retire the system after it has killed off competition, because they can simply gather any analytical report they want privately from their web browser. Public front-end statics are no longer trust worthy because they can be manipulated to drive platform revenue and engagement. The best and most accurate stats are provided only internally, to executive leadership that owns platforms. Because we now use them for email, video views, browsing, phones, etc, they have key insight that can even be used for corporate espionage, your ideas can literally be beaten to market because your virtual assistant caught you mentioning keywords then reported you applying for your patent and corporate loan. Most people have no idea about how bad this all can get. We'll find out soon enough though. When ad revenue drops on platforms, the platforms simply reduce organic visibility which drives the need for regular ad spending for companies in order to remain visible on social platforms... AirBNB is riding a wave of prior popularity and name recognition, I guarantee they will go back to a certain point of obscurity at some point because they reduced their ad spend, and then be forced to promote heavily as they did once before. It's all creates a new cycle of financial deception and manipulation on platforms. For very profitable companies, advertising is usually manageable, but for startups, for small business, and for independent creators, this practice is devastating financially, and fruitless on top of the financial loss of paying for promotion. These platforms also made promises to woo users based on free organic growth, which somehow conveniently disappeared due to covert and convenient EULA updates over time.
coldtea 5y ago
Wouldn't that be solvable if it was forbidden to place ads using as search terms the tradename of another company?
- janlukacs 5y ago
  our brand name "Paymo" is considered by google a synonym for things like project management. we get competitors that are advertising broadly on our brand name... it's truly mind blowing.
bambax 5y ago
So in a way, big advertisers that are leaders in their markets would be favorable to adblockers, because they free them of the need to do defensive advertising. One could argue that no advertising is hard for the challengers, but in today's situation they are outspent anyway, so what do they have to lose? The conclusion is that both incumbents and challengers would be better off in a world where no advertising exists.
- account42 5y ago
  Yeah, it's mostly a prisoner's dilemma where if someone spends on ads then their competitors also have to spend. The only one really profiting in the end are the ad companies.
sam0x17 5y ago
> The main problem here is that if Williams Sonoma was not advertising on that search term, Lodge and Food52 etc etc would, and then those companies would be above the Williams Sonoma organic placements. Except they won't click those competitor links, because they are already specifically looking for Williams Sonoma
patmorgan23 5y ago
I always skip the ad links and click the organic one, even if it's for the correct company/product. Because when I click on the ad link 9/10 is some weird ad funnel page radther than the actual product page I wanted to go to.
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
Similar principle applies to - review sites like Yelp (interestingly one of Google's loudest antitrust critics) - domain names (arguably the entire ICANN generic top level domains sell-off)^1; US trademark grantees who fail to take action against confusingly similar domain names risk losing trademark protection 1. The gTLD application alone as $185,000 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gtld https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gtld) In the case of Google and Yelp, the tech company can manipulate the alleged "algorithm" (read: no humans involve so you cant sue us, haha) behind the scenes and determine the "visibility" of the ad/review. Ads are the perfect "business model" for tech companies because there is so little scrutiny of the ad services delivered. It is like philanthropy. When we make a donation, we generally do not track what happens to the money afterwards. We get a warm fuzzy feeling from making the donation as it is "doing the right thing". Then we leave the recipient to do as they please. How many companies buy ads on Google because they feel it is "the right thing to do". How many feel their donation was unwarranted after the ads fail to produce results. Defensive ad purchases, defensive domain name registrations and even defensive gTLD purchases are one side of the coin. Another is the "winner take all" line-of-thinking (80/20, network effects, etc.) that tech companies worship that they in turn project onto customers. Competing for visibility on a fully searchable web of enormous capacity presupposes (artifically) that visible space is scarce. Ad auctions for the purpose of placing an ad on page one of hundreds of thousands of pages of results. The truth is that many people used to read newspapers from beginning to end. The whole paper, not just page one. In a physical newspaper, there are ads on many pages. Often there are in fact no ads on page one. How many Google customers are encouraged to purchase ads that will appear on SERP #2 (do they even have ads on SERP #2). Imagine if newspapers tried to create a bidding war for page one of the physical newspaper. With the online versions, it seems that is exactly what happens. Do not blame the newspapers, do not blame Williams-Sonoma, blame the "tech" companies. This only reflects the pathetic "tech" company psychology, not the thinking of the businesses who give them money for online ad services.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

dublinben 5y ago

Defensive spending to protect otherwise organic traffic could also be called extortion.

earthboundkid 5y ago
Forget about the corporate POV for a second, as a user, if I'm searching for X, I probably want X in my results, no? It's the fundamental contradiction in Google's search ads model. If Google delivers users the thing they want, ads by definition have to be things users don't want.
- fabianhjr 5y ago
  Advertisements are fundamentally not what search service users want regardless of searching for a specific brand or not. (Its what advertisers want others to want)
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    If I’m searching for “Williams Sonoma 12 inch skillet”, advertisements for places selling it are a pretty large subset of what I want.
    - thegrimmest 5y ago
      Sure, but what about an ad from a competitor for a similar pan at a lower cost? Isn't that what advertising is all about?
      - pbhjpbhj 5y ago
        Yes, i was thinking similarly. The GP wants links, not ads (specifically), but if the trustworthy domains are saying this particular skillet is low quality then you want that first, rather than an ad.
    - wormslayer666 5y ago
      If a search engine encounters the query "Williams Sonoma 12 inch skillet", retail outlets selling it should organically appear in results without the need for ads.
      - sokoloff 5y ago
        If it’s $39.99 on W-S.com, I definitely want to see the place that’s willing to sell the same pan for $34.99, the EBay listing for $32.50, and the one selling a competing similar one for $29.99 even if those sites don’t have the organic search SEO juice to land in the top 10. As a Google search user, why wouldn’t I value these? If Google doesn’t serve them and another search engine does, I’d be inclined to switch to the other one.
        lmm 5y ago
        > If it’s $39.99 on W-S.com, I definitely want to see the place that’s willing to sell the same pan for $34.99, the EBay listing for $32.50, and the one selling a competing similar one for $29.99 even if those sites don’t have the organic search SEO juice to land in the top 10. But why would those sites not have the "organic search SEO juice"? If those sites are actually good places to buy that kind of thing, a good search engine should direct a user searching for that thing there.
- computerphage 5y ago
  My "by definition" detector has fired. It says: that's not true by definition. Ads could instead also be things that users want. I do actually think you have a good point.
  - IggleSniggle 5y ago
    I like this pedanticism, but I still think you can even argue the "by definition" piece of it. I suppose it ends up being somewhat tautological in the end. If you really like Skillet X, and I ask you which skillet I should buy, and you tell me, "Skillet X," then it is not an ad. If you really like Skillet X, then somebody gives you $5 to recommend it if anybody asks you what skillet to buy, and then when I ask, you tell me, "Skillet X...I mean you should know that somebody gave me $5 to say that to you but honestly I was going to say that anyway" then is it an ad? It kinda intuitively feels to me like if it doesn't alter the result, it's not an ad, it's just somebody taking advantage of another person's willingness to hand them money and doing nothing in return.
    - aspenmayer 5y ago
      The unstated implicit assumption in the question being asked in both situations is this: you’re being asked for your unbiased opinion. All ads are inherently biased, but by not disclosing your compensation, you’re not answering the question as asked. This bias, even if disclosed, renders your recommendation, and our hypothetical innocent recommendation, suspect.
  - jayd16 5y ago
    I guess the argument is that if google could make the perfect search result, ad spending would, by definition either be exploitative of the advertiser by providing no change, or providing value by changing the results from perfection. In reality, Google is not perfect and you can argue that ads do provide value by promoting relevant content, even if its gameable by our capitalist system.
  - earthboundkid 5y ago
    Yes, it's by definition because the definition is tendentious. The definition: "If Google [meaning Google's organic results] delivers users the thing they want" The consequence: "ads have to be things users don't want" because advertisers whose product is wanted will be included whether they pay or not. Now, you could widen it to say, look Google is still delivering the thing users want, they just sometimes do it by organic results and sometimes do it by ads, but that's a very convoluted reading of the definition, which clearly is using Google as a stand in for "Google's organic results". The problem with my argument isn't that it failed to be a tautology. It's that the definition is questionable, and that's the profitable angle of attack: "users don't know what they want" "there can be multiple equally good options" etc. But saying it's not by definition is just silly. The definition is the whole thing up for debate!
- thegrimmest 5y ago
  Right, but you may also be interested in an ad from a competitor for a similar product, especially if they were differentiated by price, no?
- lifeisstillgood 5y ago
  >>> If Google delivers users the thing they want, ads by definition have to be things users don't want. Ben Evans has a tweet something like "half of facebook devs are working out how to code the algorithm to serve you just what you want to see, the other half are working out how to get the algorithm to serve you what advertisers want you to see. " We are doing something wrong
  - inthewoods 5y ago
    Natural outcome of all internet advertising based models imho.
    - earthboundkid 5y ago
      By any definition, a podcast is part of "internet advertising" but there's less conflict there. Sure, I want to hear the hosts and not the ads, but if the ad is relevant, I don't mind the interruption, and hey sometimes it's an interesting product for me. There's a tension between the content and the ads, but not a fundamental contradiction. No, this is the outcome of all interest targeting based models. You're interested in X, and they either don't show you X (to get X to pay) or they show you Y (which you aren't interested in) because Y paid. Whereas with demographic targeting, hey I'm in demographic X and wasn't looking for a Y now, but sure, I'll remember it for when I'm in the market for one later.
- inthewoods 5y ago
  This is the fundamental issue with all advertising-based models. Eventually, they all run into the problem of having to continue to grow. The only way to continue to grow is to display more ads, thus compromising the user experience, which starts the downfall. AOL was a great example of this. Google seems to be heading this way. Google's original values were the ability to provide better search (common answer) and be fast (less common answer) - both of which were a complete contrast to the Alta Vista and other search engines. I could easily see Google facing disruption from a new player - but I don't think it will be another search engine. Probably a paradigm/systemic shift.
- lern_too_spel 5y ago
  If you search for Hello Fresh, you'll get a Hello Fresh ad offering 14 free meals. If you search for Blue Apron, you'll get a Hello Fresh ad for 16 free meals. Firms are willing to spend more to win incremental business from a competitor, and consumers benefit. Now you could argue that the search engine should show organic results to help the consumer get the best deal, and I would agree with you.
- tomjen3 5y ago
  I don't think it is that clear, actually. If I sell a car that is as good as the Ford one you searched for, but 80% of the cost, wouldn't you want that ad to appear when you searched for ford?
  - evanmoran 5y ago
    Respectfully, I’d want the car you mention included if I search for “full size sedan” or “alternatives to ford”, and not to appear if I search for “ford”. This is a pipe dream of course with the way AdWords works, but that is what I prefer :)
  - earthboundkid 5y ago
    If the discount car is relevant, then I want the search engine to show it to me whether or not you happened to pay them for an ad. And vice versa if it's not relevant. As a user, I don't care who is getting paid by whom; I care about seeing relevant content.
gingerlime 5y ago
Exactly. And it's bad for customers too. My mum (70) just fell for it, and she's pretty clued about computers and technology. She searched for a flight with Ryanair, so entered Ryanair on Google. First result was some scummy reseller, which sold her the same ticket for a higher price with some "extras". Bidding on a competitor's brand name keyword should be banned. But Google can't resist double-dipping.
- thegrimmest 5y ago
  I mean.. RTFM? Look at the address bar? The branding of the site? Pay attention and be careful? This stuff only works on 70 year olds. It stands to reason it won't be viable in a few decades.
pradn 5y ago
This should be allowed, because this means smaller competitors have a shot at the customer base of a more established competitor. If we ban it, it's just shoring up established players.
- desmosxxx 5y ago
  +1 this has happened to me before and I've ended up buying from a competitor before. We should promote competition.
matsemann 5y ago
Worst part is that the competitor has nothing to lose, so they basically will spend the whole margin of a sale on the ad. Which means that the original company has to do the same. Where I worked before, Google could get $4 for ever $1 we made. And we actually delivered the service, and people googled our name. Pretty crazy...

MrBuddyCasino 5y ago

> if Williams Sonoma was not advertising on that search term, Lodge and Food52 etc etc would If I as a customer am using such specific search terms, then I would assume that my intention is to find and possibly buy this specific product. The results of other brands might be annoying, but why should I click on them? The relevant results are still displayed on the first page.

dabeeeenster 5y ago
It's not about the customer, it's about the fact that the merchants have to pay the Google tax in order to play.
gotmedium 5y ago
I think there is an under-appreciated average search engine user in the comment: People will typically write their intent on the search engine even when they could simply directly to the website. Case in point: The top 10 bing searches are for websites, including FB, Google, Youtube [1]. This traffic is highly competitive and should (as in all competitive markets) be bid among competitors. https://ahrefs.com/blog/top-bing-searches/ https://ahrefs.com/blog/top-bing-searches/
- lowbloodsugar 5y ago
  The address bar is the search bar. My wife never types "facebook.com". She types "facebook", gets the google search page, and then clicks on facebook from there. It pisses me off that if I start typing facebook, Chrome doesn't autocomplete to facebook.com. In contrast, if I'm in Safari, and type "n" I get "news.ycombinator.com" autocompleted.
  - pbhjpbhj 5y ago
    It must be a setting? Small business people in my area of UK have always done this, type in the box in the middle (usually Google, occasionally Bing or some other service). But my pretty tech-literate kids do it too, even when I show them how they 'should' do it and that is faster, and they don't need the extra click to get where they're going ... mad! On Chrome on Win10 as I use at work though, typing in the address bar, with my settings, I get auto-fill of addresses (the history search is noticeably missing vs Firefox) including the option to use 'tab to search' on a domain.

colinmhayes 5y ago

Freakonomics had an episode with an economist that worked with Ebay on ad buys. This sort of "buy ads on your own keywords" was shown to have zero impact on sales to the point that they cut completely stopped advertising when the search included "ebay".

Lewton 5y ago
I just searched for "ebay" on google and the top result is an ad for ebay.com?
bombcar 5y ago
This will work for someone like eBay (people searching eBay want eBay) but for other "brand-name" terms it may NOT work - people searching for Travelocity or whoever is the hotness there may be perfectly happy with the first "similar enough" link.
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  There's no way to know until they do an A/B test like eBay did I guess. EBay was certain that they needed to do the on brand ads before this economist showed up too.
  - lazide 5y ago
    Even the eBay test can be misleading - if everyone sees competitor B anytime they search for eBay, eventually they are going to give it a try.
    - colinmhayes 5y ago
      They talked about this on the 2 hour long podcast. It was actually pretty funny too, I'd recommend it.
    - tomrod 5y ago
      This is untrue. A small proportion, but most people searching for something specific what that something that is specific. If I search for a Dell computer, no way will I buy Apple. Likewise if I use Bing to search for Chrome, no way will I download edge except for user error.

mdoms 5y ago

> if Williams Sonoma was not advertising on that search term, Lodge and Food52 etc etc would, and then those companies would be above the Williams Sonoma organic placements And if they were not above organically they would simply buy the advertising space that William Sonoma purchased. It's one of the slimiest things Google does - allows competitors to purchase advertising space on a query specifically crafted to find a particular source. It's nothing more than a shakedown. https://twitter.com/jasonfried/status/1168986962704982016 https://twitter.com/jasonfried/status/1168986962704982016

vlovich123 5y ago
Yeah, I think the only on-brand search ads that should be allowed are ones for totally unrelated products OR those ads are placed below what on-brand search results would provide. Google has no incentive to fix this though because it's an extra tax they charge the entire online advertising space (+ all the other search providers do it). Carefully crafted legislation could put an end to this tax.
- AlexandrB 5y ago
  > Yeah, I think the only on-brand search ads that should be allowed are ones for totally unrelated products... The problem is that this is subjective and would need to be automated somehow. I think Google's original sin here is making the ads look so much like organic search results. Someone placing an ad against a competitors brand name would not be a huge issue if organic results were still front and centre like in the "good old days" of early 2000s Google.
  - mdoms 5y ago
    > and would need to be automated somehow Or Google, one of the wealthiest companies on the face of the planet, could hire some staff to handle this.
  - vlovich123 5y ago
    This is actually trivially automatable. First of all, brand keywords are something Google supports explicitly for this kind of targetting so they know from that direction. More generally though, if you paid for an advertisement and the natural search result has you first anyway, then you should not be charged for any clicks to this advertisement.

mbesto 5y ago

> The main problem here is that if Williams Sonoma was not advertising on that search term, Lodge and Food52 etc etc would, and then those companies would be above the Williams Sonoma organic placements. This is what is known as "on brand" Search ads. I like to call these effectively the "Google Tax" because publishers/retailers are forced to pay Google for the traffic they would have already received had the ad not been there. I've seen way too many companies look at their analytics and say "see we get 20x ROAS on on brand! why would we turn it off?!?". Because silly, people are already going to go to your site without you paying for the traffic. I wouldn't be surprised if 25% of Google's ad search revenues come from this.

aesyondu 5y ago
I purposely click the non-ad link when searching in Google (because I'm too lazy to type the full url). Does that help at all, i.e., prevents unnecessary ad spend from bidding?
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  I do the same, but 99% of people do not, so it's really a drop in the bucket. I do wish there were some regulation such that if a user is searching for a trademarked or copyrighted term, that the best organic search result for that term should be required to show up first. I'm fine with showing competitor ads, but I don't think they should be able to show up above the trademark owner's ads.
  - figassis 5y ago
    And would be trivial for google, with all their content id tech
  - verve_rat 5y ago
    It feels like it is close (but not really) to a trademark violation. If I search for "A" and get a screen full of results for "B", if I need to scroll to even see mentions of "A", then that feels like it is really close to "passing off". I could see an argument for saying that this "passing off" causes customer confusion that requires trademark enforcement. I realise that would probably be an impossible argument to win under current law (IANAL), but it _feels_ so very close.

thegrimmest 5y ago

> Lodge and Food52 etc etc would And wouldn't any users who end up buying a Lodge pan have been legitimately converted by effective lodge advertising? I don't think anyone who's only interested in Williams Sonoma will just go ahead and buy a Lodge pan. Unless you're suggesting that simply because the user entered "Williams Sonoma" in the search bar that page somehow "belongs" to them, which seems a bit absurd.

naravara 5y ago

Kalium 5y ago
If you take as a foundational assumption that the brand name in the search string means the traffic is in some sense owned by the brand, then you're absolutely right. It's essentially racketeering. Certainly brands often view traffic that way. Personally I resist the idea that a brand owns my attention because I used a keyword, but that's one of my many personal quirks.
- naravara 5y ago
  It's a little dicer in the cases where we can pretty much infer that they're trying to get to a specific thing and would have happily used a direct URL to the page if they had the wherewithal to do so. In this case the ad placement is basically a brand trying to hijack my attention while I'm in the process of seeking a thing out. I struggle to think of a meat world analogy. It would be something like if I dialed my girlfriend up on the phone and, instead of routing me straight to her, I had to navigate through a switchboard asking me "How about talking to these sexy singles in your area instead?" And in order to prevent this, my girlfriend would then have to pay the company to route my call straight to her. Of course this isn't a perfect metaphor because there's a lot of different ways people use a search bar, especially now that search bars are merged into URL bars. But that sort of gets at what it is about this that feels sleazy.
  - Kalium 5y ago
    I think it's an excellent metaphor! I think it also exposes the core problem. The metaphor rests on knowing intent with certainty. It's perhaps possible that certain clarity and pretty much inferring might not always be the same, especially with how search and URL bars have merged. But I understand completely. If you genuinely feel like you know that person's intent with certainty, someone else having a crack at their attention along the way feels like a violation of your relationship.

NikolaNovak 5y ago

As an end-user, the results are insane. Opening google in incognito mode: If I search for "Toyota RAV4", the first (ad) result is "Hyundai Tuscon". If I search for "AWS Cert", my first (ad) result is "Microsoft Learn". Et cetera et cetera :|

whimsicalism 5y ago
What? That's not the case for me in incognito.

winternett 5y ago

There is absolutely nothing independently governing and monitoring whether performance is correct on ads. It's all done in private, and you're forced to compete against SEO and many other things to succeed on a daily and even minute-to-minute basis. This is the real price of a constant threat to Net Neutrality, and allowing one monopolistic company to dominate mobile devices, web browsers, search results, and the largest video service on the entire Internet. Their plan to corner and manipulate what everyone's freedom of choice and to secure their funnel of permanent revenue is considered cute to investors, but no one realizes how bad this will get in 5 more years. Of course the numbers are fudged when you consider how they've turned analytics on their once very useful platform into a confusing mess, and when they announced that they were going to retire the system after it has killed off competition, because they can simply gather any analytical report they want privately from their web browser. Public front-end statics are no longer trust worthy because they can be manipulated to drive platform revenue and engagement. The best and most accurate stats are provided only internally, to executive leadership that owns platforms. Because we now use them for email, video views, browsing, phones, etc, they have key insight that can even be used for corporate espionage, your ideas can literally be beaten to market because your virtual assistant caught you mentioning keywords then reported you applying for your patent and corporate loan. Most people have no idea about how bad this all can get. We'll find out soon enough though. When ad revenue drops on platforms, the platforms simply reduce organic visibility which drives the need for regular ad spending for companies in order to remain visible on social platforms... AirBNB is riding a wave of prior popularity and name recognition, I guarantee they will go back to a certain point of obscurity at some point because they reduced their ad spend, and then be forced to promote heavily as they did once before. It's all creates a new cycle of financial deception and manipulation on platforms. For very profitable companies, advertising is usually manageable, but for startups, for small business, and for independent creators, this practice is devastating financially, and fruitless on top of the financial loss of paying for promotion. These platforms also made promises to woo users based on free organic growth, which somehow conveniently disappeared due to covert and convenient EULA updates over time.

coldtea 5y ago

Wouldn't that be solvable if it was forbidden to place ads using as search terms the tradename of another company?

janlukacs 5y ago
our brand name "Paymo" is considered by google a synonym for things like project management. we get competitors that are advertising broadly on our brand name... it's truly mind blowing.

bambax 5y ago

So in a way, big advertisers that are leaders in their markets would be favorable to adblockers, because they free them of the need to do defensive advertising. One could argue that no advertising is hard for the challengers, but in today's situation they are outspent anyway, so what do they have to lose? The conclusion is that both incumbents and challengers would be better off in a world where no advertising exists.

account42 5y ago
Yeah, it's mostly a prisoner's dilemma where if someone spends on ads then their competitors also have to spend. The only one really profiting in the end are the ad companies.

sam0x17 5y ago

patmorgan23 5y ago

I always skip the ad links and click the organic one, even if it's for the correct company/product. Because when I click on the ad link 9/10 is some weird ad funnel page radther than the actual product page I wanted to go to.

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago

Similar principle applies to - review sites like Yelp (interestingly one of Google's loudest antitrust critics) - domain names (arguably the entire ICANN generic top level domains sell-off)^1; US trademark grantees who fail to take action against confusingly similar domain names risk losing trademark protection 1. The gTLD application alone as $185,000 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gtld https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gtld) In the case of Google and Yelp, the tech company can manipulate the alleged "algorithm" (read: no humans involve so you cant sue us, haha) behind the scenes and determine the "visibility" of the ad/review. Ads are the perfect "business model" for tech companies because there is so little scrutiny of the ad services delivered. It is like philanthropy. When we make a donation, we generally do not track what happens to the money afterwards. We get a warm fuzzy feeling from making the donation as it is "doing the right thing". Then we leave the recipient to do as they please. How many companies buy ads on Google because they feel it is "the right thing to do". How many feel their donation was unwarranted after the ads fail to produce results. Defensive ad purchases, defensive domain name registrations and even defensive gTLD purchases are one side of the coin. Another is the "winner take all" line-of-thinking (80/20, network effects, etc.) that tech companies worship that they in turn project onto customers. Competing for visibility on a fully searchable web of enormous capacity presupposes (artifically) that visible space is scarce. Ad auctions for the purpose of placing an ad on page one of hundreds of thousands of pages of results. The truth is that many people used to read newspapers from beginning to end. The whole paper, not just page one. In a physical newspaper, there are ads on many pages. Often there are in fact no ads on page one. How many Google customers are encouraged to purchase ads that will appear on SERP #2 (do they even have ads on SERP #2). Imagine if newspapers tried to create a bidding war for page one of the physical newspaper. With the online versions, it seems that is exactly what happens. Do not blame the newspapers, do not blame Williams-Sonoma, blame the "tech" companies. This only reflects the pathetic "tech" company psychology, not the thinking of the businesses who give them money for online ad services.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]