4 ms·

> relevant material provided to us Sure would be nice if the material was provided to us too. Or write an article explaining clearly how the original info was

> relevant material provided to us Sure would be nice if the material was provided to us too. Or write an article explaining clearly how the original info was misconstrued. Simply deleting it (edit: instead of replacing it with a clarification so anyone who goes to read the wrong info gets the corrected one) really sends a wrong message, both about Wired and Google.

pierat 3y ago
[flagged]
- ludwik 3y ago
  Or maybe simply "the information is demonstrably untrue and we can prove it"?
  - pierat 3y ago
    That's the nice way to cheat with AI. It takes a probabilistic set of inquiries to discern the truth. And right now, I'm in my states capitol, looking for a restaurant... Using Google maps. And when I searched for restaurants, was given an advertised 'optimized' curated set of restaurants. And within walking distance, they're missing easily half of the restaurants. Now, which half are they missing? The small one-off places just aren't here on a search. HOWEVER, if you zoom in all the way, then those less-indexed restaurants FINALLY show up. I'm sitting in 1 of those deindexed eateries right now. So yeah, the article's true and has been for a while now.
r721 3y ago
Maybe they meant a longer version of this tweet: https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1709726778170786297 https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1709726778170786297 (via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37802302 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37802302)
- tyingq 3y ago
  "The organic (IE: non-sponsored) results you see in Search are not affected by our ads systems." Uh, other than being pushed off the visible page, I guess?
  - judge2020 3y ago
    Yep. It's obvious that they design for you to click ads, but it was fairly rocky suggesting that the backend reaches out to the ad system. This wouldn't just destroy results, but also run afoul of FCC Ad disclosure requirements.
    - zo1 3y ago
      So is no one questioning that maybe the search subsystem talks to the "website score" (or whatever it's called in Google-speak), to determine if it's relevant? And perhaps that score is influenced by how many valid ads there are. Maybe the score is simply highly-correlated with a site that shows many google ads? Think about it, someone that shows Google ads happens to also be very very keen on optimizing everything that affects their rankings in Google searches. Hey Google, perhaps "displaying many Google ads" should be a negative on page-rank?
      - judge2020 3y ago
        Regardless, the Wired piece had no evidence and didn't make a claim on the same basis as what you're suggesting. The opinion author mistook this feature by thinking it applied to organic results: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/10286719?hl=en https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/10286719?hl=en
  - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
    That's a very fair point, and I've complained about that degradation on Google many, many times over the years on HN, but I also don't think that's what Google was responding to. The Wired article has been taken down, but I'm assuming it was arguing that Google would change organic results to get more ad clicks. Google is saying here that ad results and organic results are 2 independent, orthogonal systems. Again, your point is one I strongly agree with, but it's also taken out-of-context with respect to the article Google was responding to.
granzymes 3y ago
The relevant material was almost certainly the slide that the article was mischaracterizing: https://twitter.com/adamkovac/status/1710041764910846061 https://twitter.com/adamkovac/status/1710041764910846061 I wish WIRED had included this context in their retraction statement…

pierat 3y ago

[flagged]

ludwik 3y ago
Or maybe simply "the information is demonstrably untrue and we can prove it"?
- pierat 3y ago
  That's the nice way to cheat with AI. It takes a probabilistic set of inquiries to discern the truth. And right now, I'm in my states capitol, looking for a restaurant... Using Google maps. And when I searched for restaurants, was given an advertised 'optimized' curated set of restaurants. And within walking distance, they're missing easily half of the restaurants. Now, which half are they missing? The small one-off places just aren't here on a search. HOWEVER, if you zoom in all the way, then those less-indexed restaurants FINALLY show up. I'm sitting in 1 of those deindexed eateries right now. So yeah, the article's true and has been for a while now.

r721 3y ago

Maybe they meant a longer version of this tweet: https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1709726778170786297 https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1709726778170786297 (via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37802302 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37802302)

tyingq 3y ago
"The organic (IE: non-sponsored) results you see in Search are not affected by our ads systems." Uh, other than being pushed off the visible page, I guess?
- judge2020 3y ago
  Yep. It's obvious that they design for you to click ads, but it was fairly rocky suggesting that the backend reaches out to the ad system. This wouldn't just destroy results, but also run afoul of FCC Ad disclosure requirements.
  - zo1 3y ago
    So is no one questioning that maybe the search subsystem talks to the "website score" (or whatever it's called in Google-speak), to determine if it's relevant? And perhaps that score is influenced by how many valid ads there are. Maybe the score is simply highly-correlated with a site that shows many google ads? Think about it, someone that shows Google ads happens to also be very very keen on optimizing everything that affects their rankings in Google searches. Hey Google, perhaps "displaying many Google ads" should be a negative on page-rank?
    - judge2020 3y ago
      Regardless, the Wired piece had no evidence and didn't make a claim on the same basis as what you're suggesting. The opinion author mistook this feature by thinking it applied to organic results: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/10286719?hl=en https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/10286719?hl=en
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  That's a very fair point, and I've complained about that degradation on Google many, many times over the years on HN, but I also don't think that's what Google was responding to. The Wired article has been taken down, but I'm assuming it was arguing that Google would change organic results to get more ad clicks. Google is saying here that ad results and organic results are 2 independent, orthogonal systems. Again, your point is one I strongly agree with, but it's also taken out-of-context with respect to the article Google was responding to.

granzymes 3y ago

The relevant material was almost certainly the slide that the article was mischaracterizing: https://twitter.com/adamkovac/status/1710041764910846061 https://twitter.com/adamkovac/status/1710041764910846061 I wish WIRED had included this context in their retraction statement…