7 ms·

After trying out their adwords platform for a year combined with the fact that search in general has plummeted in quality i can't wait for them to crash complet

After trying out their adwords platform for a year combined with the fact that search in general has plummeted in quality i can't wait for them to crash completely. Adwords is such a scummy endeavour that squeezes more or less all companies using it, but more so smaller players. They are not a friendly company. They are a MegaCorp that is so monopolistic and dark (design) in its behaviours it's incredible that it's legal. Hope alternatives would be better.

rightbyte 4y ago
> dark design I wonder how much of Google's revenue is from Foobarbazz Corp buying ads for Foobarbazz searches. The conversion rate for those searches is probably really high since the consumer was going there anyway. It is like a silent agreement between marketing folks and Google to pretend it is value for money.
- flik 4y ago
  Google tax. Why such patterns are not outlawed?
  - nindalf 4y ago
    Why don’t you think through the implications of your question? You say outlawed. Ok then, write a hypothetical law that would outlaw this behaviour. Remember, this law should be general enough to apply to advertising or internet advertising in general. The more specific it gets (“search engine advertising firm beginning with G”) the less likely it’ll stand up to judicial scrutiny. It would only take a second for you to realise that the answer to your question is “it’s not done because it’s hard to formulate a law that’s fair, will pass judicial review, won’t be circumvented, won’t lead to unintended consequences and will achieve the intended effect”. All that before we get to lobbying. Because even if you formulate this perfect law, there’s still an open question of how you plan to enact this legislation.
    - psychphysic 4y ago
      To be fair to both of you, yes it's a ludicrous proposal but also yes governments might enact it anyways. Most laws these days seem useless at best, Orwellian at worst.
- Adverblessly 4y ago
  > I wonder how much of Google's revenue is from Foobarbazz Corp buying ads for Foobarbazz searches. I don't know if it is a common practice or just an excpetion, but not that long ago we had this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34218340 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34218340 where two competitors of (the FOSS) Kdenlive tried to advertise on "Kdenlive" on various search engines and it seems like "They had them on Google too, but we complained and they were removed.". That made me wonder if it really is true that you must advertise on your own keywords or if you can just complain and get it removed from Google like they were able to do.
  - easton 4y ago
    Freakonomics Radio had a really good (two-parter?) episode about whether ads really work, and one of the people they had on was someone who cut eBay's ad spend a ton, and they said the one of the biggest wastes was advertising on the word "eBay". They removed those buys and sure enough people just scrolled down to click on the actual link to eBay. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-work-part-2-digital-ep-441/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-w...
TacticalCoder 4y ago
> ... i can't wait for them to crash completely. But wouldn't Google, even without search ads (which are only up +4% YOY to $40 bn), still be a hundred of billions behemoth? Sure it wouldn't have a 1.3 trillion cap without search ads but Google is also Android, Chrome, ChromeOS, Google Workspace / Google Suite (which, what, 7 millions of SMEs are using), cloud services, etc. I don't see Google "crashing completely" anytime soon.
- rollcat 4y ago
  It feels like 2007 to me again, when Vista was flopping and everyone was announcing the year of Linux on the desktop. It's definitely opening a window of opportunity for a competitor, but that doesn't guarantee anyone's success (or failure).
  - psychphysic 4y ago
    Didn't even mention YouTube. Google is so big and diverse it's easy to forget all its major bits.
- totalhack 4y ago
  They have been slowly removing targeting tools to make your spend less efficient too. You can't even target exact queries anymore without it pulling in 500 others Google's AI thinks is a match. On top of that there is definitely a pay-to-play tier if you are a huge advertiser. You'll find many of the big boys double and triple serving ads under small sub brands, which is against Google policy. You can report it and Google just ignores you. How about those pages that are just lists of more syndicated Google search ads? Clearly a "bridge page" which is a policy violation but it's some bigger spender behind it.
- wiseowise 4y ago
  Forgot YouTube, which literally has no competitors.
  - a13o 4y ago
    Maybe none for long pre-recorded video, but they haven't done a good job with YouTube Gaming or Shorts which are both defensive plays against growing competitors. YouTube's decline will look more like an unbundling than a 1:1 replacement.
contravariant 4y ago
Anyone else experienced google trying to be too clever for their own good lately? I've had a couple of searches where they incorrectly started recognising synonyms that didn't fit the context (e.g. file+extensions -> file+plugins). For now duckduckgo works a lot better when you want to search for literal keywords.
iLoveOncall 4y ago
> combined with the fact that search in general has plummeted in quality Every time this comes up I am baffled. I have not noticed a single drop in the quality of results. Every time someone said that and shared their search methodology, it became very apparent that the problem was not with Google.
- darepublic 4y ago
  My example of lower quality is: Programming question searches recently dominated by sites with bot generated content aggregation taken from sources like stack overflow, instead of sources like stack overflow
  - acdha 4y ago
    That’s mine as well: it’s not a million spam sites but the same few for many years. I know it’s an arms race with spammers but they could pay a single person ¼ time to make some big improvements in user experience.
ksec 4y ago
>They are a MegaCorp that is so monopolistic and dark (design) in its behaviours You mean the once self claimed most righteous Do No Evil company and now currently the 2nd most righteous company are monopolistic and employ dark design patterns?

rightbyte 4y ago

> dark design I wonder how much of Google's revenue is from Foobarbazz Corp buying ads for Foobarbazz searches. The conversion rate for those searches is probably really high since the consumer was going there anyway. It is like a silent agreement between marketing folks and Google to pretend it is value for money.

flik 4y ago
Google tax. Why such patterns are not outlawed?
- nindalf 4y ago
  Why don’t you think through the implications of your question? You say outlawed. Ok then, write a hypothetical law that would outlaw this behaviour. Remember, this law should be general enough to apply to advertising or internet advertising in general. The more specific it gets (“search engine advertising firm beginning with G”) the less likely it’ll stand up to judicial scrutiny. It would only take a second for you to realise that the answer to your question is “it’s not done because it’s hard to formulate a law that’s fair, will pass judicial review, won’t be circumvented, won’t lead to unintended consequences and will achieve the intended effect”. All that before we get to lobbying. Because even if you formulate this perfect law, there’s still an open question of how you plan to enact this legislation.
  - psychphysic 4y ago
    To be fair to both of you, yes it's a ludicrous proposal but also yes governments might enact it anyways. Most laws these days seem useless at best, Orwellian at worst.
Adverblessly 4y ago
> I wonder how much of Google's revenue is from Foobarbazz Corp buying ads for Foobarbazz searches. I don't know if it is a common practice or just an excpetion, but not that long ago we had this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34218340 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34218340 where two competitors of (the FOSS) Kdenlive tried to advertise on "Kdenlive" on various search engines and it seems like "They had them on Google too, but we complained and they were removed.". That made me wonder if it really is true that you must advertise on your own keywords or if you can just complain and get it removed from Google like they were able to do.
- easton 4y ago
  Freakonomics Radio had a really good (two-parter?) episode about whether ads really work, and one of the people they had on was someone who cut eBay's ad spend a ton, and they said the one of the biggest wastes was advertising on the word "eBay". They removed those buys and sure enough people just scrolled down to click on the actual link to eBay. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-work-part-2-digital-ep-441/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-w...

TacticalCoder 4y ago

> ... i can't wait for them to crash completely. But wouldn't Google, even without search ads (which are only up +4% YOY to $40 bn), still be a hundred of billions behemoth? Sure it wouldn't have a 1.3 trillion cap without search ads but Google is also Android, Chrome, ChromeOS, Google Workspace / Google Suite (which, what, 7 millions of SMEs are using), cloud services, etc. I don't see Google "crashing completely" anytime soon.

rollcat 4y ago
It feels like 2007 to me again, when Vista was flopping and everyone was announcing the year of Linux on the desktop. It's definitely opening a window of opportunity for a competitor, but that doesn't guarantee anyone's success (or failure).
- psychphysic 4y ago
  Didn't even mention YouTube. Google is so big and diverse it's easy to forget all its major bits.
totalhack 4y ago
They have been slowly removing targeting tools to make your spend less efficient too. You can't even target exact queries anymore without it pulling in 500 others Google's AI thinks is a match. On top of that there is definitely a pay-to-play tier if you are a huge advertiser. You'll find many of the big boys double and triple serving ads under small sub brands, which is against Google policy. You can report it and Google just ignores you. How about those pages that are just lists of more syndicated Google search ads? Clearly a "bridge page" which is a policy violation but it's some bigger spender behind it.
wiseowise 4y ago
Forgot YouTube, which literally has no competitors.
- a13o 4y ago
  Maybe none for long pre-recorded video, but they haven't done a good job with YouTube Gaming or Shorts which are both defensive plays against growing competitors. YouTube's decline will look more like an unbundling than a 1:1 replacement.

contravariant 4y ago

Anyone else experienced google trying to be too clever for their own good lately? I've had a couple of searches where they incorrectly started recognising synonyms that didn't fit the context (e.g. file+extensions -> file+plugins). For now duckduckgo works a lot better when you want to search for literal keywords.

iLoveOncall 4y ago

> combined with the fact that search in general has plummeted in quality Every time this comes up I am baffled. I have not noticed a single drop in the quality of results. Every time someone said that and shared their search methodology, it became very apparent that the problem was not with Google.

darepublic 4y ago
My example of lower quality is: Programming question searches recently dominated by sites with bot generated content aggregation taken from sources like stack overflow, instead of sources like stack overflow
- acdha 4y ago
  That’s mine as well: it’s not a million spam sites but the same few for many years. I know it’s an arms race with spammers but they could pay a single person ¼ time to make some big improvements in user experience.

ksec 4y ago

>They are a MegaCorp that is so monopolistic and dark (design) in its behaviours You mean the once self claimed most righteous Do No Evil company and now currently the 2nd most righteous company are monopolistic and employ dark design patterns?