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> Given the context of the times, it was clearly not a statement about layout but about actually reordering the "organic" search results based on payments and w

> Given the context of the times, it was clearly not a statement about layout but about actually reordering the "organic" search results based on payments and without marking those boosted results as ads. It's actually worse. Google didn't just say "our competitors put ads on top of results". They're suggesting/hinting that those competitors accept payment for placement when in fact that wasn't happening, their competitors like Bing (MSN then) were doing what Google is doing now - merely placing ads above the results, not selling placement. The end result is that they're all now selling placement. The visual difference between ads and organic results is almost non-existent.

glenstein 5y ago
>It's actually worse. Well hold on. We can go ahead and talk about how different this Google statement is from their ethos in the present day. But the framing of this being about ad placement was incorrect, and that has nothing to do with anything. >They're suggesting/hinting that those competitors accept payment for placement when in fact that wasn't happening It wasn't? This strikes me as yet another completely out of left field reaction. I mean, is there a consensus that that's obviously false? A source? Where is this "in fact that wasn't happening" coming from? Was there a big media cycle where there was a deep dive investigation into this that settled the question, that everyone remembers except me? There's a whole field of actors who at one time were relevant: Jeeves, Lycos, Altavista, Infoseek, Dogpile, Hotbot, Webcrawler, etc. And they went through any number of permutations of design, ownership, were sold and reacquired and it stands to reason that at some point some versions of these did things that Google is suggesting. At a minimum it seems prima facie plausible that competitors entertained this.
ddalex 5y ago
> suggesting/hinting that those competitors accept payment for placement when in fact that wasn't happening https://www.searchenginejournal.com/yahoo-adopting-paid-inclusion-for-search/324/ https://www.searchenginejournal.com/yahoo-adopting-paid-incl...
- josefresco 5y ago
  It was a fee to be included in the directly, not placement. I bought that "directory listing" aka hire PR paid link for many clients.

glenstein 5y ago

>It's actually worse. Well hold on. We can go ahead and talk about how different this Google statement is from their ethos in the present day. But the framing of this being about ad placement was incorrect, and that has nothing to do with anything. >They're suggesting/hinting that those competitors accept payment for placement when in fact that wasn't happening It wasn't? This strikes me as yet another completely out of left field reaction. I mean, is there a consensus that that's obviously false? A source? Where is this "in fact that wasn't happening" coming from? Was there a big media cycle where there was a deep dive investigation into this that settled the question, that everyone remembers except me? There's a whole field of actors who at one time were relevant: Jeeves, Lycos, Altavista, Infoseek, Dogpile, Hotbot, Webcrawler, etc. And they went through any number of permutations of design, ownership, were sold and reacquired and it stands to reason that at some point some versions of these did things that Google is suggesting. At a minimum it seems prima facie plausible that competitors entertained this.

ddalex 5y ago

> suggesting/hinting that those competitors accept payment for placement when in fact that wasn't happening https://www.searchenginejournal.com/yahoo-adopting-paid-inclusion-for-search/324/ https://www.searchenginejournal.com/yahoo-adopting-paid-incl...

josefresco 5y ago
It was a fee to be included in the directly, not placement. I bought that "directory listing" aka hire PR paid link for many clients.