10 ms·

Google breaks 2005 promise never to show banner ads on search results

245 points by saurabh 13y ago

6thSigma 13y ago
This doesn't really meet my definition of a banner ad.
AbraKdabra 13y ago
This fits perfectly with the ad designer that Google released weeks ago.
wodow 13y ago
Are there any example URLs? https://www.google.com/search?q=SouthWest%20Airlines https://www.google.com/search?q=SouthWest%20Airlines doesn't do it for me at the moment, from the UK.
- jmduke 13y ago
  The banner ad (I hesitate to describe it as that, since its so clean) appears for me in the US.
  - pmelendez 13y ago
    Well.. it is a banner and the company is paying for it so it is an ad. In my opinion the cleanness of the banner should not interfere with the description of being an ad.
- randlet 13y ago
  This is addressed directly in the article. "We're currently running a very limited, US-only test, in which advertisers can include an image as part of the search ads that show in response to certain branded queries."
  - petepete 13y ago
    I think "certain branded queries" are the key words here; if that style of banner is displayed for more generic searches (simply 'Airlines', for example) I think people would quickly become frustrated with the experience and move on. When searching for a particular airline, being confronted with a photograph of one of their aeroplanes isn't the end of the world.
- jdmichal 13y ago
  The article specifically called out that this is a US-only test. That said, I also do not see any banner on this particular search.
danso 13y ago
So how much of the reluctance to use banner ads can be attributed to Mayer, or, the subsequent reneging to her leaving? The screenshot follows kind of the same look of Google+'s banner (er Facebook's), so since + is supposed to be the new thing, and it has space for gaudy banners, why not throw it on search too? Still, seems like a slightly regressive strategy...I thought the traditional Google Homepage was becoming less of a revenue driver compared to all the other way results are traffic driver?
- judk 13y ago
  Corporations can't make promises. People do.
- AJ007 13y ago
  Google has gotten much more aggressive amount monetizing their existing inventory. They have been rapidly iterating Adsense unit designs that were fixed for 6+ years. Search engine optimizers (of which I'm not one) have been terrified as they've watched ads creep over the search results and new elements push organic listings lower and lower.
7952 13y ago
At least banner ads are obviously adverts. It can be quite difficult to differentiate between ads and searches in certain situations (like tilted screens).
TomGullen 13y ago
Corporate promises aren't worth a dime as history has shown repeatedly. In fact, corporations (especially large ones) can't ever be trusted for pretty much anything and anything they say or do you should always react sceptically by default. They just don't care, and this lack of caring is an inevitability for growing corporations. Granted some might consider this to be a minor breach of a promise, some might not. The point still stands.
- alan_cx 13y ago
  No, no, no. You can absolutely trust them if they are say "we are doing this to maximize profits for our share holders / owners". Then, what is this expectation that one should be able to trust them to do anything else at all? Surely the mere existence of consumer law should tell us something.
  - anon1385 13y ago
    >You can absolutely trust them if they are say "we are doing this to maximize profits for our share holders / owners". Eh, not necessarily. Enron executive said what they were doing was to maximise share holder value, but really it was to maximise their own wealth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_fraud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_fraud
DjangoReinhardt 13y ago
Not the first time, I must add. When Orkut was all the rage, Google claimed that Orkut would never be merged with the Google core and would remain separate to Google. The same seems tobe happening with YouTube. Sure, they still allow users to keep their YT & Google identities separate but IDK how long that will last. Remember when they claimed their motto was 'Don't be evil'? (NB: Before you come screaming at me for making vague accusations, please take that previous sentence with a pinch of '/s'. Thank you.)
- rajivtiru 13y ago
  Umm they forced me(as in I wasn't able to use youtube otherwise) to connect my Google account to my Youtube so...that is pretty much combining the accounts in my book. I think, they just needed that to collect my aggregate search+video watching behavior for ad targeting, which they got.
DanBC 13y ago
> The company gained attention when it started in 1998 because its opening search page, and following results page, was uncluttered by adverts and other elements Google isn't what it was, and Google wants many more users than they can get from keeping just the early adopters. People use Google like a portal. This is just Google giving in.
hughes 13y ago
If that's a banner ad, it's the most relevant, pleasant, and appropriate banner ad I've ever seen. It's directly related to the search term and is not obnoxious in the least. If all ads were such high quality I'd have no problems with this (but would still probably use adblock!).
- bovermyer 13y ago
  I agree completely. I'm not opposed to banner ads as long as they are relevant to my present task. Nor do I take issue with Google changing its stance in this way. Corporations change with the times.
mknits 13y ago
Their tagline should be changed to - "Be Evil".
jakozaur 13y ago
Over the years Google is way more aggressive with ads then it used to be. For any query less and less percentage of first page is dedicate to organic example. E.g. a silly example: https://www.google.com/search?q=trash+can https://www.google.com/search?q=trash+can 25-30% organic, rest are the adds.
- gabemart 13y ago
  That's strange. Even without an ad blocker, I see 0 ads on that SERP.
  - icebraining 13y ago
    Ads (as well as other results) are very personalized. I don't see any ads either.
- raldi 13y ago
  Can you post a screenshot? I don't see what you describe when I click the link. Also, do you get better results on another search engine? If so, which one?
  - buo 13y ago
    I see plenty of ads: http://imgur.com/bMUkCwi http://imgur.com/bMUkCwi The same search on DDG gets me exactly one ad.
  - jakozaur 13y ago
    http://imgur.com/ddGJeaI http://imgur.com/ddGJeaI Most of keywords with any commercial potential looks similar. Unfortunately, I tried using other search engines, but for technical questions Google still provide superior experience.
    - raldi 13y ago
      What 10 links would a hypothetically perfect search engine return for that query? Edit: Judging from the replies, many of you seem to think my question was "how many ads would a perfect search engine show?" Please note that this is not what I asked.
jeffclark 13y ago
In related news: I am no longer with my college girlfriend, despite the fact that 8 years ago I told her I would never leave her.
- pmelendez 13y ago
  And... Did you leave her? or just break up as a common agreement? In legalese language, I am pretty sure that a promise is synonym of contract, and contracts might be dissolved if both sides of the contract agreed. This being an open promise is not a contract but a reaffirmation of a goal, since people change is regrettable but OK to break promises to ourselves sometimes when the interest of the goal had changed.
  - raldi 13y ago
    > In legalese language, I am pretty sure that a promise is synonym of contract You are 100% wrong.
    - pmelendez 13y ago
      From Wikipedia article: [1] "In the law of contract, an exchange of promises is usually held to be legally enforceable, according to the Latin maxim pacta sunt servanda." [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promise http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promise
      - raldi 13y ago
        "Exchange" is the critical word. A single promise is extraordinarily different, in the legal world, from a contract.
        pmelendez 13y ago
        Ok, let's try with another wikipedia article: [1] "A contract is a legally enforceable promise or undertaking that something will or will not occur. * The word promise can be used as a legal synonym for contract *,[2] although care is required as a promise may not have the full standing of a contract, as when it is an agreement without consideration" Emphasis is mine :) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_law
wnevets 13y ago
If I search for southwest airlines, is that image truly a banner ad?
- pmelendez 13y ago
  In the moment when Southwest airlines paid for it is an advertising piece indeed. And to remove any shadow of doubt if you can't see a similar image when you search for American Airlines or Jetblue then it is clear that Google is favouring results against other companies in the same industry.
  - wnevets 13y ago
    My point is if I search for jetblue and I dont get the southwest image that's not a banner ad, at least not in the traditional sense. If fact if you search for southwest without being in this test group you'll see a southwest image on the right side. Is that a banner ad, if so these images are old news. Now if I were to search for plane tickets and get the southwest image, that's a banner ad.
    - pmelendez 13y ago
      Under that razor... if you search for southwest airlines and between the results you get a Adwords of Southwest, then that won't be an ad because is in the result page of the same thing I was searching?
      - wnevets 13y ago
        As a user, sure why not? Why does it matter whether the link you want is within the ad words box or under it? If you're searching for southwest airlines you obviously want the southwest homepage. Now southwest probably sees it different since they're paying for ad words but that's a different conversation
        pmelendez 13y ago
        > "southwest probably sees it different since they're paying for ad words but that's a different conversation" Fair enough :)
yeukhon 13y ago
If it is relevant to my search and the image gives better impression of the product, I am okay with that. Though people forget about their promises. But I am against having multiple banners. I am okay with say "search Amazon" and return amazon's latest banner on thanksgiving sale deal. Just one, a good one, reasonable size, and that's it.
nandhp 13y ago
> Based on your search query, we think you are trying to find a specific brand. This box provides information about that brand. The brand owner is sponsoring this collection of content, some of which would appear even without this sponsorship. The brand owner is compensating Google and providing images and other content relevant to the brand. This is replacing Southwest's search result. It's noteworthy to me that only "some" of this content would appear without sponsership. So not only are they showing "banner ads" in search results (that's a little bit of a stretch), but it's a bit like them allowing compensated reordering of search results. How's Bing these days?
shortformblog 13y ago
This isn't a banner ad. This is essentially a branded search. It's not like Google is targeting users with Flash-based crud here. To call it a banner ad is kind of silly.
- nodata 13y ago
  Somebody works in marketing :)
  - freehunter 13y ago
    I actually have to agree somewhat, though (and I don't work in marketing). If you search for Southwest Airlines, why should Southwest Airlines not be the top result? Google has been showing pictures and information about people, products, and companies for quite a while now (https://www.google.com/#q=paul+graham https://www.google.com/#q=paul+graham), and shows commonly visited links off the main page of a website (as shown in that search for Paul Graham, they sub-link to his essays and other commonly visited pages). It's very clear the intent of searching for Southwest Airlines; to get information about Southwest Airlines. The only difference between this result and any other result is that Southwest told Google what to put as their picture and sub-links, and Google made them pay for it. Searching for American Airlines shows almost exactly the same thing, except it's automatically populated by Google's engine, rather than being paid for.
    - milliams 13y ago
      it shows banner ads for companies including SouthWest Airlines on pages which include them in web search results. It's not just 'If you search for Southwest Airlines'. It's if in the list of results for the thing you searched for there's a Southwest Airlines page. It could be coincidental but suddenly you have a large advertisement at the top of your page. It wouldn't be outside the bounds of possibility for this to encourage Google to rank Southwest Airlines pages more highly so that they can show the banner, thereby generating more revenue.
      - 13y ago
asdf001 13y ago
Interesting how this submission went from being #1 20 minutes ago, to #5 15 minutes ago and now is sitting at #9, despite the fact that the number of upvotes increased. Google workers mass flagging this submission? Don't be evil.
- freehunter 13y ago
  As was talked about with the recent controversy of Nokia and Microsoft news being penalized while Apple news was on the front page, HN has some pretty intrusive algorithms that play with the positioning of the article on the page, algorithms that aren't always clear to the users or necessarily productive to the discussion.
aviraldg 13y ago
These are 100% about the search query. Not related, but directly about the query. Not ads.
- vidarh 13y ago
  Whether or not they are relevant to the search is immaterial to whether or not they are ads - lots of ads are relevant to the search terms. They are paid for with the intent of driving more traffic.
sker 13y ago
That promise was made when Schmidt was running things. We all know by now that Page is much more aggressive at monetizing existing products and killing off non-essential ones. We can expect more of these things in the future.
coryfklein 13y ago
Technically they haven't broken their promise yet - the ads are still in testing.
T-hawk 13y ago
It's arguable that queries like [southwest airlines] are even a search. The vast majority of instances are probably URL-illiterate users merely trying to get to Southwest Airlines' web site. (And Google must know rather precisely just how many.) For these users, search is really operating as a natural-language alternative to DNS so such a clickable banner will help them get there. More than just advertising, this represents an element of curation on such search terms, to get you to the place you're really looking for. It'll help avoid situations like when that one blog post appeared at the top for [facebook login] and suddenly bunches of users couldn't find Facebook. Like any technological tool, it could be misused for evil, and so will require vigilance in the court of public opinion if not in actual courts. (Disclaimer: I'm a potential Googler, currently in the interview pipeline, but these views are my own.)
- buffportion 13y ago
  “Oh my god, Jerry, when you check your email you go to Altavista and type, ‘Please go to yahoo.com?’"
- peejaybee 13y ago
  I would say that even URL-literate users use it this way, because the business-to-URL mapping is not always clear, and the naive guess is sometimes the worst possible one (e.g. Dick's Sporting Goods.)
  - graeme 13y ago
    Yes, I thought this was (likely unintentionally) insulting. I rarely use urls unless it's a known site. Especially since I'm Canadian and the TLD isn't always predictable. And on a phone, it's usually faster to google 'hacker news' or even 'hack new' if I'm lazy, than it is to type 'news.ycombinator.com'. (Yes, I'm horrible. And no, I don't want to bookmark it and make it too easy to come here....)
    - epochwolf 13y ago
      Typing n autocompletes to news.ycombinator.com on my devices.. yes, I'm here way too much.
night815 13y ago
The full quote is still true. "There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or web search results pages. There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up all over the Google site. Ever." -Marissa Mayer That "banner" is not a "crazy, flashy, graphical doodad". That is pretty much the company's logo.
- judk 13y ago
  Google ran a crazy flashy graphical doodad ad for nexus 7 on the Google home page.
- tedunangst 13y ago
  The full quote would still be true even if it were a crazy, flashy, graphical doodad as long as it isn't flying around.
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago
  They're separate clauses. If I say "I won't hurt you. I won't sneak in in the night and smack you with a fish. Ever" and then I punch you in the face I've broken my promise. If I'd snuck in at night and hit you with a fish then I'd have broken two promises.
linux_devil 13y ago
How will they earn then? Most of their profits are from Ads.
peterwwillis 13y ago
I love how people continue to attach emotional investment to an arbitrary thing like a corporation. Apologists, fanboys, and people with a child-like innocence. Do you really expect a for-profit company will stick to a promise like it means something? The entire point behind a capitalist corporation is to make more profit, year after year. That is the entire idea behind the stock market. To think that they'd evade eventually exploring every avenue available to avoid making more money is mad.
- mynewwork 13y ago
  But there are plenty of companies that make a lot of money specifically because they 'stick to a promise'. Whole Foods, Chipotle, REI, Patagonia all spring to mind as companies that I will happily pay a premium to shop at because of things they do that fall outside of the ruthless race to the bottom to cut costs. They make a profit off of me specifically because they stick to promises like "don't put antibiotics in chicken feed" or "don't use sweatshop labor". I don't care about a banner ad the way I care about antibiotic use in agriculture, so this doesn't matter to me, but maybe someone out there does and will stop being a profitable google customer because of this action.
  - peterwwillis 13y ago
    Companies which have a niche market do depend on their customers continuing to invest in that niche market, but this is like any other company that sells a product. If people no longer want that product, they go out of business. In the companies you cite, the product you're buying (primarily) is peace of mind. You feel better when you buy their products, vs others. If you stopped feeling good about it, you'd buy somewhere else, and they'd go out of business. Here's another case of customer intent: CBS Fantasy Sports. For years they've been charging people to use their fantasy sports websites, while Yahoo, ESPN, and others gave theirs away for free. Year after year, people paid money for the CBS product, and they actually got more customers than the free providers. Why? Superior niche product. If the product wasn't as good as the free providers (and if they provided all the same features) people would have left in droves. A "promise" is not a business model. A product is. Google's product is not banner-ad-free search, it's just search. If in the future there's an equally-good search product that uses no ads at all, Google will have an inferior product, and people will leave - eventually.
judk 13y ago
This is basically the same as the new Product Search, where only paid ads are shows. (Google killed organic product search this year.) But this version doesn't allow open pay-for-play access, only one preferred buyer is invited per search term.
angryasian 13y ago
the reality is , is that in general people like pleasant associated images. Its only mirroring the way that Facebook has a cover photo on profiles and made a difference in the way that profiles are viewed. Why not extract money when a corporation is searched for and show a profile for them. Similar to facebook and searching for a user. I think it will become an issues when corporation decide they want to use the image, like a banner ad vs a nice associated image.
bolder88 13y ago
Love how theguardian has a massive banner ad at the top of this article. God I hate the guardian.
ajiang 13y ago
Are we putting that much significance from a quote in 2005 by a Google executive who has since left Google? While some see it as a social utility, Google is a $350B public company that generates its revenues from advertisements. 8 years ago, the world of advertising (and the world in general), was a different place. Holding Google accountable for something so far in the past by someone who is no longer there is a seemingly unfair standard.
- mathattack 13y ago
  Indeed - 8 years is a long long time. And who is actually harmed? Would it be less evil if Google had to put banner ads up to make payroll?
  - tedunangst 13y ago
    Would it be less evil if Google had to put banner ads up to make payroll? I think so. Google can't really pass this off as "the economic situation forces us to make a really difficult choice."
    - mathattack 13y ago
      But is it really any different from a shareholder getting paid versus an employee? These are pension funds and 401ks counting on the money.
      - tedunangst 13y ago
        Perhaps people invested in Google precisely because they believed in googles vision for a better web. Google has been fairly clear in telling investors, hey there's a line we won't cross. They can't complain. If there's something to complain about, it's sitting on $50 billion in cash and not paying a dividend.
        mathattack 13y ago
        True, though Google seems to be investing the cash fairly aggressively.
JohnTHaller 13y ago
If you take the full quote, this isn't an open and shut case as it certainly isn't a 'banner ad' in terms of what everyone understood to be banner ads in 2005. The full quote is: "There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or web search results pages. There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up all over the Google site. Ever." That Southwest Airlines screenshot doesn't look like a banner ad as described by Marissa Mayer. It doesn't seem to be flashing or flying around or popping up. And, arguably, Google has been doing things that flash and fly around with the Google Doodles on the homepage for years. And no one freaked out about that.
- pessimizer 13y ago
  >in terms of what everyone understood to be banner ads in 2005. Everybody understood banner ads then in exactly the same as they understand them now. Ads in a banner. Banner ads never had to be "crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping," and you never needed a banner ad to do any of that. Mayer isn't actually saying the two things are the same either, because she uses two different, complete sentences.
  - psbp 13y ago
    Isn't a banner ad an ad embedded in a page full of content? This is the actual content for a specific search, so I'm not sure how it constitutes a banner ad.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
kailuowang 13y ago
It's great that Google is under so much scrutiny due to its do no evil slogan. But making such a fuss about Google changing its UI to make more money is somewhat a bit off the target in my opinion. Google changing UX to make more money is going to be tested and corrected by the market. The real serious threat to the society for Google being evil is the possibility of Google using the massive amount of information it collects to manipulate the society at an enormous scale. Just imagine the possibility of Google start trading. It could be all based on the public information Google gathered but Google's ability to collect it is no match by any other entities (alright, maybe NSA)
lnanek2 13y ago
The advertisement rows in GMail are really annoying too. I wish they would at least put an x button on the side so I can close them and do email in peace for a while.
samspenc 13y ago
Marissa Mayer isn't with Google anymore, is she?
ChuckMcM 13y ago
This is not wholly unexpected, after all their earnings have shown that CPC is down and while you can make that up in volume for a while, eventually you exhaust that path too. And that then is what I think the real "problem" is. You reach a point where your biggest money maker, search advertising, by at least one and possibly two decimal orders of magnitude, is no longer growing. And all of the things you've ever done which were never as successful as search advertising are supposed to give you the growth that your stockholders are looking for. Interesting place to be for a company like Google I expect. This is just another example of how that it process is coming along. It will be interesting to see what happens if it starts damaging their brand.
- cylinder 13y ago
  Right. Soon they will run out of surface area. And then they will squeeze out more money by cutting costs. Such is the life cycle of the corporation. They aren't able to monetize their other novelty projects yet, they are almost wholly reliant on advertising. I'm surprised their stock is priced as a growth company.
cmtruong 13y ago
I don't really care as long as the ads are relevant and interesting. We all know what we signed-up for (I hope) when we joined Google, Facebook, Yahoo, etc...for "free."
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago
  We signed up for what they promised us?
teaneedz 13y ago
Most of what Google does (beta or released) these days is sending me to other options. Thank you DuckDuckGo for taking a stand for users.
- edwintorok 13y ago
  You can also use ixquick.com or startpage.com that doesn't show banner ads for me.
anonmyous 13y ago
Google (and possibly many human's) principle over time.. Don't be Evil (2005) >> Don't be Evil over short period of time (2013) >> Oh screw it, now we are Evil enough. Let us plunder the hell (2021). Now they will show ads for the key word, South West Airlines. Next it will be a whole flashy ad when you search flight, then it will when you start to think about flying or your girlfriend sends an email about flying for someone's funeral. But these profits too will dwindle after a point. Then they will start selling your profiles, what you read, what you think. For a corporation privacy and trust, or any other values are only as important as the profit it can bring. Its only a matter of time before you will erode your own values, when profits are what we are maximizing. This is all the more likely when you are ambitious. And then you repent it, and the cycle is complete.
cromwellian 13y ago
What a sensationalist headline. The guardian really seems to have learned the need to go sensationalist from the Snowden affair. "Google breaks promise" followed by "Google is testing banner ads" in the first paragraph. So umm, "breaks" is the wrong verb, more like "thinking of breaking" The reality is, Google runs hundreds, perhaps thousands of experiments all the time and only a few make it.
jasonlingx 13y ago
Shouldn't the title be "Marissa Mayer breaks 2005 promise..."?
jggonz 13y ago
I used to dislike ads in general, until Google came along and made ads actually useful. There have been many times when I needed to search for reliable vendors in my area, and being able to perform a query for a product and receive an ad for a vendor that sells said product proved to be very useful and a huge time-saver. I no longer had to dig through search results, the ads were my search results. Same thing goes for the great set of Youtube video ads that have been improving lately: some of them actually are useful. Gmail ads are also very interesting. They sometimes inform me of new technologies, or other things that are related to what I'm reading in my inbox: that can be valuable. I really hope the trend continues with these banner ads. Being able to add a touch of graphic to an otherwise dull search result page can be useful if done right, and Google does seem to care about their ad business. Anyway, those are just my personal thoughts on the subject.
magicalist 13y ago
I guess they are relatively "classy", as other people have pointed out, but I still don't want them in my search results. Regardless, it's just a test, so discouraging them from moving forward with it is good, but "breaks 2005 promise" is dumb because they haven't actually done it. "Poised to break 2005 promise"? Still overly dramatic, but less wrong. Also, I first saw this over on search engine land yesterday[1]. It's possible the Guardian author remembered that Marissa Mayer quote (and blog post) on their own, but it seems unlikely. It's pretty shitty to take a story and not even cite where you got the idea. [1] http://searchengineland.com/google-testing-top-banner-ads-174927 http://searchengineland.com/google-testing-top-banner-ads-17...
canthonytucci 13y ago
I just tried it. I count: 1 Big ass ad 3 "News" items 5 genuine "Search Results" (with no heading or any way to know when the ads and nonsense stops. One of the 5 is a link to the Southwest Airlines Android App 3 "In-Depth Articles" I don't know what this is, i guess long blog posts? This honestly looks more to me like a domain squatting BS ad page that we hate on ISPs for than a research tool (which is what I used to think of google search as).

245 points by saurabh 13y ago

6thSigma 13y ago

This doesn't really meet my definition of a banner ad.

AbraKdabra 13y ago

This fits perfectly with the ad designer that Google released weeks ago.

wodow 13y ago

Are there any example URLs? https://www.google.com/search?q=SouthWest%20Airlines https://www.google.com/search?q=SouthWest%20Airlines doesn't do it for me at the moment, from the UK.

jmduke 13y ago
The banner ad (I hesitate to describe it as that, since its so clean) appears for me in the US.
- pmelendez 13y ago
  Well.. it is a banner and the company is paying for it so it is an ad. In my opinion the cleanness of the banner should not interfere with the description of being an ad.
randlet 13y ago
This is addressed directly in the article. "We're currently running a very limited, US-only test, in which advertisers can include an image as part of the search ads that show in response to certain branded queries."
- petepete 13y ago
  I think "certain branded queries" are the key words here; if that style of banner is displayed for more generic searches (simply 'Airlines', for example) I think people would quickly become frustrated with the experience and move on. When searching for a particular airline, being confronted with a photograph of one of their aeroplanes isn't the end of the world.
jdmichal 13y ago
The article specifically called out that this is a US-only test. That said, I also do not see any banner on this particular search.

danso 13y ago

So how much of the reluctance to use banner ads can be attributed to Mayer, or, the subsequent reneging to her leaving? The screenshot follows kind of the same look of Google+'s banner (er Facebook's), so since + is supposed to be the new thing, and it has space for gaudy banners, why not throw it on search too? Still, seems like a slightly regressive strategy...I thought the traditional Google Homepage was becoming less of a revenue driver compared to all the other way results are traffic driver?

judk 13y ago
Corporations can't make promises. People do.
AJ007 13y ago
Google has gotten much more aggressive amount monetizing their existing inventory. They have been rapidly iterating Adsense unit designs that were fixed for 6+ years. Search engine optimizers (of which I'm not one) have been terrified as they've watched ads creep over the search results and new elements push organic listings lower and lower.

7952 13y ago

At least banner ads are obviously adverts. It can be quite difficult to differentiate between ads and searches in certain situations (like tilted screens).

TomGullen 13y ago

Corporate promises aren't worth a dime as history has shown repeatedly. In fact, corporations (especially large ones) can't ever be trusted for pretty much anything and anything they say or do you should always react sceptically by default. They just don't care, and this lack of caring is an inevitability for growing corporations. Granted some might consider this to be a minor breach of a promise, some might not. The point still stands.

alan_cx 13y ago
No, no, no. You can absolutely trust them if they are say "we are doing this to maximize profits for our share holders / owners". Then, what is this expectation that one should be able to trust them to do anything else at all? Surely the mere existence of consumer law should tell us something.
- anon1385 13y ago
  >You can absolutely trust them if they are say "we are doing this to maximize profits for our share holders / owners". Eh, not necessarily. Enron executive said what they were doing was to maximise share holder value, but really it was to maximise their own wealth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_fraud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_fraud

DjangoReinhardt 13y ago

Not the first time, I must add. When Orkut was all the rage, Google claimed that Orkut would never be merged with the Google core and would remain separate to Google. The same seems tobe happening with YouTube. Sure, they still allow users to keep their YT & Google identities separate but IDK how long that will last. Remember when they claimed their motto was 'Don't be evil'? (NB: Before you come screaming at me for making vague accusations, please take that previous sentence with a pinch of '/s'. Thank you.)

rajivtiru 13y ago
Umm they forced me(as in I wasn't able to use youtube otherwise) to connect my Google account to my Youtube so...that is pretty much combining the accounts in my book. I think, they just needed that to collect my aggregate search+video watching behavior for ad targeting, which they got.

DanBC 13y ago

> The company gained attention when it started in 1998 because its opening search page, and following results page, was uncluttered by adverts and other elements Google isn't what it was, and Google wants many more users than they can get from keeping just the early adopters. People use Google like a portal. This is just Google giving in.

hughes 13y ago

If that's a banner ad, it's the most relevant, pleasant, and appropriate banner ad I've ever seen. It's directly related to the search term and is not obnoxious in the least. If all ads were such high quality I'd have no problems with this (but would still probably use adblock!).

bovermyer 13y ago
I agree completely. I'm not opposed to banner ads as long as they are relevant to my present task. Nor do I take issue with Google changing its stance in this way. Corporations change with the times.

mknits 13y ago

Their tagline should be changed to - "Be Evil".

jakozaur 13y ago

Over the years Google is way more aggressive with ads then it used to be. For any query less and less percentage of first page is dedicate to organic example. E.g. a silly example: https://www.google.com/search?q=trash+can https://www.google.com/search?q=trash+can 25-30% organic, rest are the adds.

gabemart 13y ago
That's strange. Even without an ad blocker, I see 0 ads on that SERP.
- icebraining 13y ago
  Ads (as well as other results) are very personalized. I don't see any ads either.
raldi 13y ago
Can you post a screenshot? I don't see what you describe when I click the link. Also, do you get better results on another search engine? If so, which one?
- buo 13y ago
  I see plenty of ads: http://imgur.com/bMUkCwi http://imgur.com/bMUkCwi The same search on DDG gets me exactly one ad.
- jakozaur 13y ago
  http://imgur.com/ddGJeaI http://imgur.com/ddGJeaI Most of keywords with any commercial potential looks similar. Unfortunately, I tried using other search engines, but for technical questions Google still provide superior experience.
  - raldi 13y ago
    What 10 links would a hypothetically perfect search engine return for that query? Edit: Judging from the replies, many of you seem to think my question was "how many ads would a perfect search engine show?" Please note that this is not what I asked.

jeffclark 13y ago

In related news: I am no longer with my college girlfriend, despite the fact that 8 years ago I told her I would never leave her.

pmelendez 13y ago
And... Did you leave her? or just break up as a common agreement? In legalese language, I am pretty sure that a promise is synonym of contract, and contracts might be dissolved if both sides of the contract agreed. This being an open promise is not a contract but a reaffirmation of a goal, since people change is regrettable but OK to break promises to ourselves sometimes when the interest of the goal had changed.
- raldi 13y ago
  > In legalese language, I am pretty sure that a promise is synonym of contract You are 100% wrong.
  - pmelendez 13y ago
    From Wikipedia article: [1] "In the law of contract, an exchange of promises is usually held to be legally enforceable, according to the Latin maxim pacta sunt servanda." [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promise http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promise
    - raldi 13y ago
      "Exchange" is the critical word. A single promise is extraordinarily different, in the legal world, from a contract.
      - pmelendez 13y ago
        Ok, let's try with another wikipedia article: [1] "A contract is a legally enforceable promise or undertaking that something will or will not occur. * The word promise can be used as a legal synonym for contract *,[2] although care is required as a promise may not have the full standing of a contract, as when it is an agreement without consideration" Emphasis is mine :) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_law

wnevets 13y ago

If I search for southwest airlines, is that image truly a banner ad?

pmelendez 13y ago
In the moment when Southwest airlines paid for it is an advertising piece indeed. And to remove any shadow of doubt if you can't see a similar image when you search for American Airlines or Jetblue then it is clear that Google is favouring results against other companies in the same industry.
- wnevets 13y ago
  My point is if I search for jetblue and I dont get the southwest image that's not a banner ad, at least not in the traditional sense. If fact if you search for southwest without being in this test group you'll see a southwest image on the right side. Is that a banner ad, if so these images are old news. Now if I were to search for plane tickets and get the southwest image, that's a banner ad.
  - pmelendez 13y ago
    Under that razor... if you search for southwest airlines and between the results you get a Adwords of Southwest, then that won't be an ad because is in the result page of the same thing I was searching?
    - wnevets 13y ago
      As a user, sure why not? Why does it matter whether the link you want is within the ad words box or under it? If you're searching for southwest airlines you obviously want the southwest homepage. Now southwest probably sees it different since they're paying for ad words but that's a different conversation
      - pmelendez 13y ago
        > "southwest probably sees it different since they're paying for ad words but that's a different conversation" Fair enough :)

yeukhon 13y ago

If it is relevant to my search and the image gives better impression of the product, I am okay with that. Though people forget about their promises. But I am against having multiple banners. I am okay with say "search Amazon" and return amazon's latest banner on thanksgiving sale deal. Just one, a good one, reasonable size, and that's it.

nandhp 13y ago

> Based on your search query, we think you are trying to find a specific brand. This box provides information about that brand. The brand owner is sponsoring this collection of content, some of which would appear even without this sponsorship. The brand owner is compensating Google and providing images and other content relevant to the brand. This is replacing Southwest's search result. It's noteworthy to me that only "some" of this content would appear without sponsership. So not only are they showing "banner ads" in search results (that's a little bit of a stretch), but it's a bit like them allowing compensated reordering of search results. How's Bing these days?

shortformblog 13y ago

This isn't a banner ad. This is essentially a branded search. It's not like Google is targeting users with Flash-based crud here. To call it a banner ad is kind of silly.

nodata 13y ago
Somebody works in marketing :)
- freehunter 13y ago
  I actually have to agree somewhat, though (and I don't work in marketing). If you search for Southwest Airlines, why should Southwest Airlines not be the top result? Google has been showing pictures and information about people, products, and companies for quite a while now (https://www.google.com/#q=paul+graham https://www.google.com/#q=paul+graham), and shows commonly visited links off the main page of a website (as shown in that search for Paul Graham, they sub-link to his essays and other commonly visited pages). It's very clear the intent of searching for Southwest Airlines; to get information about Southwest Airlines. The only difference between this result and any other result is that Southwest told Google what to put as their picture and sub-links, and Google made them pay for it. Searching for American Airlines shows almost exactly the same thing, except it's automatically populated by Google's engine, rather than being paid for.
  - milliams 13y ago
    it shows banner ads for companies including SouthWest Airlines on pages which include them in web search results. It's not just 'If you search for Southwest Airlines'. It's if in the list of results for the thing you searched for there's a Southwest Airlines page. It could be coincidental but suddenly you have a large advertisement at the top of your page. It wouldn't be outside the bounds of possibility for this to encourage Google to rank Southwest Airlines pages more highly so that they can show the banner, thereby generating more revenue.
    - 13y ago

asdf001 13y ago

Interesting how this submission went from being #1 20 minutes ago, to #5 15 minutes ago and now is sitting at #9, despite the fact that the number of upvotes increased. Google workers mass flagging this submission? Don't be evil.

freehunter 13y ago
As was talked about with the recent controversy of Nokia and Microsoft news being penalized while Apple news was on the front page, HN has some pretty intrusive algorithms that play with the positioning of the article on the page, algorithms that aren't always clear to the users or necessarily productive to the discussion.

aviraldg 13y ago

These are 100% about the search query. Not related, but directly about the query. Not ads.

vidarh 13y ago
Whether or not they are relevant to the search is immaterial to whether or not they are ads - lots of ads are relevant to the search terms. They are paid for with the intent of driving more traffic.

sker 13y ago

That promise was made when Schmidt was running things. We all know by now that Page is much more aggressive at monetizing existing products and killing off non-essential ones. We can expect more of these things in the future.

coryfklein 13y ago

Technically they haven't broken their promise yet - the ads are still in testing.

T-hawk 13y ago

It's arguable that queries like [southwest airlines] are even a search. The vast majority of instances are probably URL-illiterate users merely trying to get to Southwest Airlines' web site. (And Google must know rather precisely just how many.) For these users, search is really operating as a natural-language alternative to DNS so such a clickable banner will help them get there. More than just advertising, this represents an element of curation on such search terms, to get you to the place you're really looking for. It'll help avoid situations like when that one blog post appeared at the top for [facebook login] and suddenly bunches of users couldn't find Facebook. Like any technological tool, it could be misused for evil, and so will require vigilance in the court of public opinion if not in actual courts. (Disclaimer: I'm a potential Googler, currently in the interview pipeline, but these views are my own.)

buffportion 13y ago
“Oh my god, Jerry, when you check your email you go to Altavista and type, ‘Please go to yahoo.com?’"
peejaybee 13y ago
I would say that even URL-literate users use it this way, because the business-to-URL mapping is not always clear, and the naive guess is sometimes the worst possible one (e.g. Dick's Sporting Goods.)
- graeme 13y ago
  Yes, I thought this was (likely unintentionally) insulting. I rarely use urls unless it's a known site. Especially since I'm Canadian and the TLD isn't always predictable. And on a phone, it's usually faster to google 'hacker news' or even 'hack new' if I'm lazy, than it is to type 'news.ycombinator.com'. (Yes, I'm horrible. And no, I don't want to bookmark it and make it too easy to come here....)
  - epochwolf 13y ago
    Typing n autocompletes to news.ycombinator.com on my devices.. yes, I'm here way too much.

night815 13y ago

The full quote is still true. "There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or web search results pages. There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up all over the Google site. Ever." -Marissa Mayer That "banner" is not a "crazy, flashy, graphical doodad". That is pretty much the company's logo.

judk 13y ago
Google ran a crazy flashy graphical doodad ad for nexus 7 on the Google home page.
tedunangst 13y ago
The full quote would still be true even if it were a crazy, flashy, graphical doodad as long as it isn't flying around.
pbhjpbhj 13y ago
They're separate clauses. If I say "I won't hurt you. I won't sneak in in the night and smack you with a fish. Ever" and then I punch you in the face I've broken my promise. If I'd snuck in at night and hit you with a fish then I'd have broken two promises.

linux_devil 13y ago

How will they earn then? Most of their profits are from Ads.

peterwwillis 13y ago

I love how people continue to attach emotional investment to an arbitrary thing like a corporation. Apologists, fanboys, and people with a child-like innocence. Do you really expect a for-profit company will stick to a promise like it means something? The entire point behind a capitalist corporation is to make more profit, year after year. That is the entire idea behind the stock market. To think that they'd evade eventually exploring every avenue available to avoid making more money is mad.

mynewwork 13y ago
But there are plenty of companies that make a lot of money specifically because they 'stick to a promise'. Whole Foods, Chipotle, REI, Patagonia all spring to mind as companies that I will happily pay a premium to shop at because of things they do that fall outside of the ruthless race to the bottom to cut costs. They make a profit off of me specifically because they stick to promises like "don't put antibiotics in chicken feed" or "don't use sweatshop labor". I don't care about a banner ad the way I care about antibiotic use in agriculture, so this doesn't matter to me, but maybe someone out there does and will stop being a profitable google customer because of this action.
- peterwwillis 13y ago
  Companies which have a niche market do depend on their customers continuing to invest in that niche market, but this is like any other company that sells a product. If people no longer want that product, they go out of business. In the companies you cite, the product you're buying (primarily) is peace of mind. You feel better when you buy their products, vs others. If you stopped feeling good about it, you'd buy somewhere else, and they'd go out of business. Here's another case of customer intent: CBS Fantasy Sports. For years they've been charging people to use their fantasy sports websites, while Yahoo, ESPN, and others gave theirs away for free. Year after year, people paid money for the CBS product, and they actually got more customers than the free providers. Why? Superior niche product. If the product wasn't as good as the free providers (and if they provided all the same features) people would have left in droves. A "promise" is not a business model. A product is. Google's product is not banner-ad-free search, it's just search. If in the future there's an equally-good search product that uses no ads at all, Google will have an inferior product, and people will leave - eventually.

judk 13y ago

This is basically the same as the new Product Search, where only paid ads are shows. (Google killed organic product search this year.) But this version doesn't allow open pay-for-play access, only one preferred buyer is invited per search term.

angryasian 13y ago

the reality is , is that in general people like pleasant associated images. Its only mirroring the way that Facebook has a cover photo on profiles and made a difference in the way that profiles are viewed. Why not extract money when a corporation is searched for and show a profile for them. Similar to facebook and searching for a user. I think it will become an issues when corporation decide they want to use the image, like a banner ad vs a nice associated image.

bolder88 13y ago

Love how theguardian has a massive banner ad at the top of this article. God I hate the guardian.

ajiang 13y ago

Are we putting that much significance from a quote in 2005 by a Google executive who has since left Google? While some see it as a social utility, Google is a $350B public company that generates its revenues from advertisements. 8 years ago, the world of advertising (and the world in general), was a different place. Holding Google accountable for something so far in the past by someone who is no longer there is a seemingly unfair standard.

mathattack 13y ago
Indeed - 8 years is a long long time. And who is actually harmed? Would it be less evil if Google had to put banner ads up to make payroll?
- tedunangst 13y ago
  Would it be less evil if Google had to put banner ads up to make payroll? I think so. Google can't really pass this off as "the economic situation forces us to make a really difficult choice."
  - mathattack 13y ago
    But is it really any different from a shareholder getting paid versus an employee? These are pension funds and 401ks counting on the money.
    - tedunangst 13y ago
      Perhaps people invested in Google precisely because they believed in googles vision for a better web. Google has been fairly clear in telling investors, hey there's a line we won't cross. They can't complain. If there's something to complain about, it's sitting on $50 billion in cash and not paying a dividend.
      - mathattack 13y ago
        True, though Google seems to be investing the cash fairly aggressively.

JohnTHaller 13y ago

If you take the full quote, this isn't an open and shut case as it certainly isn't a 'banner ad' in terms of what everyone understood to be banner ads in 2005. The full quote is: "There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or web search results pages. There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up all over the Google site. Ever." That Southwest Airlines screenshot doesn't look like a banner ad as described by Marissa Mayer. It doesn't seem to be flashing or flying around or popping up. And, arguably, Google has been doing things that flash and fly around with the Google Doodles on the homepage for years. And no one freaked out about that.

pessimizer 13y ago
>in terms of what everyone understood to be banner ads in 2005. Everybody understood banner ads then in exactly the same as they understand them now. Ads in a banner. Banner ads never had to be "crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping," and you never needed a banner ad to do any of that. Mayer isn't actually saying the two things are the same either, because she uses two different, complete sentences.
- psbp 13y ago
  Isn't a banner ad an ad embedded in a page full of content? This is the actual content for a specific search, so I'm not sure how it constitutes a banner ad.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

kailuowang 13y ago

It's great that Google is under so much scrutiny due to its do no evil slogan. But making such a fuss about Google changing its UI to make more money is somewhat a bit off the target in my opinion. Google changing UX to make more money is going to be tested and corrected by the market. The real serious threat to the society for Google being evil is the possibility of Google using the massive amount of information it collects to manipulate the society at an enormous scale. Just imagine the possibility of Google start trading. It could be all based on the public information Google gathered but Google's ability to collect it is no match by any other entities (alright, maybe NSA)

lnanek2 13y ago

The advertisement rows in GMail are really annoying too. I wish they would at least put an x button on the side so I can close them and do email in peace for a while.

samspenc 13y ago

Marissa Mayer isn't with Google anymore, is she?

ChuckMcM 13y ago

This is not wholly unexpected, after all their earnings have shown that CPC is down and while you can make that up in volume for a while, eventually you exhaust that path too. And that then is what I think the real "problem" is. You reach a point where your biggest money maker, search advertising, by at least one and possibly two decimal orders of magnitude, is no longer growing. And all of the things you've ever done which were never as successful as search advertising are supposed to give you the growth that your stockholders are looking for. Interesting place to be for a company like Google I expect. This is just another example of how that it process is coming along. It will be interesting to see what happens if it starts damaging their brand.

cylinder 13y ago
Right. Soon they will run out of surface area. And then they will squeeze out more money by cutting costs. Such is the life cycle of the corporation. They aren't able to monetize their other novelty projects yet, they are almost wholly reliant on advertising. I'm surprised their stock is priced as a growth company.

cmtruong 13y ago

I don't really care as long as the ads are relevant and interesting. We all know what we signed-up for (I hope) when we joined Google, Facebook, Yahoo, etc...for "free."

pbhjpbhj 13y ago
We signed up for what they promised us?

teaneedz 13y ago

Most of what Google does (beta or released) these days is sending me to other options. Thank you DuckDuckGo for taking a stand for users.

edwintorok 13y ago
You can also use ixquick.com or startpage.com that doesn't show banner ads for me.

anonmyous 13y ago

Google (and possibly many human's) principle over time.. Don't be Evil (2005) >> Don't be Evil over short period of time (2013) >> Oh screw it, now we are Evil enough. Let us plunder the hell (2021). Now they will show ads for the key word, South West Airlines. Next it will be a whole flashy ad when you search flight, then it will when you start to think about flying or your girlfriend sends an email about flying for someone's funeral. But these profits too will dwindle after a point. Then they will start selling your profiles, what you read, what you think. For a corporation privacy and trust, or any other values are only as important as the profit it can bring. Its only a matter of time before you will erode your own values, when profits are what we are maximizing. This is all the more likely when you are ambitious. And then you repent it, and the cycle is complete.

cromwellian 13y ago

What a sensationalist headline. The guardian really seems to have learned the need to go sensationalist from the Snowden affair. "Google breaks promise" followed by "Google is testing banner ads" in the first paragraph. So umm, "breaks" is the wrong verb, more like "thinking of breaking" The reality is, Google runs hundreds, perhaps thousands of experiments all the time and only a few make it.

jasonlingx 13y ago

Shouldn't the title be "Marissa Mayer breaks 2005 promise..."?

jggonz 13y ago

I used to dislike ads in general, until Google came along and made ads actually useful. There have been many times when I needed to search for reliable vendors in my area, and being able to perform a query for a product and receive an ad for a vendor that sells said product proved to be very useful and a huge time-saver. I no longer had to dig through search results, the ads were my search results. Same thing goes for the great set of Youtube video ads that have been improving lately: some of them actually are useful. Gmail ads are also very interesting. They sometimes inform me of new technologies, or other things that are related to what I'm reading in my inbox: that can be valuable. I really hope the trend continues with these banner ads. Being able to add a touch of graphic to an otherwise dull search result page can be useful if done right, and Google does seem to care about their ad business. Anyway, those are just my personal thoughts on the subject.

magicalist 13y ago

I guess they are relatively "classy", as other people have pointed out, but I still don't want them in my search results. Regardless, it's just a test, so discouraging them from moving forward with it is good, but "breaks 2005 promise" is dumb because they haven't actually done it. "Poised to break 2005 promise"? Still overly dramatic, but less wrong. Also, I first saw this over on search engine land yesterday[1]. It's possible the Guardian author remembered that Marissa Mayer quote (and blog post) on their own, but it seems unlikely. It's pretty shitty to take a story and not even cite where you got the idea. [1] http://searchengineland.com/google-testing-top-banner-ads-174927 http://searchengineland.com/google-testing-top-banner-ads-17...

canthonytucci 13y ago

I just tried it. I count: 1 Big ass ad 3 "News" items 5 genuine "Search Results" (with no heading or any way to know when the ads and nonsense stops. One of the 5 is a link to the Southwest Airlines Android App 3 "In-Depth Articles" I don't know what this is, i guess long blog posts? This honestly looks more to me like a domain squatting BS ad page that we hate on ISPs for than a research tool (which is what I used to think of google search as).