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I mean if your site is trying to deceive visitors then sure. If I search for Nike and I get an ad for N1ke.com then yeah that's bad. But if I search for Nike an

I mean if your site is trying to deceive visitors then sure. If I search for Nike and I get an ad for N1ke.com then yeah that's bad. But if I search for Nike and I see an ad for Adidas and I proceed to buy Adidas shoes then I guess I didn't really want Nike that much to begin with?

harry8 3y ago
But 99.999% of the time someone searching for jkl corp, gets and ad for jkl corp that jkl corp paid for and clicks it because it's at the top of the results. It's PURE google protection racket money paid by jkl corp so it gets the traffic of people who want to visit jkl corp. Mafia as business model is one of the many evils that google does and is.
- bagacrap 3y ago
  Jkl corp doesn't have to buy ads. Users will still be able to find it via Google. I challenge you to find a company for which its site is not discoverable via Google search. If users who really want to go to jkl corp actually can't find it via Google, then they'll probably stop relying on Google to find things.
  - harry8 3y ago
    There are examples given in this very thread of people being conned by clicking the top link which was an ad interposed by google when someone was trying to get the website of their bank.
    - emodendroket 3y ago
      But that's because of the phishing aspect. If a search for "Chase mortgages" leads me to Bank of America mortgages through an ad, there's no deception going on.
      - harry8 3y ago
        so why do you think companies buy their own trade marked brands as keywords so that they can pay google for their organic traffic? Because they're idiots? Why do you think google moved the ads from the side where they were clearly marked and obviously not search results to the top of the search results and made it much harder to tell "this link is actually an ad"? I mean obviously for money but why do you think it made them money? What do you think of google's plans to offer deep discounts to advertisers for traffic from keyword searches for their brand or corporate identity? Reasonable?
        emodendroket 3y ago
        They'd probably rather that you didn't consider their competitors.
        harry8 3y ago
        So there'd be no issue in google getting ads well away and separate from search results in an obvious way like they use to. Wouldn't hurt their revenue in that case. Top result is actually the result you were looking for. Ads to the right, shaded background. No problem at all, right? They'd all still pay just as much for their own brand names in keyword advertising. And there would be the exact same number of clicks of it. I don't believe that and i'm not sure how anyone does tbh.
- milemi 3y ago
  People used to buy consumer electronic magazines for product reviews, and those magazines had pages of flashy ads at the beginning. I guess that was mafia stuff too. Or just one of million examples of an advertising-based business model.
  - harry8 3y ago
    when you rang the shop to buy, did the phone company make them pay to direct the call the way you wanted? You want your traffic? Pay /us/ for the privilege.
    - milemi 3y ago
      Did the phone company provide the service for free or did you have to pay the phone bill? Congratulations on discovering how advertising works.
      - harry8 3y ago
        The condescension is unnecessary and against the guidelines around here. Did the phone company put your calls through to your competitor if you paid them to do that or would they be in big trouble for doing so. It's not "advertising" it's getting between you and your customers and tolling the infrastructure to the highest bidder. The phone company was regulated very heavily as a utility just like google isn't.
        bagacrap 3y ago
        Google isn't redirecting DNS lookups. Google is much closer to the yellow pages, which if you hadn't noticed is full of both paid and unpaid content.
        harry8 3y ago
        Yellow pages is regulated and static - the same for everyone. Perhaps this is the answer for how to treat google? Regulate them heavily and ensure they show the same thing to everyone? Interesting suggestion you're making.
emodendroket 3y ago
Yeah, that seems completely fine to me, arguably even useful

harry8 3y ago

But 99.999% of the time someone searching for jkl corp, gets and ad for jkl corp that jkl corp paid for and clicks it because it's at the top of the results. It's PURE google protection racket money paid by jkl corp so it gets the traffic of people who want to visit jkl corp. Mafia as business model is one of the many evils that google does and is.

bagacrap 3y ago
Jkl corp doesn't have to buy ads. Users will still be able to find it via Google. I challenge you to find a company for which its site is not discoverable via Google search. If users who really want to go to jkl corp actually can't find it via Google, then they'll probably stop relying on Google to find things.
- harry8 3y ago
  There are examples given in this very thread of people being conned by clicking the top link which was an ad interposed by google when someone was trying to get the website of their bank.
  - emodendroket 3y ago
    But that's because of the phishing aspect. If a search for "Chase mortgages" leads me to Bank of America mortgages through an ad, there's no deception going on.
    - harry8 3y ago
      so why do you think companies buy their own trade marked brands as keywords so that they can pay google for their organic traffic? Because they're idiots? Why do you think google moved the ads from the side where they were clearly marked and obviously not search results to the top of the search results and made it much harder to tell "this link is actually an ad"? I mean obviously for money but why do you think it made them money? What do you think of google's plans to offer deep discounts to advertisers for traffic from keyword searches for their brand or corporate identity? Reasonable?
      - emodendroket 3y ago
        They'd probably rather that you didn't consider their competitors.
        harry8 3y ago
        So there'd be no issue in google getting ads well away and separate from search results in an obvious way like they use to. Wouldn't hurt their revenue in that case. Top result is actually the result you were looking for. Ads to the right, shaded background. No problem at all, right? They'd all still pay just as much for their own brand names in keyword advertising. And there would be the exact same number of clicks of it. I don't believe that and i'm not sure how anyone does tbh.
milemi 3y ago
People used to buy consumer electronic magazines for product reviews, and those magazines had pages of flashy ads at the beginning. I guess that was mafia stuff too. Or just one of million examples of an advertising-based business model.
- harry8 3y ago
  when you rang the shop to buy, did the phone company make them pay to direct the call the way you wanted? You want your traffic? Pay /us/ for the privilege.
  - milemi 3y ago
    Did the phone company provide the service for free or did you have to pay the phone bill? Congratulations on discovering how advertising works.
    - harry8 3y ago
      The condescension is unnecessary and against the guidelines around here. Did the phone company put your calls through to your competitor if you paid them to do that or would they be in big trouble for doing so. It's not "advertising" it's getting between you and your customers and tolling the infrastructure to the highest bidder. The phone company was regulated very heavily as a utility just like google isn't.
      - bagacrap 3y ago
        Google isn't redirecting DNS lookups. Google is much closer to the yellow pages, which if you hadn't noticed is full of both paid and unpaid content.
        harry8 3y ago
        Yellow pages is regulated and static - the same for everyone. Perhaps this is the answer for how to treat google? Regulate them heavily and ensure they show the same thing to everyone? Interesting suggestion you're making.

emodendroket 3y ago

Yeah, that seems completely fine to me, arguably even useful