
Google Search Upgrades Make It Harder for Websites to Win Traffic - kupatrupa
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-13/how-google-search-changes-make-it-more-expensive-to-win-traffic
======
mattkevan
For all the tiny violins that could be played about how life is getting harder
for SEO practitioners, this marks a fundamental and very unwelcome change in
the Web.

Google have decided that it’s more profitable to keep people on its own site
than redirecting them elsewhere, a big change in its contract. Before, it was
‘structure your site well and we’ll send you traffic’. Now it’s becoming,
‘structure your site well and we’ll take your content, keeping the traffic for
ourselves’.

The long term effects of this are that Google becomes one of the bloated
portal sites that it disrupted in the late 90s - and sucks the life out of
everything else.

~~~
criddell
What kinds of searches are you thinking about?

I like that I can google for the weather or Dr. Fauci's age and get an answer
directly. The results page always has links if I care to dig deeper but 99% of
the time I'd rather get the answer and move on.

~~~
ravenstine
While I think those features are cool, and also appreciate DDG's very
primitive version of them, how come it isn't considered some kind of copyright
violation?

After all, use a 5 second clip of a song for fair use and YouTube may
automatically remove your video(or just the audio) on behalf of Universal
Music Group.

Maybe websites ought to send DMCA takedown notices to Google when they find
their content being used as answers in the search result page?

~~~
izacus
Do you really, REALLY want to make facts copyrightable and owned by
corporations? Plain information? Weaponized, that would destroy Wikipedia,
blogs and tutorials.

Let's not make copyright even more cancerous as it already is.

~~~
ravenstine
That's not what I'm saying at all. When you write about a fact, you have
copyright to the way that you assembled words to communicate that fact. When
Google is taking snippets from other website and presenting it as their own
content in a way that discourages visiting the sites where Google got that
content, while displaying their own ads and services, they are effectively
plagiarizing and committing acts that are anticompetitive and possibly not
fair use. If a site wants to prevent Google from using their content for free
to keep people off of their site, they should have the right to do so.

I'm about as far from a copyright shill as you can get without being an
information anarchist. I think the copyright system in the United States needs
to be completely overhauled and should stop giving corporations indefinite
monopolies over ideas. But this is a case where the existence of copyright
could be a good thing for the little guy to resist abuse from Big Data.

------
UweSchmidt
Tangential, but Google search has become worse, as they seemingly have decided
to no longer index everything. Looking for specific error messages + a keyword
used to lead directly to the blog article that solves the problem, now the
search results seem very superficial. Doing research and exhaustively finding
all references of something seems harder now. On Youtube it is even worse, I
get 7 search results, that's it. The rest is "recommended for me".

Maybe that's not so tangential after all. Assured of their own power, formerly
over other search engines, now increasingly over the websites themselves, they
have no incentive to put out a really great product.

~~~
EricE
In the results right below where your search terms are, there's a line of
light gray text that starts with All News Images - at the end click on Tools.
Then change All Results to Verbatim.

It eliminates all the recommendations, and the majority of the guesses about
context, relevance, etc. Combine that with judicious use of quotes and it's
still possible to have decent error message/keyword searches.

Never thought I would pine for Altavista.

~~~
UweSchmidt
Thanks, this seems to help quite a bit.

------
tannhaeuser
Yeah, just what've been saying for some time now. As Google is struggling for
growth, it'll squeeze ad revenue off the extant web, turning it into a piece
of shit even more than it is already. The same thing happened with eg. free
PHPbb forum providers in early 2000s which were plastered with banner ads more
and more (many mobile sites are like this already). I don't see a way that
Google can win this race to the bottom, and neither do I see any reason for
content creators to even bother with Google Search and Google Analytics; they
will just direct your visitor's precious profile data to your competitor
spending more on AdWord bids than you.

FYI: see also [1] and [2] as additional upcoming measures by Google

[1]: [https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2020/03/announcing-
mobile-...](https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2020/03/announcing-mobile-first-
indexing-for.html)

[2]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCLxiN_dpjU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCLxiN_dpjU)

~~~
Guidii
Your argument assumes this is a fixed-sum game?

The story changes if the web continues to grow and more folks do more business
over the web.

~~~
AlexandrB
It _is_ a fixed-sum game for Google's search product. There's only so many
searches that people can/will do in a day - we're probably nearing that limit
- and Google already has >70% marketshare in search. The only way to increase
revenue is to get more money per-search. Hence the increased number of
sponsored placements and other revenue generators on the first page of
results.

------
kemonocode
Bloomberg doing browser back button hijacking to show me Taboola-esque dross
when I hit back on this article was peak irony to me.

Yes, Google has and is very much abusing their position when it comes to
(re-)directing traffic to other websites, but one has to wonder how much from
that is a disaster of the affected sites' own making when they've tried for so
long to squeeze every last drop of "SEO juice" out of their content and use
every dirty advertiser trick under the sun.

------
roenxi
It'll be fascinating to watch if Google eventually falls. They have really
interesting strategic weaknesses.

Advertisers will go where the people go, but Google's balance sheets suggest
there is enormous scope for a middleman to go and negotiate with the
Apples/Mozillas/Microsofts of the world to give them a better cut of the
search revenue.

I can imagine a key based system where I register a token with, say, "Hoogle"
and then also register it with the browser doing the searching. Then get paid
a tiny amount if enough searches get made with it.

If it works at all that'd be a brutal model for Google to compete with.
Suddenly all the casual IT types would be directing all their friends and
family to Hoogle because they make money off it. Corporations would ban Google
en-mass. It'd squeeze all the revenue out of the search middleman and back to
whoever controlled the computers.

~~~
saalweachter
... did you just describe an advertising marketplace as an alternative to web
search?

~~~
ocdtrekkie
"an advertising marketplace as an alternative to web search"

To the large portion of the population who doesn't understand that the "top
result" on a Google search is an ad, this is already where we are at. The
subtle but impactful changes to make ads incrementally less distinguishable
from real results has brought us here.

------
mc32
While keeping people on their platform is concerning and contrary to their
prior position of getting out of the way of people’s information, I appreciate
the snippets for one reason, I don’t have to worry about malware. Going to
unknown sites is risky and even if not you may never the less get a clickjack
telling people they are infected and need to click to clean up their system.

It’s a no-win state.

~~~
tannhaeuser
That's not going to work either, in EU at least [1] (I wanted to link to a
politico article but unfortunately they're using DoubleClick and I won't
knowingly link to such sites anymore).

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Copyright_in_the_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Copyright_in_the_Digital_Single_Market)

~~~
mikro2nd
Or just mark Doubleclick as "untrusted" in NoScript? Along with gstatic,
googletagmanager and a handful of the other common google domains, that is.

------
sixhobbits
As someone who has just launched a business to help companies produce useful
free content for readers in return for their potential business, this is
really worrying trend.

That said, I have full faith in people. Specifically for people to drop Google
and move to smaller search engines if Google no longer shows them the best
content.

And to use adblockers. Google gives me fairly good results most of the time
with uBlock Origin and I'm always surprised by how bad the results are without
it (when I see only ads).

I blame OKRs and quarterly planning. Those that care about the 10-year health
of a business are shouted down by those who get bonuses by sacrificing long
term gain for short term gain.

Can definitely recommend The Innovator's Dilemma [0] for those who haven't
read it yet.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma)

~~~
propogandist
>Specifically for people to drop Google and move to smaller search engines if
Google no longer shows them the best content.

it's not that easy when Google has made an effort to push their browser
aggressively, especially when they notice you on Google without a Chrome user
agent. This has led them to have ~80% marketshare. Switching from the default
search portal still doesn't free the user from being data-mined as users are
generally logged into the browser. Separately, web visits hit Google DNS or
SafeSearch APIs enabling them to continue build user-profiles.

All their free services are meant to drive stickyness. From Gmail to Youtube
to Maps to Google Assistant, people like free things -- even if all their data
is being mined -- and Google's single account ensures users are locked in and
unable to escape from the bigG ecosystem.

Unless you go out of your way, I believe logging into a Google account on
Chrome automatically logs you into the Browser too.

------
doorty
I've become more disillusioned with search results over the years. In the
earlier days of the web, It used to be you'd fine useful answers from
thoughtful people. Now you find long winded SEO articles filled with adverts.
I mean 10 pages of content for a simple recipe.

------
rc_mob
I use DDG but homestly it not much better as far as quality of results go. To
me it feels like DDG has gone out of its way to copy Googles shitty algorithm.

~~~
s_dev
DDG search results are far worse than Google. It's not remotely as good at
search. However 90% of my searches are trivial -- DDG will find what I'm
looking for. For the remaining 10% I'll switch to Google and the result will
pop up. This is a decent compromise as someone trying to wean themselves off
Google.

~~~
annadane
Or use Startpage

------
onyva
Give runnaroo a try. I’ve made if the default search engine everywhere. It’s
really that good and they make it possible to enjoy the web again as well as
reach relevant content instantly.

~~~
pedro2
What's their business model?

~~~
jaden
Looks like ads and affiliate links.

[https://www.runnaroo.com/privacy](https://www.runnaroo.com/privacy)

~~~
onyva
I didn’t see that. That’s worrying. A y idea if they’re related to Brave, by
any chance?

~~~
chris_f
_I didn’t see that. That’s worrying. Any idea if they’re related to Brave, by
any chance?_

I'm the creator of Runnaroo.

Nope, not related to Brave, but there maybe conversations soon to add Runnaroo
as one of the default search options in Brave.

We are exploring different ways to monetize, and wanted to make possible
options upfront in the privacy policy. I am always open to feedback or
suggestions. Whatever direction we end up going, the core focus is always
preserving user privacy.

Is there any specific reason affiliate links are worrying? It is currently one
of the main ways DuckDuckGo monetizes

------
in3d
There is a solution for websites. Band together and ban Googlebot at the same
time. Post a message that the site will now only be searchable on, let’s say,
Bing. Google would cave in. Of course it’s a collective action problem with a
short-term revenue loss so easier said than done.

------
SirHound
I would pay money for an ad-free version of Google with the quality of results
from a few years ago. I use DuckDuckGo and I find myself typing !g enough that
I might change back completely.

~~~
mattmanser
Ad blockers work fine with Google, seem to be one of the few companies that
simply don't worry about the arms race and let you block ads.

You use DDG for privacy, not ad free.

~~~
1f60c
Although DuckDuckGo does provide the option to turn off ads right in the
settings.

------
wef2323tg23
I stopped all of my ads on Google and only use alternative advertisers. I also
frequently use other search engines. For example, Yandex is much better for
searching illegal/gray area stuff. I don't use google's cloud and cancelled my
Google for business subscription. I will also stop using their browser and
will switch to Firefox or Edge (the latest version uses Blink engine and has
almost 100% compatibility with Chrome).

------
mmmBacon
I work in an industry that always wants multi-source for everything. So it’s
funny to me that there’s no market pressure to have a competitive 2nd source
search engine. Obviously Bing, DDG exist but not sure how much share they
have. I can’t imagine having to rely on a sole provider to drive all my
traffic.

------
meh206
There needs to be a public service for internet search!

~~~
EricE
We need a decentralized search just like DNS is a central service, but not
centrally managed (OK, mostly not centrally managed).

How about each web site indexing their own contents and then there being a
mechanism for your client to crawl the indexes, just like a DNS resolver will
query servers until it finds the answer it wants. My iPhone is leaps and
bounds more powerful than desktops of a decade ago - there is zero reason to
pool power in data centers. Indeed it would be impractical for Google to
replicate the power of all the clients worldwide in a data center.

------
jitendrac
Every time I think about my good programming projects in past, I remember I
was just good at google search. I knew exactly which phrase and which
Business/Tech jargon had to be used. but now I can surely see the difference
in search results quality compared to past.In past there were 1-2 adword ads
on top, but now I can encounter multiple events in day when I can count 4-5
ads on top as well as bottom, and don't forget about price comparison at
sidebar. Sometimes its really annoying. I tried ddg and being but they are
still not good enough for me.

I hate SEO and love the organic content which is now far limited to just hobby
bloggers.

------
chiefalchemist
No surprises here. This is the history of SEO, isn't it?

Truth be told, Google's #1 objective is to be human. That is, to recommend
what a human would recommend, but automated and at scale. This is why Google
consistently recommends: Design for the human, not the bot + algorithm.

Taken a step further with personalization, Google just want to be you. That
is, what would you recommend to you if you could. Who is going to make you
more happy than you?

Sure SEO is a cat & mouse game but the arc of that plot is the cat wins more
and more often. Eventually the mouse will be wise to assimilate.

------
corty
tl;dr: whining about SEO no longer working as well as it once did. and some
irrelevant side issues like whether there are 3 or 4 ad slots ontop a search
page.

My thoughts and prayers are with the SEO industry.

------
OneGuy123
If your core business income depends on stuff that you have absolutely no
control over then you are living based on hopes and dreams and it's entirely
your fault.

~~~
rbecker
That describes almost every business. E.g. a movie theater depends on studios
being willing to sell films to it, and on a public willing to buy tickets.

