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I'm just beginning my reading of this 'paper' but so far I'm not convinced. From what I can tell, they compared Google's pages with and without Yelp reviews, bu

I'm just beginning my reading of this 'paper' but so far I'm not convinced. From what I can tell, they compared Google's pages with and without Yelp reviews, but Yelp won't give this data to Google. Therefore it's complete bullshit, they're comparing a hypothetical product that cannot exist and arguing that Google is being anticompetitive because users prefer this nonexistant product.

threeseed 11y ago
Whether Yelp supplies data to Google is irrelevant. The point of the study was to show that users don't like ads masquerading as organic content and neither do competitors. Therefore if Google is the only winner then their motives are anticompetitive. The logic is sound. Yelp doesn't need to be complicit in it to disagree with it. Nor frankly should they. It's a dumb feature that actually makes Google less functional.
- zaphar 11y ago
  No that wasn't the point of the study. They didn't remove ads. They removed knowledge graph data. Knowledge graph results aren't paid placement they are a collection of facts that Google has discovered through various sources, much like organic search results. In this case the facts come from Google+ reviews. Google is just as likely to display Yelp reviews if they were able to collect that data. Yelp however doesn't supply it.
  - jdmichal 11y ago
    > Google is just as likely to display Yelp reviews if they were able to collect that data. Yelp however doesn't supply it. I'm pretty sure arguing for this kind of solution would be silly if Google were to, say, also require payment. I wonder, is this really so much different without money changing hands? Why is it Yelp's responsibility to provide Google access to their data in order to get a fair playground in "Search"? The same Google, by the way, which offers a directly competing product "Locale"? It's a pay-to-play model, just without any money in order to seem innocent. Except everyone knows that data is Google's real currency, so that whole innocence goes out the window and the true cost to pay-to-play is revealed. I think Yelp is exactly right to want to protect their data from Google, and I think they're right in fighting this.
    - hahainternet 11y ago
      > Why is it Yelp's responsibility to provide Google access to their data in order to get a fair playground in "Search"? You're asking why it's a site's responsibility to ensure a search engine can index them in order for them to appear in the index. Your question presupposes that no information is required for Yelp to be featured in results. This is fallacious. > I think Yelp is exactly right to want to protect their data from Google, and I think they're right in fighting this. That is not what Yelp is fighting for. They want Google to link to their site, but without scraping any data. Such a thing would obviously have to be a manual edit to the ranking database and I can't believe you'd want that.
      - jdmichal 11y ago
        You're pulling a huge bait-and-switch in your argument here. No one was discussing indexing for "organic" search results. The original comment: > In this case the facts [for "knowledge graph"] come from Google+ reviews. Google is just as likely to display Yelp reviews if they were able to collect that data. Yelp however doesn't supply it. This statement is implying that Yelp should be supplying their data to Google in order to be included in the "knowledge graph". That is what I was responding to. And I think Yelp has a pretty compelling case of refusing to open their data to a competitor.
        hahainternet 11y ago
        That is not my original comment. Yelp is currently refusing to open their data, but they cannot both do that and demand Google artificially rank them highly in the results.
        jdmichal 11y ago
        > That is not my original comment. Apologies. I corrected my comment to reflect this. > Yelp is currently refusing to open their data, but they cannot both do that and demand Google artificially rank them highly in the results. I wasn't under the impression that anyone was debating the "organic" search results at all. I was under the impression that this is regarding the sections Google places above the search results which emphasize its own services unrelated to Search over competitors.
raldi 11y ago
At first I thought that when you said, "this data" you were referring to the study's dataset, but now I realize you mean the live data feed Google would need to make the search results look like the product the users in the study seemed to prefer.
IshKebab 11y ago
Yeah it seems you're right. The article makes it sound like they are comparing a page with Google's "knowledge graph" results at the top, with one where those are removed and the normal search results are at the top. But what they are actually comparing it with is a made up results page where they replace Google's knowledge graph reviews which come from Google+, with reviews that come from Yelp. Obviously there are far more Yelp reviews than Google+, so people thing that page is better. But that totally ignores the fact that Yelp reviews are not trustworthy. Edit: Here is the (very blurry) comparison: http://i.imgur.com/PMnSt0m.jpg http://i.imgur.com/PMnSt0m.jpg Notice that it doesn't mention that the reviews on the left are from Yelp.
- dublinben 11y ago
  >Yelp reviews are not trustworthy How are they any less trustworthy than Google+ reviews?
  - hahainternet 11y ago
    Yelp has been accused (with some convincing evidence) of running a protection racket. Phoning companies and offering to make their negative reviews less visible. When the company refuses, their positive reviews are 'flagged for review' or similar, affecting their score. I have no evidence to support this, but it has been corroborated by people you can easily search for.
    - kissickas 11y ago
      I discovered the great case of Botto Italian Bistro when it floated to the top of HN a few months ago for asking its customers to write them 1-star reviews on Yelp after Yelp tried to scam them. http://www.bottobistro.com/ http://www.bottobistro.com/

threeseed 11y ago

Whether Yelp supplies data to Google is irrelevant. The point of the study was to show that users don't like ads masquerading as organic content and neither do competitors. Therefore if Google is the only winner then their motives are anticompetitive. The logic is sound. Yelp doesn't need to be complicit in it to disagree with it. Nor frankly should they. It's a dumb feature that actually makes Google less functional.

zaphar 11y ago
No that wasn't the point of the study. They didn't remove ads. They removed knowledge graph data. Knowledge graph results aren't paid placement they are a collection of facts that Google has discovered through various sources, much like organic search results. In this case the facts come from Google+ reviews. Google is just as likely to display Yelp reviews if they were able to collect that data. Yelp however doesn't supply it.
- jdmichal 11y ago
  > Google is just as likely to display Yelp reviews if they were able to collect that data. Yelp however doesn't supply it. I'm pretty sure arguing for this kind of solution would be silly if Google were to, say, also require payment. I wonder, is this really so much different without money changing hands? Why is it Yelp's responsibility to provide Google access to their data in order to get a fair playground in "Search"? The same Google, by the way, which offers a directly competing product "Locale"? It's a pay-to-play model, just without any money in order to seem innocent. Except everyone knows that data is Google's real currency, so that whole innocence goes out the window and the true cost to pay-to-play is revealed. I think Yelp is exactly right to want to protect their data from Google, and I think they're right in fighting this.
  - hahainternet 11y ago
    > Why is it Yelp's responsibility to provide Google access to their data in order to get a fair playground in "Search"? You're asking why it's a site's responsibility to ensure a search engine can index them in order for them to appear in the index. Your question presupposes that no information is required for Yelp to be featured in results. This is fallacious. > I think Yelp is exactly right to want to protect their data from Google, and I think they're right in fighting this. That is not what Yelp is fighting for. They want Google to link to their site, but without scraping any data. Such a thing would obviously have to be a manual edit to the ranking database and I can't believe you'd want that.
    - jdmichal 11y ago
      You're pulling a huge bait-and-switch in your argument here. No one was discussing indexing for "organic" search results. The original comment: > In this case the facts [for "knowledge graph"] come from Google+ reviews. Google is just as likely to display Yelp reviews if they were able to collect that data. Yelp however doesn't supply it. This statement is implying that Yelp should be supplying their data to Google in order to be included in the "knowledge graph". That is what I was responding to. And I think Yelp has a pretty compelling case of refusing to open their data to a competitor.
      - hahainternet 11y ago
        That is not my original comment. Yelp is currently refusing to open their data, but they cannot both do that and demand Google artificially rank them highly in the results.
        jdmichal 11y ago
        > That is not my original comment. Apologies. I corrected my comment to reflect this. > Yelp is currently refusing to open their data, but they cannot both do that and demand Google artificially rank them highly in the results. I wasn't under the impression that anyone was debating the "organic" search results at all. I was under the impression that this is regarding the sections Google places above the search results which emphasize its own services unrelated to Search over competitors.

raldi 11y ago

At first I thought that when you said, "this data" you were referring to the study's dataset, but now I realize you mean the live data feed Google would need to make the search results look like the product the users in the study seemed to prefer.

IshKebab 11y ago

Yeah it seems you're right. The article makes it sound like they are comparing a page with Google's "knowledge graph" results at the top, with one where those are removed and the normal search results are at the top. But what they are actually comparing it with is a made up results page where they replace Google's knowledge graph reviews which come from Google+, with reviews that come from Yelp. Obviously there are far more Yelp reviews than Google+, so people thing that page is better. But that totally ignores the fact that Yelp reviews are not trustworthy. Edit: Here is the (very blurry) comparison: http://i.imgur.com/PMnSt0m.jpg http://i.imgur.com/PMnSt0m.jpg Notice that it doesn't mention that the reviews on the left are from Yelp.

dublinben 11y ago
>Yelp reviews are not trustworthy How are they any less trustworthy than Google+ reviews?
- hahainternet 11y ago
  Yelp has been accused (with some convincing evidence) of running a protection racket. Phoning companies and offering to make their negative reviews less visible. When the company refuses, their positive reviews are 'flagged for review' or similar, affecting their score. I have no evidence to support this, but it has been corroborated by people you can easily search for.
  - kissickas 11y ago
    I discovered the great case of Botto Italian Bistro when it floated to the top of HN a few months ago for asking its customers to write them 1-star reviews on Yelp after Yelp tried to scam them. http://www.bottobistro.com/ http://www.bottobistro.com/