5 ms·

Not sure I agree. I worked in AdWords support when the decision was made to move the top 1-3 ads above the search results. There was a lot of internal chatter

by yojo 5y ago

Not sure I agree. I worked in AdWords support when the decision was made to move the top 1-3 ads above the search results. There was a lot of internal chatter about whether this was compromising the integrity of the results. The decision was made to make the ad unit super obviously distinct from organic content, and to make a high quality threshold for getting promoted to that position - many pages would still be served with ads on the right of results but not above. Even still we were very worried about the perception that the organic results were for sale. I would definitely believe that at one point in time the company was prepared to draw a line in the sand around “no ads above organic results.” Edit: at launch the top ads looked like this: http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3892/2343/1600/google_adwords_page_layout.gif http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3892/2343/1600/google_adw...

edge17 5y ago
I don't find it super obvious at all. I have to actively spend brain energy scrolling to find the first real result
- Jensson 5y ago
  The appearance of the ads has gotten closer and closer to search results. The first time the ads moved above the results they did look different.
- iso1631 5y ago
  I don't use google, so I had a look for "new car" and didn't see any adverts. Then realised I had to turn off my blocker. Looks like $('#tads').remove() will remove the adverts?
  - zo1 5y ago
    No amount of adblocking will help with the fact that I got a top-hit to a car selling website when I searched for "new car".
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - PKop 5y ago
      What should be the top hit to the query "new car"? What was the desired goal? It's a good chance someone wanting to find a "car selling" website might use that phrase, no?
      - zo1 5y ago
        Could be a lot of things, including wanting to buy a new car, yeah. But maybe I want to search for "new car smell", which is a thing. Maybe I want to read blogs or experiences people have buying new cars vs used. Search as it is now is fundamentally at odds with us as our own agents. We're 30 years into the internet. I shouldn't just be presented with a magical search box that tries to figure out what I want and intermingles it with trash that makes them money and fosters a broken internet. Instead, I should get knobs, settings, configuration galore, include/exclude operators, filter lists, curated lists, sub-lists of internet sites, dynamic lists determined automatically by the search engine (only blogs, only forums, only search sites), etc. Who knows where search might be if we didn't have "magic" results from Google. A good "taste" of what search might have been is if you look at Google's product or shopping search tab.
        iso1631 5y ago
        "new car smell" - How to Make a Car Smell New Again - Auto Adviser - How to Get That 'New Car Smell' in an Old Car - Car Cologne - The Science of the New-Car Smell - caranddriver.com
- yojo 5y ago
  Yep. The original top ad unit had a dark blue background, plus I think some sort of “sponsored” text that clearly delineated the ads. It has since become almost indistinguishable from organic results. Edit: Used to look like this: http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3892/2343/1600/google_adwords_page_layout.gif http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3892/2343/1600/google_adw...
usrusr 5y ago
These days I assume that Google does two things at once: place clearly identifiable and directly billable ads, and include "is a known business" in the relevance algorithm blackbox as one of the inputs. One of the many factors and criteria would just happen to be ad spend. There wouldn't be an item "make us more relevant" on the bill, but relevance for a company stopping spending would drop unless some other organic factor happened to compensate. And I'd take it as a given that if that assumption was true, a large majority of Googlers would not have the faintest idea that this is happening and refute any speculations that it might exist without even a trace of insincerity. I'm not even saying this intending a "look how evil Google has become!" implication, I actually think that it would likely be a quality decrease, from the users perspective, if they deliberately left that out. From the user's perspective, "Is a business known to us" is likely a valuable relevance improvement, not a quality decrease. But it shows how scarily dominant Google's position can be.

by yojo 5y ago

edge17 5y ago

I don't find it super obvious at all. I have to actively spend brain energy scrolling to find the first real result

Jensson 5y ago
The appearance of the ads has gotten closer and closer to search results. The first time the ads moved above the results they did look different.
iso1631 5y ago
I don't use google, so I had a look for "new car" and didn't see any adverts. Then realised I had to turn off my blocker. Looks like $('#tads').remove() will remove the adverts?
- zo1 5y ago
  No amount of adblocking will help with the fact that I got a top-hit to a car selling website when I searched for "new car".
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - PKop 5y ago
    What should be the top hit to the query "new car"? What was the desired goal? It's a good chance someone wanting to find a "car selling" website might use that phrase, no?
    - zo1 5y ago
      Could be a lot of things, including wanting to buy a new car, yeah. But maybe I want to search for "new car smell", which is a thing. Maybe I want to read blogs or experiences people have buying new cars vs used. Search as it is now is fundamentally at odds with us as our own agents. We're 30 years into the internet. I shouldn't just be presented with a magical search box that tries to figure out what I want and intermingles it with trash that makes them money and fosters a broken internet. Instead, I should get knobs, settings, configuration galore, include/exclude operators, filter lists, curated lists, sub-lists of internet sites, dynamic lists determined automatically by the search engine (only blogs, only forums, only search sites), etc. Who knows where search might be if we didn't have "magic" results from Google. A good "taste" of what search might have been is if you look at Google's product or shopping search tab.
      - iso1631 5y ago
        "new car smell" - How to Make a Car Smell New Again - Auto Adviser - How to Get That 'New Car Smell' in an Old Car - Car Cologne - The Science of the New-Car Smell - caranddriver.com
yojo 5y ago
Yep. The original top ad unit had a dark blue background, plus I think some sort of “sponsored” text that clearly delineated the ads. It has since become almost indistinguishable from organic results. Edit: Used to look like this: http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3892/2343/1600/google_adwords_page_layout.gif http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3892/2343/1600/google_adw...

usrusr 5y ago

These days I assume that Google does two things at once: place clearly identifiable and directly billable ads, and include "is a known business" in the relevance algorithm blackbox as one of the inputs. One of the many factors and criteria would just happen to be ad spend. There wouldn't be an item "make us more relevant" on the bill, but relevance for a company stopping spending would drop unless some other organic factor happened to compensate. And I'd take it as a given that if that assumption was true, a large majority of Googlers would not have the faintest idea that this is happening and refute any speculations that it might exist without even a trace of insincerity. I'm not even saying this intending a "look how evil Google has become!" implication, I actually think that it would likely be a quality decrease, from the users perspective, if they deliberately left that out. From the user's perspective, "Is a business known to us" is likely a valuable relevance improvement, not a quality decrease. But it shows how scarily dominant Google's position can be.