[NA] NPT #13493350: Google [NA]

Let'sgoflying!

Let'sgoflying!

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Dave Taylor
NPT = nit-picking thread

This one is about how google presents search results.

Am I the only one who skips the first 4 results, which are paid-for ads?
Seems like when I click on those I feel conned- and often don't get what I am looking for anyway.
Even when I am shopping for stuff, I automatically skip the results which say "Ad" in that tiny box to the lower left. At least they announce themselves. But with me it's having the opposite of the desired effect.
 
I skip 'em too. But the order of the rest of the results can be changed by the payment to of additional fees to google, too . . . . .
 
I don't care about the ads, but the results themselves have gone to **** over the past year or so. In fact, other than for work reasons, the only time I use Google is when I specifically want the ads. And frankly, even the ads are likely to be irrelevant these days. Google's ads are selected more by user history than contextual or search relevancy these days, so the ads are more likely to be for something I searched for three weeks ago than for something I'm looking for now.

But at least there's a chance that the ads may be relevant if you use a virgin browser, on a brand-new machine account, from behind a proxy server, on a wired connection, with all forms of geolocation disabled. If you can completely hide your identity, location, and history, then maybe you'll get a contextually relevant ad -- once. After that, all bets are off.

The actual search results are also useless most of the time. They've worked so hard to try to thwart SEO that they've wound up hosing relevancy in the process. Add to that the fact that the algos now factor user history into the SERP, and the results become a steaming, festering pile of irrelevant ****.

I get particularly annoyed when Google includes results that don't include one or more of the words or terms searched for, with the word "Missing" and strikeovers through the term(s) appearing under the result. If the term is "missing," then why the hell return the result? Do their algos assume that the user included the "missing" term for the sheer joy of typing it into the search box, rather than because it was relevant to the search? So then the user has to try "Verbatim," quotes, brackets, etc. to try to persuade Google to actually return the results for the terms searched on, rather than what it thinks the user really meant to search on if the user weren't such a dolt.

I wish there were a search engine that simply returned the results for exactly what I searched on, even if the terms are misspelled or otherwise don't make sense to the search engine. I don't want spelling corrections, stemming, synonyms, or any of that ****. Kindly return the results for exactly the terms I searched on, thank you, and leave it at that.

Rich
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
So what do you use?
Bing?
Metacrawler?
Duckduck?
Click to expand...

DuckDuckGo usually, but they're just as bad in terms of trying to interpret what the user really meant to search for rather than just returning the results for what the user actually did search for. But at least they don't track you. If the results are going to suck anyway, I may as well get them from the company whose privacy practices are least obnoxious.

Rich
 
Yep, google ads suck now days. I searched for water softners two weeks ago and every ad since then has been the same company...
 
RJM62 said:
I don't care about the ads, but the results themselves have gone to **** over the past year or so. In fact, other than for work reasons, the only time I use Google is when I specifically want the ads. And frankly, even the ads are likely to be irrelevant these days. Google's ads are selected more by user history than contextual or search relevancy these days, so the ads are more likely to be for something I searched for three weeks ago than for something I'm looking for now.


Rich
Click to expand...
And just to point out that Facebook, which gets some stuff from Google and other stuff from their own tracking, including data that partners give them, is no better at all. After searching a hotel company's site and booking a room about 4 weeks ago, I am continually bombarded with ads on Facebook for that hotel and a couple of others in the same chain nearby. Like I'm actually going back there for another year.

If the hotel company is paying for it, they're wasting money. And the adblocker doesn't always catch it because Facebook shoves it in the news feed.

Depending on what they're paying, the customers are likely getting no better value than they got with traditional media (that few folks actually use any more).
 
wsuffa said:
And just to point out that Facebook, which gets some stuff from Google and other stuff from their own tracking, including data that partners give them, is no better at all. After searching a hotel company's site and booking a room about 4 weeks ago, I am continually bombarded with ads on Facebook for that hotel and a couple of others in the same chain nearby. Like I'm actually going back there for another year.

If the hotel company is paying for it, they're wasting money. And the adblocker doesn't always catch it because Facebook shoves it in the news feed.

Depending on what they're paying, the customers are likely getting no better value than they got with traditional media (that few folks actually use any more).
Click to expand...
Same thing happens on FB with my Amazon history. I use the FB app on an iPad but generally use Safari for Amazon. I suppose somewhere in the TOS I probably agreed to the intrusion.
 
wsuffa said:
And just to point out that Facebook, which gets some stuff from Google and other stuff from their own tracking, including data that partners give them, is no better at all. After searching a hotel company's site and booking a room about 4 weeks ago, I am continually bombarded with ads on Facebook for that hotel and a couple of others in the same chain nearby. Like I'm actually going back there for another year.

If the hotel company is paying for it, they're wasting money. And the adblocker doesn't always catch it because Facebook shoves it in the news feed.

Depending on what they're paying, the customers are likely getting no better value than they got with traditional media (that few folks actually use any more).
Click to expand...

I tend to go to the providers' own sites to buy plane tickets, hotel rooms, etc. I've never gotten any great deals through companies like Expedia et al. I don't book over the phone anymore, however, because the companies seem to do everything they can to make doing so a harrowing experience (starting with having to strain to understand guys in Bangalore supposedly named Barney, Bob, or Bruce).

Rich
 
RJM62 said:
I tend to go to the providers' own sites to buy plane tickets, hotel rooms, etc. I've never gotten any great deals through companies like Expedia et al. I don't book over the phone anymore, however, because the companies seem to do everything they can to make doing so a harrowing experience (starting with having to strain to understand guys in Bangalore supposedly named Barney, Bob, or Bruce).

Rich
Click to expand...
The hotel shopping was on the chains own website..... Using award points, no less....
 
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