4 ms·

I've seen this when searching for restaurants, and I spotted it right away. It's a classic dark pattern and I'm surprised that more restaurants aren't suing the

I've seen this when searching for restaurants, and I spotted it right away. It's a classic dark pattern and I'm surprised that more restaurants aren't suing them over this. Google search results have become dangerous (for lack of a better word) and really hard to use when searching for some things lately. I shouldn't have to carefully scrutinize every link ON Google and then double check I'm actually ending up where Google said it was sending me. I understand they want to squeeze every possible dollar out of every search, but I no longer trust them for certain searches. I'm not even talking about the results, this is just what's on the actual Google search results page. There's just way too many ads and other tricks like this happening.

zivkovicp 5y ago
The irony is that these techniques are against their own TOS for Adsense/Adwords, but I guess it's more of a "do as I say, not as I do" sort of situation.
- blakesterz 5y ago
  That reminds me of an old tweet from someone to Matt Cutts (at least I think it was Cutts). MC had tweeted a reply to someone about how they don't allow scrapers and sites that just reuse content from other sites. Someone else replied to him with a screenshot of Google's search results page that had scraped and reused something from somewhere and said "I think I found one of those sites for you". (Hoping I remember that at least somewhat close to how it happened! It's a somewhat faded memory from several years ago)
  - weird-eye-issue 5y ago
    Funny, I guess. But pages that scrape short excerpts from other sites and link back to them in order to provide additional value to a user absolutely are allowed by Google. Sites that scrape large portions of text and don't credit it back aren't allowed and would be illegal. An example of an allowed page doing this would be a "recipe roundup" where a site lists 10 or so recipes in a particular theme (like Best Keto Breakfast Recipes) and each one links back to the original recipe with a short description. I'm not surprised this sort of "gotcha" was popular on Twitter though (and is why I don't use Twitter)
    - klyrs 5y ago
      Only, google rarely credits the sources they scraped for infoboxes.
      - weird-eye-issue 5y ago
        For things that are considered facts they don't. But for Featured Snippets they do. If something is a widely recognized fact you don't need to credit a source in your own writing too
        squeaky-clean 5y ago
        Google gets "facts" wrong pretty often because it gathers them by scraping. There are too many possible facts for them to have all been verified by a human.
        klyrs 5y ago
        Is some random celebrity's net worth a "widely recognized fact"? https://theoutline.com/post/1399/how-google-ate-celebritynetworth-com https://theoutline.com/post/1399/how-google-ate-celebritynet...
        weird-eye-issue 5y ago
        You did not understand my comment - I said Featured Snippets are NOT necessarily facts and DO link to the source. Featured Snippets drive a lot of traffic to sites and as a publisher I instruct my writers on how to craft their sentences to make it more likely we will get a Featured Snippet. Yes, Featured Snippets probably reduced the CTR for pages that were previously ranking #1 but that comes with an increase in user experience. Part of the confusion here stems from the fact you used an ambiguous term like "infobox" that has no real meaning and I interpreted as the box that appears on the sidebar when Googling certain topics (like somebody's name). This typically pulls data from Wikipedia and Wikidata as FACTS. So if by infobox you meant Featured Snippet then your comment was incorrect because Google does in fact always link back the original site (maybe in the last they sometimes didn't? I can't speak to that but I'm doubtful) Also I'll just say this - the website in question in that article was relying on Google for all their traffic for a very particular type of query. That is just stupid. I'm a publisher and wouldn't be able to sleep at night if my site was like theirs. Technically Net Worth is a fact and that's why Google was trying to put it in their Knowledge Graph. But since it's not typically public knowledge it becomes more of an opinion. Hence, it's a Featured Snippet with credit to the source. That site is just mad they don't always get the Featured Snippet so their traffic went down. They weren't complaining when Google was ranking them #1 were they?
  - dazc 5y ago
    That did happen, as you describe it.
  - random314 5y ago
    The top search result was Google scraping from wikipedia.
  - wolpoli 5y ago
    > don't allow scrapers and sites that just reuse content from other sites. I remember there used to be ranking penalties against scraper sites. I have not been following Google's SEO rules in a while, so does anyone know what happened to it?
    - Implicated 5y ago
      It's essentially the 'duplicate content' penalty/penalties. [1] It's pretty ironic really... take a look at this scenario... Let's say we have Website A which we'll consider a "legitimate" website producing unique and quality content and we have Website B which is not, but it has some clever people running it's scrapers/submissions.. Developer responsible for Website B has identified that Website A produces quality content that it wants to steal - setups up a scraper to check for updates on Website A, when it finds them it will immediately scrape the content and repost it on Website B. Then they will update their sitemap and submit it to Google (or some other of the various ways to 'alert' google of a new page/updated content) which will trigger a crawl of that page/website. If this crawl/index of Website B happens before Website A - who does Google see as the producer of that content and who is now the "duplicate"? Whack-a-mole. 1: https://backlinko.com/hub/seo/duplicate-content https://backlinko.com/hub/seo/duplicate-content
resygonewrong 5y ago
I just tried making reservations for an anniversary dinner, so I Google "Obstinate Daughter" and they put up a little widget for Resy and lo and behold there are no good reservations times available despite it being zero-dark-thirty on the first day one could even make reservations for my targeted date. Now I'm a bit skeptical that the city collectively got up at the ass-crack of dawn to make a dinner reservation on a random weeknight, so I go visit the restaurant website and they have a wide open calendar. Had I not scrutinized the Google offerings the restaurant would have lost out on my business. IANAL but that whole offering on the part of Google just seems morally wrong if not some form of fraudulent.
- krnlpnc 5y ago
  So I wonder what's the end game of a pattern like this? Is it a shakedown type of situation where if a restaurant doesn't pay up to enable some reservations "integration" they will be shown as fully booked by default?
  - kayodelycaon 5y ago
    Google does all kinds of stupid things like this. They constantly change how they interpret data and punish anyone who doesn't (or can't) follow the new rules. They'll suddenly require X to be valid against a specific standard, but the maker of the product you sell doesn't follow X. Oh, and omitting X is the same as having an invalid X. Frankly, it's ridiculous. We have to have an entire paid position just for dealing with Google's bullshit.
- zerocrates 5y ago
  As far as I see that restaurant just does in fact use Resy and it looks to me like Google just shows the same results the Resy site does. What they do do is just not show you times that are outside a window around the selected time (and they preselect one) so maybe that's the issue? I'm not really seeing the fraud or moral issue here. Of course the reservation system isn't the same as the ordering one and just the nature of the market makes the reservation services less problematic than the food-ordering ones.
djitz 5y ago
Yep. I noticed this when they started doing it in maps. I always wonder what their commission is, which is in turn part of the commission for Grubhub or any other food delivery service. You have to make a real effort to avoid their crap hurdles just to make it to the damn restaurant’s own website.
dvtrn 5y ago
"I shouldn't have to carefully scrutinize every link ON Google and then double check I'm actually ending up where Google said it was sending me." I've noticed it only a handful of times, but phone numbers for listings, can't be trusted either anymore [1] GrubHub also does it: there has been more than one occasion where I've searched a restaurant in a new town while traveling for work, called the phone number to inquire about a menu item thinking I was dialing the restaurant but I had instead dialed a GrubHub or Goggle contact center. At first I didn't realize what was going on, but quickly put it together after ordering from a restaurant that appeared in Google, using the "order form" and getting a phone call from a different voice telling me the item I ordered hadn't been sold by the restaurant in weeks due to sourcing issues. "I just spoke with Mark, he said you do sell it" "We don't have anyone named Mark working here" I go check the listing again, check the phone number, and ask the person on the other end of the line what the restaurant business telephone number is: sure enough it's a completely different number. Not sure how widespread this is or how to tell which restaurant phone numbers on these platforms take me to someone actually at the establishment, but....well...shit like this. [1] https://www.engadget.com/2019-08-06-grubhub-is-replacing-restaurant-phone-numbers-on-yelp.html https://www.engadget.com/2019-08-06-grubhub-is-replacing-res.... (article is from 2019 but this has happened to me as recently as oct/2021)
- jimmaswell 5y ago
  Do they actually pretend to be the restaurant on the phone, like they answer with "Tony's Pizza" if that's the restaurant?
  - dvtrn 5y ago
    They did, yes. I’m not qualified to know whether or not this counts as some kind of fraud, but it was the final straw for me to stop using these delivery services once and for all after other unrelated negative experiences with them.
    - colejohnson66 5y ago
      IANAL, but for the websites, it's easily trademark infringement. In-N-Out notably sued DoorDash over them using the In-N-Out logo on the site.[0] It's understandable why. If a customer receives a bad order due to GrubHub, DoorDash, etc., it reflects badly on the restaurant, even if it's not their fault. See claim 29 from the filing[1]: > Defendant’s use of Plaintiff’s famous trademarks implies that Defendant not only delivers In-N-Out products to its customers, but that the quality and services offered by Defendant is the same as if consumers had made purchases directly from Plaintiff. Upon information and belief, the quality of services offered by Defendant does not at all comport with the standards that consumers expect from Plaintiff’s goods and services. Further, Plaintiff has no control over the time it takes Defendant to deliver Plaintiff’s goods to consumers, or over the temperature at which the goods are kept during delivery, nor over the food handling and safety practices of Defendant’s delivery drivers. While Plaintiff adheres to the Food Code, on information and belief, Defendant does not adhere to such regulations, including with regard to compliance with required food safety and handling practices. [0]: https://money.cnn.com/2015/11/12/technology/in-n-out-doordash-delivery-lawsuit/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2015/11/12/technology/in-n-out-doordas... [1]: https://www.eater.com/2015/11/11/9714840/in-n-out-doordash-delivery-lawsuit https://www.eater.com/2015/11/11/9714840/in-n-out-doordash-d...
acomjean 5y ago
I always try to go the website. But I think adding some murk is that some restaurants use third party order systems like by door dash via the generic: https://order.online/en-US/ https://order.online/en-US/ For example this is a doordash site (set up by the restaurant): https://order.online/business/-54797/en-US https://order.online/business/-54797/en-US A restaurant tried to call me about an order, but coming from a toll free number I ignored it. I asked them why they didn't have a local number. They could only call me back via the door dash number as my number wasn't provided to the restaurant. It was weird. Around here the local restaurant POS vendor exposed their interface online and made and app for pickups. I'll use that directly if I'm ordering from a place that uses it. Thats a little fraught too, because the staff has to learn to use that too (staff has to have some training on turing online ordering on or off..which they sometimes have forgotten to do) https://pos.toasttab.com https://pos.toasttab.com
- noasaservice 5y ago
  Remember, that DoorDash is YC13. Ycombinator is enabling this kind of behavior, either historically or currently. I think that YC should audit what their prospective, current, and older companies are doing, and avoid or forbid unethical and/or illegal behavior. And barring active influence, they should outwardly denounce companies that choose to engage in these kinds of scams. (I have a private plugin that does company searches and sees if they are a YC company. You'd be really surprised just how many negative articles are YC founded companies.) Edit: and the downvotes commence
  - david38 5y ago
    Yea, I don’t see YC as any kind of moral filter despite it appears to have that kind of halo.
  - mikestew 5y ago
    I think that YC should audit what their prospective, current, and older companies are doing, and avoid or forbid unethical and/or illegal behavior. Why do you call out YC specifically? Maybe I missed the memo, but I don't look at companies coming out of YC as being made from some special moral fiber. Quite the contrary in a lot of cases, and DoorDash is just one example. If there's anything YC is "auditing", my guess is that it's a P/L sheet, not questionable business decisions.
Unklejoe 5y ago
> I'm surprised that more restaurants aren't suing them over this. My guess is that most restaurants don’t even know where to begin when it comes to suing something like Google. At least that’s how I would feel.

zivkovicp 5y ago

The irony is that these techniques are against their own TOS for Adsense/Adwords, but I guess it's more of a "do as I say, not as I do" sort of situation.

blakesterz 5y ago
That reminds me of an old tweet from someone to Matt Cutts (at least I think it was Cutts). MC had tweeted a reply to someone about how they don't allow scrapers and sites that just reuse content from other sites. Someone else replied to him with a screenshot of Google's search results page that had scraped and reused something from somewhere and said "I think I found one of those sites for you". (Hoping I remember that at least somewhat close to how it happened! It's a somewhat faded memory from several years ago)
- weird-eye-issue 5y ago
  Funny, I guess. But pages that scrape short excerpts from other sites and link back to them in order to provide additional value to a user absolutely are allowed by Google. Sites that scrape large portions of text and don't credit it back aren't allowed and would be illegal. An example of an allowed page doing this would be a "recipe roundup" where a site lists 10 or so recipes in a particular theme (like Best Keto Breakfast Recipes) and each one links back to the original recipe with a short description. I'm not surprised this sort of "gotcha" was popular on Twitter though (and is why I don't use Twitter)
  - klyrs 5y ago
    Only, google rarely credits the sources they scraped for infoboxes.
    - weird-eye-issue 5y ago
      For things that are considered facts they don't. But for Featured Snippets they do. If something is a widely recognized fact you don't need to credit a source in your own writing too
      - squeaky-clean 5y ago
        Google gets "facts" wrong pretty often because it gathers them by scraping. There are too many possible facts for them to have all been verified by a human.
      - klyrs 5y ago
        Is some random celebrity's net worth a "widely recognized fact"? https://theoutline.com/post/1399/how-google-ate-celebritynetworth-com https://theoutline.com/post/1399/how-google-ate-celebritynet...
        weird-eye-issue 5y ago
        You did not understand my comment - I said Featured Snippets are NOT necessarily facts and DO link to the source. Featured Snippets drive a lot of traffic to sites and as a publisher I instruct my writers on how to craft their sentences to make it more likely we will get a Featured Snippet. Yes, Featured Snippets probably reduced the CTR for pages that were previously ranking #1 but that comes with an increase in user experience. Part of the confusion here stems from the fact you used an ambiguous term like "infobox" that has no real meaning and I interpreted as the box that appears on the sidebar when Googling certain topics (like somebody's name). This typically pulls data from Wikipedia and Wikidata as FACTS. So if by infobox you meant Featured Snippet then your comment was incorrect because Google does in fact always link back the original site (maybe in the last they sometimes didn't? I can't speak to that but I'm doubtful) Also I'll just say this - the website in question in that article was relying on Google for all their traffic for a very particular type of query. That is just stupid. I'm a publisher and wouldn't be able to sleep at night if my site was like theirs. Technically Net Worth is a fact and that's why Google was trying to put it in their Knowledge Graph. But since it's not typically public knowledge it becomes more of an opinion. Hence, it's a Featured Snippet with credit to the source. That site is just mad they don't always get the Featured Snippet so their traffic went down. They weren't complaining when Google was ranking them #1 were they?
- dazc 5y ago
  That did happen, as you describe it.
- random314 5y ago
  The top search result was Google scraping from wikipedia.
- wolpoli 5y ago
  > don't allow scrapers and sites that just reuse content from other sites. I remember there used to be ranking penalties against scraper sites. I have not been following Google's SEO rules in a while, so does anyone know what happened to it?
  - Implicated 5y ago
    It's essentially the 'duplicate content' penalty/penalties. [1] It's pretty ironic really... take a look at this scenario... Let's say we have Website A which we'll consider a "legitimate" website producing unique and quality content and we have Website B which is not, but it has some clever people running it's scrapers/submissions.. Developer responsible for Website B has identified that Website A produces quality content that it wants to steal - setups up a scraper to check for updates on Website A, when it finds them it will immediately scrape the content and repost it on Website B. Then they will update their sitemap and submit it to Google (or some other of the various ways to 'alert' google of a new page/updated content) which will trigger a crawl of that page/website. If this crawl/index of Website B happens before Website A - who does Google see as the producer of that content and who is now the "duplicate"? Whack-a-mole. 1: https://backlinko.com/hub/seo/duplicate-content https://backlinko.com/hub/seo/duplicate-content

resygonewrong 5y ago

I just tried making reservations for an anniversary dinner, so I Google "Obstinate Daughter" and they put up a little widget for Resy and lo and behold there are no good reservations times available despite it being zero-dark-thirty on the first day one could even make reservations for my targeted date. Now I'm a bit skeptical that the city collectively got up at the ass-crack of dawn to make a dinner reservation on a random weeknight, so I go visit the restaurant website and they have a wide open calendar. Had I not scrutinized the Google offerings the restaurant would have lost out on my business. IANAL but that whole offering on the part of Google just seems morally wrong if not some form of fraudulent.

krnlpnc 5y ago
So I wonder what's the end game of a pattern like this? Is it a shakedown type of situation where if a restaurant doesn't pay up to enable some reservations "integration" they will be shown as fully booked by default?
- kayodelycaon 5y ago
  Google does all kinds of stupid things like this. They constantly change how they interpret data and punish anyone who doesn't (or can't) follow the new rules. They'll suddenly require X to be valid against a specific standard, but the maker of the product you sell doesn't follow X. Oh, and omitting X is the same as having an invalid X. Frankly, it's ridiculous. We have to have an entire paid position just for dealing with Google's bullshit.
zerocrates 5y ago
As far as I see that restaurant just does in fact use Resy and it looks to me like Google just shows the same results the Resy site does. What they do do is just not show you times that are outside a window around the selected time (and they preselect one) so maybe that's the issue? I'm not really seeing the fraud or moral issue here. Of course the reservation system isn't the same as the ordering one and just the nature of the market makes the reservation services less problematic than the food-ordering ones.

djitz 5y ago

Yep. I noticed this when they started doing it in maps. I always wonder what their commission is, which is in turn part of the commission for Grubhub or any other food delivery service. You have to make a real effort to avoid their crap hurdles just to make it to the damn restaurant’s own website.

dvtrn 5y ago

"I shouldn't have to carefully scrutinize every link ON Google and then double check I'm actually ending up where Google said it was sending me." I've noticed it only a handful of times, but phone numbers for listings, can't be trusted either anymore [1] GrubHub also does it: there has been more than one occasion where I've searched a restaurant in a new town while traveling for work, called the phone number to inquire about a menu item thinking I was dialing the restaurant but I had instead dialed a GrubHub or Goggle contact center. At first I didn't realize what was going on, but quickly put it together after ordering from a restaurant that appeared in Google, using the "order form" and getting a phone call from a different voice telling me the item I ordered hadn't been sold by the restaurant in weeks due to sourcing issues. "I just spoke with Mark, he said you do sell it" "We don't have anyone named Mark working here" I go check the listing again, check the phone number, and ask the person on the other end of the line what the restaurant business telephone number is: sure enough it's a completely different number. Not sure how widespread this is or how to tell which restaurant phone numbers on these platforms take me to someone actually at the establishment, but....well...shit like this. [1] https://www.engadget.com/2019-08-06-grubhub-is-replacing-restaurant-phone-numbers-on-yelp.html https://www.engadget.com/2019-08-06-grubhub-is-replacing-res.... (article is from 2019 but this has happened to me as recently as oct/2021)

jimmaswell 5y ago
Do they actually pretend to be the restaurant on the phone, like they answer with "Tony's Pizza" if that's the restaurant?
- dvtrn 5y ago
  They did, yes. I’m not qualified to know whether or not this counts as some kind of fraud, but it was the final straw for me to stop using these delivery services once and for all after other unrelated negative experiences with them.
  - colejohnson66 5y ago
    IANAL, but for the websites, it's easily trademark infringement. In-N-Out notably sued DoorDash over them using the In-N-Out logo on the site.[0] It's understandable why. If a customer receives a bad order due to GrubHub, DoorDash, etc., it reflects badly on the restaurant, even if it's not their fault. See claim 29 from the filing[1]: > Defendant’s use of Plaintiff’s famous trademarks implies that Defendant not only delivers In-N-Out products to its customers, but that the quality and services offered by Defendant is the same as if consumers had made purchases directly from Plaintiff. Upon information and belief, the quality of services offered by Defendant does not at all comport with the standards that consumers expect from Plaintiff’s goods and services. Further, Plaintiff has no control over the time it takes Defendant to deliver Plaintiff’s goods to consumers, or over the temperature at which the goods are kept during delivery, nor over the food handling and safety practices of Defendant’s delivery drivers. While Plaintiff adheres to the Food Code, on information and belief, Defendant does not adhere to such regulations, including with regard to compliance with required food safety and handling practices. [0]: https://money.cnn.com/2015/11/12/technology/in-n-out-doordash-delivery-lawsuit/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2015/11/12/technology/in-n-out-doordas... [1]: https://www.eater.com/2015/11/11/9714840/in-n-out-doordash-delivery-lawsuit https://www.eater.com/2015/11/11/9714840/in-n-out-doordash-d...

acomjean 5y ago

I always try to go the website. But I think adding some murk is that some restaurants use third party order systems like by door dash via the generic: https://order.online/en-US/ https://order.online/en-US/ For example this is a doordash site (set up by the restaurant): https://order.online/business/-54797/en-US https://order.online/business/-54797/en-US A restaurant tried to call me about an order, but coming from a toll free number I ignored it. I asked them why they didn't have a local number. They could only call me back via the door dash number as my number wasn't provided to the restaurant. It was weird. Around here the local restaurant POS vendor exposed their interface online and made and app for pickups. I'll use that directly if I'm ordering from a place that uses it. Thats a little fraught too, because the staff has to learn to use that too (staff has to have some training on turing online ordering on or off..which they sometimes have forgotten to do) https://pos.toasttab.com https://pos.toasttab.com

noasaservice 5y ago
Remember, that DoorDash is YC13. Ycombinator is enabling this kind of behavior, either historically or currently. I think that YC should audit what their prospective, current, and older companies are doing, and avoid or forbid unethical and/or illegal behavior. And barring active influence, they should outwardly denounce companies that choose to engage in these kinds of scams. (I have a private plugin that does company searches and sees if they are a YC company. You'd be really surprised just how many negative articles are YC founded companies.) Edit: and the downvotes commence
- david38 5y ago
  Yea, I don’t see YC as any kind of moral filter despite it appears to have that kind of halo.
- mikestew 5y ago
  I think that YC should audit what their prospective, current, and older companies are doing, and avoid or forbid unethical and/or illegal behavior. Why do you call out YC specifically? Maybe I missed the memo, but I don't look at companies coming out of YC as being made from some special moral fiber. Quite the contrary in a lot of cases, and DoorDash is just one example. If there's anything YC is "auditing", my guess is that it's a P/L sheet, not questionable business decisions.

Unklejoe 5y ago

> I'm surprised that more restaurants aren't suing them over this. My guess is that most restaurants don’t even know where to begin when it comes to suing something like Google. At least that’s how I would feel.