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Actually, I would really hope they do. One of the principles behind Google's ad systems is that they're useful for users and advertisers, that a good ad can ben

Actually, I would really hope they do. One of the principles behind Google's ad systems is that they're useful for users and advertisers, that a good ad can benefit everyone involved. If they show me an ad for something that my friends have negatively reviewed, I damn well want to see those negative reviews right along-side the ad. Disclaimer: Googler

cloudwalking 13y ago
Better yet, Google should not show ads for products that my friends rate poorly...
- spankalee 13y ago
  Good point. I've always thought that ads that were reviewed, and could be reviewed very negatively, would be an interesting check on scams and bad products. You gladly take the advertisers money, but if people rate the ad poorly it's a waste and possibly negative value. This might encourage good ads and ads for good products.
- nooneelse 13y ago
  But I (and probably no one) trust(s) all my friends about every topic or type of product/service. So better to show me the ad and which friend(s) gave the review so I can determine if that is actually a mark against the ad or not.
- notatoad 13y ago
  that sounds like a really good idea, both from a consumer perspective and an advertiser perspective. i don't want to see ads for things that my friends don't think i'd be interested in, and i don't want to pay to have my ads shown to people whose friends are just going to warn them away from me.
md224 13y ago
Honest question: how do you rationalize the influence of bid amount on AdWords ad positioning? In other words, if two companies buy ad space, and one of the ads has a slightly lower quality score but a much higher bid price, it will be placed above the higher quality ad. How does this benefit users? Isn't this detrimental to the quality of the information being presented? If a recommendation service prioritizes a recommendation because it was paid more to do so, isn't that akin to bribery? Why have we normalized the morality of this kind of business practice?
- spankalee 13y ago
  I don't know a ton about how it works (but there are articles out there), but as far as I do know, the quality, CTR and bid amount are all considered in the ranking so that an ad with a lower bid amount, but higher quality can easily show above the lower quality ad.
  - md224 13y ago
    That's fair. I realize that bid amount is just one factor among a few, but I suppose my concern stems from the fact that there is a positive correlation between bid price and ad ranking at all. To put it another way: increasing bid price, all other things being equal, will increase ad ranking. I would posit that this relationship has zero benefit for the ad consumer, and may even serve as a detrimental force, essentially degrading the relationship between ad ranking and ad quality by introducing a completely arbitrary factor. (I believe some economists have postulated that the amount a company spends on advertising actually serves as an informational signal about the quality of the underlying product. I'm doubtful, but I'll admit it's a potential weakness in my argument.) As far as I can tell, the only reason AdWords uses a bid auction system is to make more money; I would be interested to hear how factoring money into ad ranking could possibly add value to AdWords for the end-user.
    - lstamour 13y ago
      It's interesting -- how does Google actually measure quality? The naive approach would be to measure the number of clicks an ad attracts, as an initial indication of usefulness is how many people click. But that encourages ads that look like search results, frankly. Or ads for products people would have naturally found through organic searching. And Google's never point-blank asked me if I found an ad useful, though perhaps they could time how quickly I clicked another link from the same search result, and how often advertisers themselves keep paying for the same keywords. Ultimately, ads need to make more money for a company than they cost to run. And my main issue is I'm being sold twice here -- first by being shown ads, and second by being featured in ads. This "double dipping" seems a bit much to me, so I opted out.
lsc 13y ago
>Actually, I would really hope they do. One of the principles behind Google's ad systems is that they're useful for users and advertisers, that a good ad can benefit everyone involved. ... >Disclaimer: Googler I actually think this is both a strength and a weakness of google. They've gotten their (often very smart) employees to believe the company line. I mean, don't get me wrong; I think that google ads (at least, before the doubleclick thing) are less bad than most ads online. They are less annoying. And yes, consumers benefit from some of the things paid for by advertising, so I can understand the argument that google is overall good for consumers, because they use ads that are less annoying than usual for services that are actually worth paying for. In a real sense, google has lowered the "price" consumers pay for services and content that is paid for by advertising. However, this isn't what you are saying. You are saying that ads in and of themselves are good for consumers. that it's /better/ to find a product through paid advertising than through 'organic' search results, as if an advertiser has an interest in giving the customer the lowest possible price, or the best possible service for a given price. Most people outside the advertising industry find that position laughable. Now, on the surface, this looks good for google. Employees buy the company line. And really, it seems like it's probably a useful way for an Engineer who is building an advertising platform to look at the problem. You want your ads to harm the consumer as little as possible, and your employees will feel better about building something to help people instead of building something to trick people. But, I think, if you dig deeper, there are problems. Because the company line is false (and it is in nearly all companies; I'm not singling google out on that part. The difference is that at most companies, nobody buys the company line.) you have employees with a false worldview, which can lead to incorrect decisions. Because Google employees seem to feel that google has the best interests of the customer at heart, it becomes quite difficult for google employees, then, to predict when the rest of us (who assume that google does not have our best interests at heart) will feel that they've crossed the 'creepy' line. At a more systemic level, within the space of running a search engine people use to find products and running advertising in the same space you will always have a conflict of interest. The better your organic search results are, the less likely the user is going to click on an ad. Google employees believing that the ad really is the best result will accelerate that process. (of course, for now, google has such a good reputation that this doesn't matter until someone becomes better than them at search by a noticeable margin. I think it's a long-term problem, while the "don't be creepy" issue is more immediately urgent, but is easier for google to ameliorate that issue in the long term. )

cloudwalking 13y ago

Better yet, Google should not show ads for products that my friends rate poorly...

spankalee 13y ago
Good point. I've always thought that ads that were reviewed, and could be reviewed very negatively, would be an interesting check on scams and bad products. You gladly take the advertisers money, but if people rate the ad poorly it's a waste and possibly negative value. This might encourage good ads and ads for good products.
nooneelse 13y ago
But I (and probably no one) trust(s) all my friends about every topic or type of product/service. So better to show me the ad and which friend(s) gave the review so I can determine if that is actually a mark against the ad or not.
notatoad 13y ago
that sounds like a really good idea, both from a consumer perspective and an advertiser perspective. i don't want to see ads for things that my friends don't think i'd be interested in, and i don't want to pay to have my ads shown to people whose friends are just going to warn them away from me.

md224 13y ago

Honest question: how do you rationalize the influence of bid amount on AdWords ad positioning? In other words, if two companies buy ad space, and one of the ads has a slightly lower quality score but a much higher bid price, it will be placed above the higher quality ad. How does this benefit users? Isn't this detrimental to the quality of the information being presented? If a recommendation service prioritizes a recommendation because it was paid more to do so, isn't that akin to bribery? Why have we normalized the morality of this kind of business practice?

spankalee 13y ago
I don't know a ton about how it works (but there are articles out there), but as far as I do know, the quality, CTR and bid amount are all considered in the ranking so that an ad with a lower bid amount, but higher quality can easily show above the lower quality ad.
- md224 13y ago
  That's fair. I realize that bid amount is just one factor among a few, but I suppose my concern stems from the fact that there is a positive correlation between bid price and ad ranking at all. To put it another way: increasing bid price, all other things being equal, will increase ad ranking. I would posit that this relationship has zero benefit for the ad consumer, and may even serve as a detrimental force, essentially degrading the relationship between ad ranking and ad quality by introducing a completely arbitrary factor. (I believe some economists have postulated that the amount a company spends on advertising actually serves as an informational signal about the quality of the underlying product. I'm doubtful, but I'll admit it's a potential weakness in my argument.) As far as I can tell, the only reason AdWords uses a bid auction system is to make more money; I would be interested to hear how factoring money into ad ranking could possibly add value to AdWords for the end-user.
  - lstamour 13y ago
    It's interesting -- how does Google actually measure quality? The naive approach would be to measure the number of clicks an ad attracts, as an initial indication of usefulness is how many people click. But that encourages ads that look like search results, frankly. Or ads for products people would have naturally found through organic searching. And Google's never point-blank asked me if I found an ad useful, though perhaps they could time how quickly I clicked another link from the same search result, and how often advertisers themselves keep paying for the same keywords. Ultimately, ads need to make more money for a company than they cost to run. And my main issue is I'm being sold twice here -- first by being shown ads, and second by being featured in ads. This "double dipping" seems a bit much to me, so I opted out.

lsc 13y ago

>Actually, I would really hope they do. One of the principles behind Google's ad systems is that they're useful for users and advertisers, that a good ad can benefit everyone involved. ... >Disclaimer: Googler I actually think this is both a strength and a weakness of google. They've gotten their (often very smart) employees to believe the company line. I mean, don't get me wrong; I think that google ads (at least, before the doubleclick thing) are less bad than most ads online. They are less annoying. And yes, consumers benefit from some of the things paid for by advertising, so I can understand the argument that google is overall good for consumers, because they use ads that are less annoying than usual for services that are actually worth paying for. In a real sense, google has lowered the "price" consumers pay for services and content that is paid for by advertising. However, this isn't what you are saying. You are saying that ads in and of themselves are good for consumers. that it's /better/ to find a product through paid advertising than through 'organic' search results, as if an advertiser has an interest in giving the customer the lowest possible price, or the best possible service for a given price. Most people outside the advertising industry find that position laughable. Now, on the surface, this looks good for google. Employees buy the company line. And really, it seems like it's probably a useful way for an Engineer who is building an advertising platform to look at the problem. You want your ads to harm the consumer as little as possible, and your employees will feel better about building something to help people instead of building something to trick people. But, I think, if you dig deeper, there are problems. Because the company line is false (and it is in nearly all companies; I'm not singling google out on that part. The difference is that at most companies, nobody buys the company line.) you have employees with a false worldview, which can lead to incorrect decisions. Because Google employees seem to feel that google has the best interests of the customer at heart, it becomes quite difficult for google employees, then, to predict when the rest of us (who assume that google does not have our best interests at heart) will feel that they've crossed the 'creepy' line. At a more systemic level, within the space of running a search engine people use to find products and running advertising in the same space you will always have a conflict of interest. The better your organic search results are, the less likely the user is going to click on an ad. Google employees believing that the ad really is the best result will accelerate that process. (of course, for now, google has such a good reputation that this doesn't matter until someone becomes better than them at search by a noticeable margin. I think it's a long-term problem, while the "don't be creepy" issue is more immediately urgent, but is easier for google to ameliorate that issue in the long term. )