As far as I'm concerned, the "News" results shown on the bottom 12% aren't quite search results either, though still useful. Everything is below the fold. :(
Call me cynical, but I suspect it will still be upvoted and discussed here because any comments on that earlier discussion will get lost in the noise of the close to 200 comments already there.
"but I suspect it will still be upvoted and discussed here"
Sometimes when there is a story that is a day or so old it's almost as if it doesn't pay to comment for that exact reason.
Edit: By "exact reason" I mean an old story with 200 comments isn't as attractive to make a comment on as a new story with 15 or 20 comments that is 2 or 3 hours old.
As I say, this rampant duplication (which I admit doesn't happen often, but still often enough) offends my sense of taste. I know others don't care, but it irritates me.
And now I'm going to have to step away from the keyboard and let it all die down and go away. At least with on-line irritations like this you can just walk away.
The example they use is navigational query for "Southwest Airlines". As far as I'm concerned, the deep links to South West airlines' site such as "Flight Schedules" are actual search results.
Ignoring that, it's unfair to use one example and say that search results are 12%. Is it 12% average, 12% median, or 12% for navigational queries only?
Someone searching for Southwest Airlines is probably looking for... Southwest Airlines. So the very first result is a useful one. With sections of the official website conveniently linked and a pretty picture on top.
This sounds to me like a complete non-issue. If you don't like ads, install AdBlock. Of course if you need clicks for your website, carry on.
Precisely. If Southwest's banner hit for "cheap airfare" or something similar, this would indeed be outrageous. But this just seems like useful (and sponsored) info being offered without needing to click-through.
Consider an alternate universe where Southwest Airlines has a worse reputation due to a variety of bad practices they've engaged in. These banner ads have the potential for pushing many hits describing these practices further down the page, stifling the ability for organic results to properly reflect public opinion on a company.
> As pointed out below, these images aren't "pushing" anything down anything. They are about the same height as the stuff they replaced.
Doesn't matter. Users are going to see this, and their mind is going to register "huge fucking banner ad". They aren't going to go find old screenshots, break out a ruler and do pixel by pixel comparisons.
If the "pushing" issue is that negative results can be put below the fold, or further down the screen, size is totally relevant. As somebody pointed out, this folds in the top organic search result. It's more like a natural evolution of the author pictures Google indexes.
Yes it's eye catching, but you could just as easily end up with the juxtaposition of a big AA ad, followed immediately by an article about a hijacking. Plus there's the argument that people have been trained to ignore banner ads. This could bite advertisers depending on the other organic results and their demographic.
If the "pushing" issue is that negative results can be put below the fold, or further down the screen, size is totally relevant. As somebody pointed out, this folds in the top organic search result.
If the issue about following content being above or below "the fold" were the only issue at stake, I'd agree. But from the pics in the article, I feel like people are going to see this and have an immediate, visceral, negative reaction, because it looks and feels like a huge banner ad.
But, if, as some people are saying, this is ONLY going to be for very specific brands and situations where the linked "ad" really would have been the top organic anyway, then maybe it won't be so bad. I had originally thought that this kind of ad was going to be allowed broadly and that they would be popping up all over.
It becomes problematic when these companies get control over the content of a brand search. There are ramifications for consumer advocacy. What happens when I start searching for "apple sec ruling" and I am given a full page sponsored ad courtesy of apple? I see that as giving companies a chance to bury insightful or informative content that may not be positive.
Then you should search for 'Apple fruit'. I'm sure it's orders of magnitude more likely that someone searching 'Apple' is looking for information related to the company than the fruit
Exactly my thoughts. As long as these don't start showing up on a more general search and only for what's obviously a search for only that specific company, I'd consider it an enhancement.
But if you're searching for Southwest Airlines then why do you want to get an ad for Southwest Airlines instead of just a neutral link to their homepage?
I understand ads for terms like "cheap tickets", but why would I want an ad for the term "Southwest Airlines"?
"why do you want to get an ad for Southwest Airlines"
From what the example shows it's not so much an ad as a really quick way to visually see that when you click you will be going to the right place.[1]
I mean visually it's probably quicker to see the big honking ad and airplane and focus and click than it is to read type. I'm guessing. User testing would prove or disprove this. (After all why do people use icons for that matter?)
[1] If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck.
Yes, for the user it's probably easier this way. However, I find it a bit weird that Southwest is paying Google to display this banner. If it's just an enhancement for the user shouldn't that be offered by Google itself?
I'm just a bit concerned that we're moving more and more to the point where your business can only be successful if you're paying Google. I'm not sure if it's fair to say that and I understand that Google is a business that has to earn money, but there are some red flags showing up for me.
Look at southwest's front page and then look at Google presentation of their site map. Their own site is such a train wreck that I wouldn't be surprised to find out that conversion is superior if the user starts at Google instead of their own site.
Because to check-in for a flight or lookup my reservation I have to 1) search Google for the airline and pick the official site out of the list of all similarly styled links and 2) navigate the airline's site for the exact page I need.
This makes it much, much easier now that all I have to do is search for the airline and click the section I want from the box at the top that signifies that what I'm about to click is the exact official site I'm looking for.
That is incorrect. Currently for "southwest airlines" in the US, sub links for their organic listing include:
-Check in Online
-Book Travel Award
-Check Flight Status
-Special Offers
-Flight Schedules
-Customer Service
This may be different in other countries. I am inclined to believe this is showing for nearly all US users as I have seen these direct links for airlines for quite some time.
What Southwest is doing is trading their free clicks for paid ones.
this was my initial though... any big brand who owns a trademark is probably going to find this useful, and I can't imagine someone searching "dell" or "southwest airlines" who isn't simply looking for their main site.
If these ads show up when you search "cheep airline tickets" or "personal computers" i could see there being a problem.
Does anyone know what you need to do to qualify for that type of banner ad? My guess is trade mark and major brand recognition
Stuff like this was my concern, as well. What if my 3 year old and I are Googling "Apple" while we go through the alphabet? Or what if I'm looking for airlines that service the southwest? If I'm a teenager searching for Tesla as part of a school project, should a car brand get to own the majority of that initial experience? (Answer, yes, if the price is right for Google.)
This is Google selling out their initial vision (the little that's left of it) just a little bit more. Which is disappointing to me personally, but they certainly don't owe anyone anything. They can do with their SERPs as they please, just as I can do with my search queries what I please. They were so good for so long, but ask any SEO worth their salt what they think of Google. They'll tell you those days have been over for some years now.
I think at this rate Google will only show one result on the page in the future, with a 90 percent chance that result being a big brand, and with a "See more results" link at the bottom. I'm not sure I'd like that future, even if it wasn't compromised by Google's push towards showing big brands at the top, and if it were in fact showing the "best of the best" result.
Look during normal days, having big "southwest airlines" banner ad is ok. But if there is a current event involving "southwest airlines" which might not be beneficial to them (some review, revelation about safety, etc.) this ad will be basically make this event on the second page of the search...
Look, Southwest AirLines are not stupid. Nor Google.
It is just that we are annoyed because there is less and less of "free internet".
This worries me though. I use AdBlock and get really annoyed when using friends' machines without it. But the system won't work if too many people use AdBlock. So if more ads -> more adblock -> then what?
My nightmare scenario is the spread of what already goes on on alot of less scrupulous sites: "we have detected that you are using AdBlock. Turn it off to view our content".
It reminds me of the excellent dystopia-satire "Black Mirror" where citizens are forced to view ads and if they look away or shut their eyes, an increasingly loud tone is played along with a "warning"...
What are "actual results" for Southwest though? To me it seems like links to check-in, flight status, schedules and customer services is exactly what I'd want to see there. Is the image what you find distracting? But doesn't this give you immediate indication that you got into the right place?
I think the thing people are objecting to is less the image or its associated links, but that that whole thing is an ad. Yeah, it's probably the most relevant result, but it's giving the user (especially if that user is, you know, non-technical) little choice but to click on the thing that puts money in GOOG's pocket.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I find that a little evil.
If google is providing you a free service, and giving you exactly what you want in that first result, why shouldn't they get money for doing it? Seems like a win-win to me.
Plus these look more like customized brand pages for companies that people are "specifically looking for", I would rather have detailed information about a company right front and center when I'm looking for it. The fact that anyone makes money because of this fact is ancillary.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I find that a little evil.
I'm having a hard time not reading this as effectively saying that it's evil to compensated for providing a service.
Yeah, it's probably the most relevant result, but it's giving the user (especially if that user is, you know, non-technical) little choice but to click on the thing that puts money in GOOG's pocket.
But the user made the choice to use Google in the first place. If people don't want Google getting money for clicks in their search results, then they should use a competing search engine.
I doubt Google gets much for it, because they want to provide the most relevant results to their users. This is how they keep their users. If the front page doesn't show all kinds of stuff for Southwest Airlines when the user typed "southwest airlines", then Google becomes less useful.
Southwest probably knew this when they negotiated with Google for the giant front-page ad.
You find it evil that people are using the service to quickly find exactly what they're looking for and the service provider gets paid for it? As someone mentioned above, if these were the results for "cheap flights" this would be evil, but they aren't; they're the results for "southwest airlines," and these results are helpful and relevant — that Google is getting paid for them doesn't strike me as relevant when this is the case.
Most users don't even care about going to second page of search. With knowledge graph, Google gives you precise answer right away and takes full screen on mobile (nearly half of the screen on desktop). I think Google is optimizing for users rather than SEO/Websites.
As a someone who works in advertising, even I dislike banner ads. They are obtrusive, annoying and take away the attention. Google should go back to adwords and make them better rather than anything else.
Well now, at the moment it is just a pilot program (heh)
But lets assume it doesn't say that way and someone around here needs to search for something like oh
Visual Studio (something or other)
Xcode git integration
Now imagine the glorious Microsoft or Apple ad covering 88% of the screen.
Still don't see the problem? An ad targeted the way this one is isn't useful for anything other than gauging reaction. For it to be useful they will have to show up on related searches, not ones that are specifically for that product or service.
Just tried a few searches. 'Visual Studio' brings you to it's product page, as well as MSDN. 'Visual Studio' + an additional search term brings up only 'search' results...
This doesn't seem to be a very fair comparison. You cant compare a search for "maps" with a search for an actual company in this case "Southwest Airlines." I would expect that a search for a company even earlier in googles history would have been links mainly to southwest owned pages.
“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's misleading, because they are counting the whole result box that is labelled "Sponsored", but of that box, everything but the actual graphic banner at the top of the box is exactly the organic search result which is the top hit for the search (including the subordinate links) served to users that aren't getting the new experimental ads. So, everything but the graphic (not everything but the sponsored box) is "actual Google results".
Page and Brin themselves once pointed out the problems of accepting ads or paid placement, with some rather ironic examples:
Furthermore, advertising income often provides an incentive to provide poor quality search results. For example, we noticed a major search engine would not return a large airline's homepage when the airline's name was given as a query. It so happened that the airline had placed an expensive ad, linked to the query that was its name. A better search engine would not have required this ad, and possibly resulted in the loss of the revenue from the airline to the search engine. In general, it could be argued from the consumer point of view that the better the search engine is, the fewer advertisements will be needed for the consumer to find what they want. This of course erodes the advertising supported business model of the existing search engines. However, there will always be money from advertisers who want a customer to switch products, or have something that is genuinely new. But we believe the issue of advertising causes enough mixed incentives that it is crucial to have a competitive search engine that is transparent and in the academic realm.
The main difference seems to be that today even getting the top organic search result doesn't provide enough clicks for advertisers, so they feel obliged to purchase ads for their own brand names even when they already rank first. If people searching for Southwest Airlines on Google aren't ending up on the Southwest Airlines website without a huge great banner ad (despite it being ranked at the top of the results) then something is going badly wrong on the Google search results page.
The main difference seems to be that today even getting the top organic search result doesn't provide enough clicks for advertisers, so they feel obliged to purchase ads for their own brand names even when they already rank first.
It should be noted that this instance is simply a test and should not be taken as an indication of how these ads will be purchased. While I'm sure there will be numerous advertisers who feel the need to have a large banner when their specific brand is searched for, I expect them to be in the minority. The real question is will I be seeing a banner for Southwest when I search for JetBlue.
"The real question is will I be seeing a banner for Southwest when I search for JetBlue."
It's not so much what you are going to see, as what you're not going to see. I'm sure BP is happy to buy a shiny image ad and take traffic away from wikipedias article on the deepwater horizon oil spill.
When searching for "BP", all of the results are relevant, but none are about Deepwater Horizon.
Interestingly though, at the bottom of the page, I see Google has an "In-depth Articles" section that has three articles, all about spills, two of them critical of BP.
This may be fallout from trademark owners losing their various lawsuits against Google for allowing competitors to advertise on their trademark as keyword. (See this article: http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2013/05/google_crushes....) So now they may be the top organic result (or even a navigation result) but JetBlue or United or whatever can buy a banner on top that has their airline telling the searcher how much better they are than the other guys. This is great for Google, now Southwest has to pay to advertise or get side swiped by a competitor, and because its an auction system their competitor can bid up the keywords to negatively impact Southwest, forcing higher ad rates. Win win win for Google, not so great for Southwest Airlines).
If they follow through with what you suggest, I wonder if it will be the straw that breaks the camels back in regards to an antitrust lawsuit by the government.
Why should that be the case? Google had defended and won most cases around the world where brands accused it of allowing competitors to show ads against their keyword searches. Why should banner ads be treated any differently by antitrust regulators?
The issue that I see (IANAL) is that these incremental changes to embedded advertising within search encroach ever-closer to a form of paid-search. When you own 60-70% of search, and you start requiring companies to pay in order to appear above the fold, we may have a problem.
I'm pretty sure the banner can only appear when you have the top organic search result. So JetBlue couldn't buy the banner for Southwest. Furthermore, the idea is that the user is trying to find Southwest so redirecting them to JetBlue would make not sense.
It may not necessarily be a win-win for Google. It could actually make search worse. Consider if I search for Southwest Airlines and get a big Jet Blue banner that takes up 88% of vertical space, this would actually make me very agitated as a search consumer - it's almost the same as displaying a popup ad.
>If people searching for Southwest Airlines on Google aren't ending up on the Southwest Airlines website without a huge great banner ad (despite it being ranked at the top of the results) then something is going badly wrong on the Google search results page.
Or maybe they are, and this is simply an example of a branding bonus/partnership for big spenders. We have no idea what the economics are and why.
Yes, in media buying, this is known as brand protection. It ensures that customers who already are searching for your brand and are therefore more likely to convert don't disappear off to a competitor.
Hence ironically companies will often pay more per click for these results than on more unrelated keywords.
When this happens I like to play a little game. If I think the company has loads of money (Apple, Shell), I click the sponsored link and help fill the coffers at Google. Otherwise, I click the search result and save the poor struggling company some cents.
What does this achieve? You're transferring an infinitesimal amount of money from, say, an Apple, to Google.
In turn, Google becomes even more of a monopoly (because previously organic clicks now become paid).
And the money Apple paid Google to win your click will need to come from somewhere. A reduction in some other head (organic optimization?) or from increased prices. We'd like to think it will merely reduce Apple's profit margin, but I doubt it.
"If people searching for Southwest Airlines on Google aren't ending up on the Southwest Airlines website without a huge great banner ad (despite it being ranked at the top of the results) then something is going badly wrong on the Google search results page."
Perhaps the metric being optimised isn't conversion to home page landings. Perhaps there is something deeper in their funnel which benefits from the visual experience starting one click earlier.
It can make sense to buy an ad even if you are the top result. It basically makes your top result take up twice as much room. More room = more clicks. It also pushes any competitor links creeping up below your top result from being above the scroll. And of course, with this new sell out mechanic, you get even more than double the space to shove out your competition.
And a lot of people dont realize the difference between PPC ads and organic results - this is from direct experience at business shows talking to potential customers.
If people searching for Southwest Airlines on Google aren't ending up on the Southwest Airlines website without a huge great banner ad (despite it being ranked at the top of the results) then something is going badly wrong on the Google search results page.
Of course searching for "Southwest Airlines" will result in southwest.com being the first hit. The reason that Southwest buys its own banner is to prevent rival airlines from buying that same name.
I was worried when I saw this headline, and then very relieved when I saw what was actually going on.
So long as Google only returns these sponsored ads for searches for the company name, I don't see this as being a problem at all, given the fact that many users are using the address bar integrated search in place of bookmarking or typing URLs.
Where this would become a problem is if they start expanding this to searches beyond simply the company name, and I think there is a bit of a gray area there. As someone else pointed out in this thread, showing the Southwest banner in response to a search for "cheap airfare" pretty unambiguously crosses a line, but what abut something like "book southwest airlines flights." One could argue that the user was attempting to get to the southwest airlines website to book a flight, so showing the Southwest banner would be appropriate, however, companies like Expedia, Kayak, and so on, whose links would now be much further down the page, would likely disagree.
Oh, that might be. I was only trying to make a general point about how ad placement like that could easily go too far, at least in the eyes of some. I actually try to avoid flying Southwest whenever possible just because I hate having to queue up at the gate.
There was an interesting earlier this year from EBAY showing that there was ZERO value to buying their own brand keywords from Google (when their organic keywords ranked high).
In fact spending money on their own brand keywords generated signifigant negative ROI (1).
So my guess is that this strategy from Google is designed to provide brands with a first step to generating actual value from Google search results.
I can see brands making these out-sized spends when able to provide their customers w/additional value like interactivity within the goog results, etc.
Perhaps, but Google has already been claiming[1] that such spending provides positive value (though I have no idea how true that is for whatever brands they're pursuing here)
Also it is generally really cheap to buy that ad, so even if the incremental value is small it is still worth it. It also keeps you on top of anyone else bidding on your brand, if you brand is generic enough for them to get away with it.
Here's the best "malicious" reasoning behind this that I could come up with. Consider the following list of _hypothetical_ statements (as I have no research to back it up):
1. Users tend to ignore the small ads on the right (anecdote: I do)
2. Users do notice and click on search results beneath the top query, even when they originally intended to arrive at their exact branded query
3. Search results beneath the top result are for competitors
Solution: Put in huge "ad" to draw attention and also to knock competitors listings to the very bottom of the screen or off the fold completely
If 1-3 hold true, then I could see it making sense competitively to shove those other results down the page.
Edit: aresant pointed out a good article that could explain the intent. Yay! Also, it wasn't my intent to hate on Google, just a thought experiment.
If you look at this from a retailer perspective this completely makes sense. Important boss man at 'Acme Widgets' wants to type 'Acme Widgets' into Google and see something impressive, with some control over it. He can now pay for the advert with Google rather than pay a bunch of SEO clowns and 'web designers' that typically go over-clever with the homepage design rendering the top search results useless.
Important boss man also wants to get good results for 'acme blue widgets', 'tough widgets Alabama', 'naughty widgets' and whatever but only really cares about those secondary searches when someone else has told him to care about it. It is the main company name, in the search box that matters.
I think this is going to work well for all concerned and I don't share the cynicism most people seem to have about this.
So SWA is a pretty specific example, but what about Apple? What about when you are searching for, well, information about apples? And can SWA ever own the term "Southwest"? When you think it out, it's not as cut and dry as it first seems.
First, probe the outrage machine for banners for particular brands. Then for a huge price tag, add lightweight widgets to the SERP for brands so searchers can e.g. buy tickets from the Google Search page. This is hailed by the brands as increasing sales dramatically. Demand for this feature grows.
Once significant numbers are using the SERP widgets, make the banners/widgets part of general non-brand search. Natural next step. A little bit of outrage, but at this point it just gets muffled by the masses. Life goes on.
All of these brands are getting increasingly dependent on Google's SERP widgets, which give Google huge leverage power. One deal leads to another and before you know it Google starts buying up airlnes to streamline everything.
So in 2030 we're flying Google Air using a Google phone to buy tickets to the Google Movies, to see a film made by a studio wholly owned by Google.
I'm not even saying this is a Bad Thing (tm). Just that if I were heading Google this would totally be my game plan.
I am not sure why this is a bad thing as such. Google does not owe us to give the search results. Google owes advertisers a good return for their money and they will optimize it in whatever way they can. At least they are not being like Ask or Conduit.
141 comments
[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 102 ms ] threadhttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6605312
Same story (but no real discussion) was submitted here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6604925
Call me cynical, but I suspect it will still be upvoted and discussed here because any comments on that earlier discussion will get lost in the noise of the close to 200 comments already there.
Sometimes when there is a story that is a day or so old it's almost as if it doesn't pay to comment for that exact reason.
Edit: By "exact reason" I mean an old story with 200 comments isn't as attractive to make a comment on as a new story with 15 or 20 comments that is 2 or 3 hours old.
I had a rant about this in another comment:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6606955
As I say, this rampant duplication (which I admit doesn't happen often, but still often enough) offends my sense of taste. I know others don't care, but it irritates me.
And now I'm going to have to step away from the keyboard and let it all die down and go away. At least with on-line irritations like this you can just walk away.
Ignoring that, it's unfair to use one example and say that search results are 12%. Is it 12% average, 12% median, or 12% for navigational queries only?
This sounds to me like a complete non-issue. If you don't like ads, install AdBlock. Of course if you need clicks for your website, carry on.
Somewhat sensationalist.
http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2013/10/...
Doesn't matter. Users are going to see this, and their mind is going to register "huge fucking banner ad". They aren't going to go find old screenshots, break out a ruler and do pixel by pixel comparisons.
Yes it's eye catching, but you could just as easily end up with the juxtaposition of a big AA ad, followed immediately by an article about a hijacking. Plus there's the argument that people have been trained to ignore banner ads. This could bite advertisers depending on the other organic results and their demographic.
If the issue about following content being above or below "the fold" were the only issue at stake, I'd agree. But from the pics in the article, I feel like people are going to see this and have an immediate, visceral, negative reaction, because it looks and feels like a huge banner ad.
But, if, as some people are saying, this is ONLY going to be for very specific brands and situations where the linked "ad" really would have been the top organic anyway, then maybe it won't be so bad. I had originally thought that this kind of ad was going to be allowed broadly and that they would be popping up all over.
I understand ads for terms like "cheap tickets", but why would I want an ad for the term "Southwest Airlines"?
From what the example shows it's not so much an ad as a really quick way to visually see that when you click you will be going to the right place.[1]
I mean visually it's probably quicker to see the big honking ad and airplane and focus and click than it is to read type. I'm guessing. User testing would prove or disprove this. (After all why do people use icons for that matter?)
[1] If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck.
The banner at the top of the box is a traditional (and somewhat large) banner ad.
The rest of the content of the box is exactly what you get as the top result of the same search on Google when you aren't getting the experimental ad.
I'm just a bit concerned that we're moving more and more to the point where your business can only be successful if you're paying Google. I'm not sure if it's fair to say that and I understand that Google is a business that has to earn money, but there are some red flags showing up for me.
If it pushes southwestsucks.com or something similar off the first page of google results it has some value.
This makes it much, much easier now that all I have to do is search for the airline and click the section I want from the box at the top that signifies that what I'm about to click is the exact official site I'm looking for.
-Check in Online -Book Travel Award -Check Flight Status -Special Offers -Flight Schedules -Customer Service
This may be different in other countries. I am inclined to believe this is showing for nearly all US users as I have seen these direct links for airlines for quite some time.
What Southwest is doing is trading their free clicks for paid ones.
If these ads show up when you search "cheep airline tickets" or "personal computers" i could see there being a problem.
Does anyone know what you need to do to qualify for that type of banner ad? My guess is trade mark and major brand recognition
This is Google selling out their initial vision (the little that's left of it) just a little bit more. Which is disappointing to me personally, but they certainly don't owe anyone anything. They can do with their SERPs as they please, just as I can do with my search queries what I please. They were so good for so long, but ask any SEO worth their salt what they think of Google. They'll tell you those days have been over for some years now.
I think at this rate Google will only show one result on the page in the future, with a 90 percent chance that result being a big brand, and with a "See more results" link at the bottom. I'm not sure I'd like that future, even if it wasn't compromised by Google's push towards showing big brands at the top, and if it were in fact showing the "best of the best" result.
Look during normal days, having big "southwest airlines" banner ad is ok. But if there is a current event involving "southwest airlines" which might not be beneficial to them (some review, revelation about safety, etc.) this ad will be basically make this event on the second page of the search...
Look, Southwest AirLines are not stupid. Nor Google.
It is just that we are annoyed because there is less and less of "free internet".
My nightmare scenario is the spread of what already goes on on alot of less scrupulous sites: "we have detected that you are using AdBlock. Turn it off to view our content".
It reminds me of the excellent dystopia-satire "Black Mirror" where citizens are forced to view ads and if they look away or shut their eyes, an increasingly loud tone is played along with a "warning"...
And "some" means several hundred supporters.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I find that a little evil.
Plus these look more like customized brand pages for companies that people are "specifically looking for", I would rather have detailed information about a company right front and center when I'm looking for it. The fact that anyone makes money because of this fact is ancillary.
I'm having a hard time not reading this as effectively saying that it's evil to compensated for providing a service.
Yeah, it's probably the most relevant result, but it's giving the user (especially if that user is, you know, non-technical) little choice but to click on the thing that puts money in GOOG's pocket.
But the user made the choice to use Google in the first place. If people don't want Google getting money for clicks in their search results, then they should use a competing search engine.
Southwest probably knew this when they negotiated with Google for the giant front-page ad.
As a someone who works in advertising, even I dislike banner ads. They are obtrusive, annoying and take away the attention. Google should go back to adwords and make them better rather than anything else.
I just did a few searches for educational topics, got no ads. ... I would say there isn't a problem...
But lets assume it doesn't say that way and someone around here needs to search for something like oh
Visual Studio (something or other) Xcode git integration
Now imagine the glorious Microsoft or Apple ad covering 88% of the screen.
Still don't see the problem? An ad targeted the way this one is isn't useful for anything other than gauging reaction. For it to be useful they will have to show up on related searches, not ones that are specifically for that product or service.
“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.”
http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2005/12/about-aol-announcem...
Furthermore, advertising income often provides an incentive to provide poor quality search results. For example, we noticed a major search engine would not return a large airline's homepage when the airline's name was given as a query. It so happened that the airline had placed an expensive ad, linked to the query that was its name. A better search engine would not have required this ad, and possibly resulted in the loss of the revenue from the airline to the search engine. In general, it could be argued from the consumer point of view that the better the search engine is, the fewer advertisements will be needed for the consumer to find what they want. This of course erodes the advertising supported business model of the existing search engines. However, there will always be money from advertisers who want a customer to switch products, or have something that is genuinely new. But we believe the issue of advertising causes enough mixed incentives that it is crucial to have a competitive search engine that is transparent and in the academic realm.
http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html
The main difference seems to be that today even getting the top organic search result doesn't provide enough clicks for advertisers, so they feel obliged to purchase ads for their own brand names even when they already rank first. If people searching for Southwest Airlines on Google aren't ending up on the Southwest Airlines website without a huge great banner ad (despite it being ranked at the top of the results) then something is going badly wrong on the Google search results page.
It should be noted that this instance is simply a test and should not be taken as an indication of how these ads will be purchased. While I'm sure there will be numerous advertisers who feel the need to have a large banner when their specific brand is searched for, I expect them to be in the minority. The real question is will I be seeing a banner for Southwest when I search for JetBlue.
It's not so much what you are going to see, as what you're not going to see. I'm sure BP is happy to buy a shiny image ad and take traffic away from wikipedias article on the deepwater horizon oil spill.
Interestingly though, at the bottom of the page, I see Google has an "In-depth Articles" section that has three articles, all about spills, two of them critical of BP.
Or maybe they are, and this is simply an example of a branding bonus/partnership for big spenders. We have no idea what the economics are and why.
What branding benefit can there be in showing a text ad to a user who is already searching for your website?
Also, they could better point customers to special offers, etc.
Hence ironically companies will often pay more per click for these results than on more unrelated keywords.
In turn, Google becomes even more of a monopoly (because previously organic clicks now become paid).
And the money Apple paid Google to win your click will need to come from somewhere. A reduction in some other head (organic optimization?) or from increased prices. We'd like to think it will merely reduce Apple's profit margin, but I doubt it.
Perhaps the metric being optimised isn't conversion to home page landings. Perhaps there is something deeper in their funnel which benefits from the visual experience starting one click earlier.
Choose the path of the Jedi - use DDG!
https://duckduckgo.com/
https://dukgo.com/help/en_US/company/advertising-and-affilia...
Of course searching for "Southwest Airlines" will result in southwest.com being the first hit. The reason that Southwest buys its own banner is to prevent rival airlines from buying that same name.
So long as Google only returns these sponsored ads for searches for the company name, I don't see this as being a problem at all, given the fact that many users are using the address bar integrated search in place of bookmarking or typing URLs.
Where this would become a problem is if they start expanding this to searches beyond simply the company name, and I think there is a bit of a gray area there. As someone else pointed out in this thread, showing the Southwest banner in response to a search for "cheap airfare" pretty unambiguously crosses a line, but what abut something like "book southwest airlines flights." One could argue that the user was attempting to get to the southwest airlines website to book a flight, so showing the Southwest banner would be appropriate, however, companies like Expedia, Kayak, and so on, whose links would now be much further down the page, would likely disagree.
In fact spending money on their own brand keywords generated signifigant negative ROI (1).
So my guess is that this strategy from Google is designed to provide brands with a first step to generating actual value from Google search results.
I can see brands making these out-sized spends when able to provide their customers w/additional value like interactivity within the goog results, etc.
(1) http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/03/did-ebay-just-prove-that-paid/
[1] http://searchengineland.com/ebay-says-adwords-ineffective-go... > On average, 50% of the ad clicks that occurred with a top rank organic result are incremental, i.e., they would not be recovered organically if the ad campaign is paused.
1. Users tend to ignore the small ads on the right (anecdote: I do)
2. Users do notice and click on search results beneath the top query, even when they originally intended to arrive at their exact branded query
3. Search results beneath the top result are for competitors
Solution: Put in huge "ad" to draw attention and also to knock competitors listings to the very bottom of the screen or off the fold completely
If 1-3 hold true, then I could see it making sense competitively to shove those other results down the page.
Edit: aresant pointed out a good article that could explain the intent. Yay! Also, it wasn't my intent to hate on Google, just a thought experiment.
Important boss man also wants to get good results for 'acme blue widgets', 'tough widgets Alabama', 'naughty widgets' and whatever but only really cares about those secondary searches when someone else has told him to care about it. It is the main company name, in the search box that matters.
I think this is going to work well for all concerned and I don't share the cynicism most people seem to have about this.
First, probe the outrage machine for banners for particular brands. Then for a huge price tag, add lightweight widgets to the SERP for brands so searchers can e.g. buy tickets from the Google Search page. This is hailed by the brands as increasing sales dramatically. Demand for this feature grows.
Once significant numbers are using the SERP widgets, make the banners/widgets part of general non-brand search. Natural next step. A little bit of outrage, but at this point it just gets muffled by the masses. Life goes on.
All of these brands are getting increasingly dependent on Google's SERP widgets, which give Google huge leverage power. One deal leads to another and before you know it Google starts buying up airlnes to streamline everything.
So in 2030 we're flying Google Air using a Google phone to buy tickets to the Google Movies, to see a film made by a studio wholly owned by Google.
I'm not even saying this is a Bad Thing (tm). Just that if I were heading Google this would totally be my game plan.
Google will never buy airlines, it'd be like Apple taking over the music industry.
Besides, Airlines are a very low-margin business. How would a GOOG investor react to them taking on such a margins-killing subsidiary?
Speaking of "high quality ads": The second Cheap-O-Air Ad is for flights to Southwest not on Southwest Airlines - Deceptive IMHO.