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Wednesday, October 11, 2023
Search monetization
Google (Alphabet) has a 1.75 trillion dollar market capitalization, which is mostly based on the discovery 25 years ago that the result of a search query has inherent monetary value. Wired recently posted an article that suggested Google was deceptively changing your search queries to give you even more monetized results. Google denied that, and Wired even took down the article. Nothing to see here, right? Well ...
Have you tried to use the search engine of Amazon lately? It can be a very frustrating experience. Words you type in get simply ignored, and the same handful of results always end up on top of the list of results. The reason for that is obvious: If you search for example for a "shirt", Amazon listing a specific brand of shirts on top of the list has inherent monetary value. Unsurprisingly when I tried the first result was from Amazon brands. Would anybody be surprised if the following results were those on which Amazon made the most money, maybe even by being directly paid for promoting them?
It is totally possible that the Wired story about Google was fake news. Having said that, we all have been living with Google search results that have been manipulated by SEO (search engine optimization). The SEO industry is said to be worth $68 billion in 2022. And it is probably going to be massively boosted by Artificial Intelligence: If the goal of a text is to appeal to an algorithm, who better to write that text than an algorithm? I made a point in a previous post about AI that the kind of jobs that AI is most likely to replace are actually the worst jobs imaginable, and "online journalist" writing SEO-optimized articles with no actual content is certainly one of those. There is this trend where people put the word "reddit" after each of their Google searches, because that gives them less shitty search results. Can we really say that Google is working as intended in giving us the most useful search results, instead of the best monetized ones?
- posted by Tobold @ 11:59 AM Permanent Link
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I agree, it is too big a business for companies to stay "honest", or at least not employ ways for it to work in their favor.
For Google searches, I too often add "reddit" to my search query to get real opinions instead of marketing ads pretending to be informative articles. But I do recall being impressed with the relevancy of Google search results way back when I switched to it. It has been so long, I'm not even sure what search engine I used to use. Perhaps it would be good to re-evaluate the available options one of these days. I have been impressed with finding answers to direct questions from ChatGPT though.
As for Amazon, yes I too am not fond of the search experience on Amazon's website. I really wish there were better filters, because I typically have to manually scroll through lots of products before I really find what I want. So the workaround is to use a third-party site like pcpartpicker.com to filter products. But Amazon usually gets my money anyway because they often have the cheapest price, a large selection, fast shipping, and easy returns if I need them.
For Google searches, I too often add "reddit" to my search query to get real opinions instead of marketing ads pretending to be informative articles. But I do recall being impressed with the relevancy of Google search results way back when I switched to it. It has been so long, I'm not even sure what search engine I used to use. Perhaps it would be good to re-evaluate the available options one of these days. I have been impressed with finding answers to direct questions from ChatGPT though.
As for Amazon, yes I too am not fond of the search experience on Amazon's website. I really wish there were better filters, because I typically have to manually scroll through lots of products before I really find what I want. So the workaround is to use a third-party site like pcpartpicker.com to filter products. But Amazon usually gets my money anyway because they often have the cheapest price, a large selection, fast shipping, and easy returns if I need them.
Amazon is getting sued by the FTC for pretty much precisely what you describe here.
I don’t doubt for a second Google prioritizes certain sites over others based off of beneficial things like Ad Sense ratings and other factors.
I don’t doubt for a second Google prioritizes certain sites over others based off of beneficial things like Ad Sense ratings and other factors.
This process is called enshittification – "first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die."
Quote from Cory Doctorow blog post https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys.
I learned about Cory Doctorow from your own post a few weeks ago http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2023/10/entertainment-dollars.html, it looks like you are repeating yourself a bit :)
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Quote from Cory Doctorow blog post https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys.
I learned about Cory Doctorow from your own post a few weeks ago http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2023/10/entertainment-dollars.html, it looks like you are repeating yourself a bit :)
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