
Every Google result now looks like an ad - cmod
https://twitter.com/craigmod/status/1219644556003565568
======
cytzol
I've been in this A/B test for a couple of months now, so I've had time to
adjust, and I _still_ hate it. I've just become so used to seeing the complete
URL in green. The _complete_ URL! If you hover over the results, you'll see
that they like to take bits like numeric components or the query string out.

This is part of Google's attempt to de-prioritise the URL. Their destructive
AMP service confusingly shows you Google's domain instead of the website's —
and as they can't fix that without losing out on tracking, they're trying to
change what the URL means.

Thanks for ruining the Web, Google.

~~~
kllrnohj
> This is part of Google's attempt to de-prioritise the URL.

URLs have _always_ been an implementation detail and not a user feature. From
the very beginning it was intended that users would follow links, not type in
URLs. HTML was built on hiding URLs behind text. Then AOL keywords happened.
Then search explosion happened. And short URLs. And QR codes for real-world
linking. And bookmarks because yet again typing in URLs is not a major driving
use case.

Typing in un-obfuscated URLs has almost never been a key feature or use-case
of the web. If anything URL obfuscation is a core building block of the web
and is a huge reason _why_ the web skyrocketed in popularity & usage. Don't
pretend that somehow AMP obfuscating URLs will be the death of the web. The
web exploded in growth despite massive, wide-spread URL obfuscation over the
last 20 years. Nothing is actually changing here.

~~~
digitalsushi
I am not comfortable with someone else's domain becoming the de facto front
door to my website.

There's nothing I can do it about it, but I tend to hate it.

If my name is Mike and someone powerful calls me Chucklehead, I will have to
start answering to that name in order to continue doing business.

But what REALLY concerns me is if a year later, that powerful someone calls
someone ELSE Chucklehead.

~~~
kllrnohj
Well then don't use AMP? It's your domain, it's under your control. You at
least have a choice here, whereas you can't block most other forms of URL
obfuscation when being linked elsewhere.

~~~
watwut
Google is deprioritizing sites without amp in search to force them to use it.

So, if I search for something on reddit, I already learned to use duck duck
go. Cause then I don't have to edit url to get rid of amp part not scroll up
and down for that link.

~~~
phs318u
> Google is deprioritizing sites without amp in search to force them to use
> it.

Isn't that just a protection racket?

------
Guest0918231
It's funny, because if you run AdSense on your website, Google has very strict
guidelines about not misleading users and making a clear distinction between
advertisements and your content. However, when Google shows ads on their site,
they don't need to follow those rules, they blend them in as closely as
possible.

Also, what's the deal with showing an advertisement for the same result that's
number one? See the below screenshot.

[https://i.imgur.com/f0Kolfv.png](https://i.imgur.com/f0Kolfv.png)

Doesn't this seem wrong? For a lot of people, Google has become a site to not
only search the internet, but to simply navigate it. It's normal for someone
wanting to visit Expedia to search "expedia.com" or "expedia". They are trying
to navigate to that website, Expedia is the first organic result, and yet
Expedia is pressured into paying for an advertisement to prevent one of their
competitors from appearing first. Even when a competitor hasn't advertised,
they're still stuck paying like the above screenshot. To me, this feels
inappropriate. Google is getting a hefty payday by simply redirecting someone
searching for "expedia.com" to the Expedia website.

~~~
333c
They display both because Google is selling ad space on searches like these,
where people search the name of a site. If that site doesn't buy the ad, their
competitor will. So sites are being forced to buy ads on their own trademark.

~~~
Guest0918231
I understand why it's happening and I mentioned it in my comment. However, I
just find it incredibly inappropriate that...

1\. When I search an exact domain Google will take money from a competitor and
show their "advertisement" first. I say that in quotations, because it looks
like they're showing a search result, not an advertisement. At this point it
feels like companies are paying for their search placement. Pay enough money
and you can be the first result for any search term.

2\. Does Google give Expedia the option to not pay for an advertisement when
there is no competition? I don't think so, and in the example I posted, Google
has basically scared Expedia into outbidding no one.

The whole thing feels like extortion. Pay us money or we'll send people trying
to navigate to your website to one of your competitors.

~~~
crispyporkbites
I aggree with your point #1, if you search for an specific term / domain it
should always appear first if there's a direct match.

but for #2 there's a pro-competition argument here. If you search for Expedia
and all you ever get is Expedia and expedia pages underneath that, in theory
that's good. But what if you don't know about other online travel sites?
You'll never see them, so it kind of makes sense that you are shown other
sites in there.

Google should recognise that a search for Expedia is either: a) For Expedia b)
For a travel holiday

and let other competitors rank for b), showing Expedia as the biggest and main
CTA on the page.

~~~
JohnFen
> But what if you don't know about other online travel sites? You'll never see
> them, so it kind of makes sense that you are shown other sites in there.

I don't think that makes sense. Or, at least, such results should be below all
the actually relevant results.

If I'm searching for Expedia, then what I want is results about Expedia.
Nothing else. If I want to know about other travel sites, I'd be searching for
"travel sites" instead.

~~~
indecisive_user
And if you don't know the name for the generic product to search for?

Jacuzzi, styrofoam, and Super Glue are all brand specific trademarked
items[0], but I doubt most users care about that when they're searching for
those terms.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericize...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericized_trademarks)

------
pushcx
[https://www.google.com/about/honestresults/](https://www.google.com/about/honestresults/)

It's a little confusing to read now, so for context: at the time Google
published this, it only put ads in the sidebar to the right of search results.
This post was written to criticize the practice of putting ads atop search
results, which competitors sometimes formatted almost indistinguishably from
organic search results.

~~~
ronilan
Your link is gold. A historic artifact.

Amazing how clear the writing is, how simple the message. That’s, like,
totally not the corpspeak Goog emits now on a daily basis.

So, let’s do some digging.

Earliest version of url dates back 4+ years.
[https://web.archive.org/web/20151213182805/https://www.googl...](https://web.archive.org/web/20151213182805/https://www.google.com/about/honestresults/)

Things were a little better than, but not by much. This has to be earlier.

Ah, here is:

[https://books.google.ca/books?id=oNT3AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA289&lpg=P...](https://books.google.ca/books?id=oNT3AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA289&lpg=PA289&dq=%22Why+we+sell+advertising,+not+search+results.%22&source=bl&ots=I6_PmXD7O5&sig=ACfU3U1QNk3FhKRMOa69ghaxkVA47C_nXg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiU8cDumZXnAhWRoJ4KHVD5DbQQ6AEwBXoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Why%20we%20sell%20advertising%2C%20not%20search%20results.%22&f=false)

This page is from a book by Douglas Edwards, employee number 59 published in
2011.

The content of OP url, written by same, is dated March 2002.

That company no longer exists. Goog should remove it from their website.

~~~
amatecha
Excellent sleuthing -- makes sense that the message is so old. There's no way
they would produce something like this today.

~~~
microcolonel
They'll fire all the people who made them this way, and get back to that, if
they want to survive the next decade at their scale.

------
Jerry2
With each AdWords display change, Google's been adding billions of dollars to
their revenue by confusing and fooling their users and blurring the line
between the content and ads.

A visual guide: "A (mostly comprehensive history of Google's ad shading and
labeling" [https://i.imgur.com/0RxdzBE.png](https://i.imgur.com/0RxdzBE.png)

~~~
dehrmann
For branded keywords, it's not just shady, it's racketeering. You wouldn't
want your competitor to show up first when someone searches for your brand,
would you? Then pay up.

E.g. [https://i.imgur.com/SfomkdQ.png;](https://i.imgur.com/SfomkdQ.png;) the
second result is a competitor's ad, the third result is the organic result.

~~~
bduerst
The difference being that you pay magnitudes less for your branded keywords
than the competition, through the quality score. Allowing companies to
advertise against their peers is actually creating more competition on the
marketplace (which is a good thing).

Edit: Disclosure - I work at Google but this is my own opinion on multi-sided
markets

~~~
underwater
Advocating strongly for your employer and their business practices without
disclosing the conflict of interest is essentially astroturfing.

~~~
bduerst
You're right, edited my comment to be more clear that this is my opinion only.
I don't use an anonymous username on HN because, as you saw in my profile
before searching me, everything I say reflects my opinion only.

------
tech234a
A little while back I started experimenting with changing the user agent
string and found that there are actually many different variations of Google’s
search UI that are currently accessible. For example, I was surprised to find
that by setting the user agent string to Netscape Navigator 4, I could get a
lightweight, no-JS version of Google that looked like it was from the early
2000’s. By using a user agent string from IE6/IE9, I could get a version of
Google they looked like it was from around 2010 (the former with a simple
white navigation bar, and the latter with a more complex black navigation
bar). I found it interesting that these UIs seems to be almost frozen in time:
many of their navigation bars contain some outdated links that either redirect
or 404. I assume this mean that old browser versions are stuck in time in
terms of Google search UI also.

Many of these UIs don’t have the controversial changes that Google has
recently been implementing, including adding favicons and hiding full URLs.

I also found that there were several different mobile UIs for Google with
different navigation schemes and search box styles.

I implemented what I found in a simple Firefox extension that changes the user
agent string for Google searches [1].

[1]: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-
search...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-search-ui-
chooser/)

~~~
Huntro
They intentionally show a broken UI if your user agent is Vivaldi. [1] In my
opinion this is really concerning.

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkayN3xiRDc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkayN3xiRDc)

~~~
tristador
Crazy. User agent strings are such a broken concept where every browser
pretends to be another. How anyone is still attempting to use them to do
anything useful is beyond me.

If you a building a webapp, use feature detection not user agent strings.

~~~
techslave
UA _is_ advertisement (heh) of features. Why shouldn’t you use what the
browser tells you?

~~~
tristador
Think about the mapping between features and UA strings. Over time features
are added or removed. So those mappings grow stale.

Check out feature detection vs browser detection, it explains some of the
challenges to relying on user agent strings.

I think the rule is: detect features, don't rely on unreliable proxies for
features.

[https://mobile.htmlgoodies.com/html5/client/browser-and-
feat...](https://mobile.htmlgoodies.com/html5/client/browser-and-feature-
detection-make-your-website-look-great-everywhere..html)

~~~
mattnewton
I agree with that advice for most sites, especially SPA's, 100%.

But Google search has some weirdly specific requirements. It needs to know if
it can show a result that required a polyfill mere ms after it gets your
request, for example, or if it would be better to just send less bytes and a
scaled down version of the same result that might need different data to
assemble. It's not perfect but a UA string is one of the only practical ways
to do this. Having qa and engineers to keep track of this mapping for the most
commonly used browsers may make sense for search to shave off a bunch of time
shipping js and doing feature detection to figure out what it needs next, but
may not make sense for your website.

In general there are no blanket general guidelines that apply to every single
site regardless of usage patterns or business needs.

Disclaimer: Former web search eng, current Googler.

------
ChuckMcM
Very much a way to mitigate the FTC's requirements on making advertising more
distinct than organic results.

It is an unpopular opinion but I believe Google is dying. They have been for a
long time. The cancer is that nothing other than search ads generates the
revenue and margins they need and the margins on search ads are now down 90%
from where they were in 2010.

Personally I'm long on Microsoft/Bing as a candidate for the surviving English
language web index. My prediction (which isn't shared by many so don't be
surprised if you disagree :-)) is that once Google's dying becomes mainstream
and they start heading into ground that Apple will buy their assets, keep
Maps, Search, and maybe Waymo and throw the rest away.

~~~
paganel
To be honest I’m not sure what everyone else is searching for on Google the
search engine anymore. I personally use it as a Wikipedia search engine in 90%
of the cases while 9% is for stackoverflow queries, other than that I get all
the info I’m interested in from dedicated FB groups and different sub-reddits.

And I’m also a 40-year old guy, from what I can see at people younger than me
they spend almost all their web-related time on Facebook properties:
Instagram, WhatsApp groups, Facebook private groups (FB the main app is also
dying), with TikTok coming strong from behind. All of these are places where
Google Search doesn’t have any reach. So one could say that the 2011 mantra
“all arrows behind the same big arrow” (or whatever it was) was quite correct,
Google+ was Google the company’s major chance of still remaining relevant in
10 or 15 years’ time. They still have YT, too bad they don’t know how to
manage it.

~~~
jwond
You might like DuckDuckGo and “bangs”.
[https://duckduckgo.com/bang](https://duckduckgo.com/bang)

~~~
choathedolls
For anyone reading this thinking "what a killer feature I need to switch to
DDG now". All browsers do this natively now. In Chromium engines it's found
under "Manage Search Engine". In Firefox it's under "One Click Search Engine".

~~~
andolanra
My Firefox install has seven search engines by default in the "one-click
search engine" options. By contrast, DuckDuckGo has _13000_ bang shortcuts.
Sure, you don't need all of them, but I use dozens: some of them almost daily
(like _!w_ for Wikipedia and _!wt_ for Wiktionary), some sporadically (like
_!tw_ for Twitter or _!a_ for Amazon) and some of them only rarely (e.g. I
picked up a Pokémon game recently and consequently have used _!bulba_ to
quickly search Bulbapedia, a Pokémon fan wiki.) Of course I can add all those
to Firefox, but _DuckDuckGo already has them set up_ , and has many more that
I can use without thinking about them. I think that still counts as a killer
feature.

~~~
choathedolls
Firefox is a little lacking in that department. Chromium based browsers on the
other hand, anytime a search is used on a page, that gets added to the list in
your browser's options.

For example, just used HN's search bar, and there it showed up in the options
ready to customise keywords to my liking (if I wanted to change it).

Before anybody claims it's an additional step, it's not. DDG requires you to
know what the keyword is before you use it, which is the same as having to use
the search on the site before. So I guess I agree it's a killer feature if you
exclusively use Firefox for the time being.

~~~
ma2rten
In chrome you also just start typing the name of the site, until it
autocompletes and then hit tab.

For example if I want to want search wikipedia, I type "en.w" and hit tab.

------
ogre_codes
It's been clear for a little while that Google no longer cares about giving
the best experience with a lot of their tools and is just focused on
maximizing revenue. More and more, Google is the modern equivalent of
Microsoft in the early 00s, still good enough that most people use it, but
each successive "version" piles on more frustrations than benefits. It's so
ironic that Google has become that which they most despised when they started.

The dominance of Google and Facebook is turning the web into a toxic waste.

~~~
amatecha
I watched this clip of Steve Jobs[0] recently, where was speaking about
promoting/empowering Product vs Marketing people. Some of his comments seem
especially applicable:

"[...] the companies forget what it means to make great products. The product
sensibility and the product genius that brought them to that monopolistic
position gets rotted out, by people running these companies who have no
conception of a good product vs a bad product." ... "They really have no
feeling in their hearts, usually, about wanting to really to help the
customers."

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AxZofbMGpM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AxZofbMGpM)

~~~
sytelus
Ironically, Jobs installed Tim Cook as Apple CEO and have publicly said that
he is "not a product person".

~~~
amatecha
Oh, interesting.. did he say how he perceives Tim, or what role he sees him
filling?

------
danShumway
Prefer DuckDuckGo for searching, if possible. If you don't like DuckDuckGo's
results and can't tolerate them, then prefer Startpage to Google, which will
give you the same algorithm minus tracking/customization. Even post-
acquisition, Startpage is still a more privacy-conscious engine than Google,
and their ads are better labeled.

And while I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here, quick reminder that unless
you're running Lynx or some crap, literally everyone on this blog should have
an adblocker installed (preferably uBlock Origin).

I appreciate there are multiple perspectives people have on whether adblocking
should be a scorched-earth policy, or whether it's better to just target the
worst actors. But disguising ads as native content is abusive enough behavior
that you should be blocking those ads no matter where you fall on that
spectrum -- and the UI changes here are very clearly, very obviously meant to
make ads blend in with normal page results. The 'ad' indicator is meant to
look like just another favicon.

I'm seeing people here suggest greaseMonkey scripts, and maybe there's
something I'm missing, but I just really don't understand that. Don't restyle
the ads, block them! Block advertisers that are abusive.

~~~
ProAm
Startpage is now owned by an advertising company.[Y]

[Y] [https://www.startpage.com/blog/company-updates/startpage-
and...](https://www.startpage.com/blog/company-updates/startpage-and-privacy-
one-group/)

~~~
noizejoy
I really wish discussions would better distinguish between tracking,
advertising, and camouflaged advertising.

I actually like advertising as one avenue of finding stuff.

I just hate when tracking is bundled with advertising. And I hate when
advertising is camouflaged.

In practical terms:

When I’m searching for guitars, I like seeing both: third party results and
ads that are not camouflaged.

I also like seeing guitar ads on a guitar related website.

But I hate seeing guitar ads on an unrelated website, just because I looked at
a guitar website a few days ago. And I hate when a guitar ad is camouflaged as
an independent review.

An advertising company that doesn’t track or camouflage gets my support. And I
just hope that StartPage is and remains that kind of company.

~~~
d1zzy
> I just hate when tracking is bundled with advertising. And I hate when
> advertising is camouflaged.

AFAIK pretty much all customers that pay for internet advertising WANT
tracking (a cookie or URL session ID that tracks you from the advertising
platform to the advertised site destination) as a way to verify that their
money is actually producing results, otherwise they have little way of knowing
that.

------
IvyMike
Others have mentioned that this is almost certainly the result of a long
course of A/B testing.

The problem with this kind of aggressive A/B testing is that it's a game of
"how far can we push the user?" So instead of having enthusiastic fans, they
have people who begrudgingly use them. Sure, Google picks up an extra nickel
here or there, and I'm sure some PMs got a raise. But I don't know any strong
Google boosters any more, and there are hordes of people ready to switch over
once something tolerable comes along.

(And from the comments, it seems like many of you have already found tolerable
replacement search engines. I think I'm going to join you.)

~~~
komali2
Haha, I remember when they announced chrome like 15 years ago, hyper excited
13 year old me literally emailed ceo@google.com with how excited I was. I
uninstalled Firefox and installed chrome.

And now I exclusively use Firefox again.

~~~
perl4ever
My employer just banned Firefox. Unless you theoretically have a "business
reason" that they accept.

~~~
ninkendo
How do they enforce this? For that matter, why do they care?

~~~
komali2
Not unheard of on enterprise distributed machines. Before I was an engineer
all my jobs were like this - two dudes (the only ones not in suits) tucked
away in a dark room, changing our passwords for us when we forgot, setting up
our email accounts, tweaking an internal firewall (so we couldn't watch nba
games at work lol), shit like that. Machines were locked down, we couldn't
install anything at all, they had to install it for us.

------
lykr0n
I wish there was a way to directly help Bing/DuckDuckGo/Yandex improve their
search results. I've tried both, and it's just not the same.

Google I can bang in cryptic queries like > centos 7 tuned no daemon

and get the 3rd link about how to run tuned in a no daemon mode.
Bing/DuckDuckGo have the article at around 7th or 8th place, but prefaced by a
lot of "while technically not wrong, not what I'm looking for" links. It's
even worse for more niche errors or code snippets.

We cannot, as a healthy internet, let Google control so much of the web.

~~~
Analemma_
I used to work at Bing. If you really want Bing to improve, the best thing you
can do is just use it: clicks on search results, plus backs and dwell times,
are vital training data.

Ideally you could use Bing as your default engine, then fall back to Google
whenever there's a search that doesn't yield good results. If you have the
time, you can also use the Feedback link on the bottom-right of the page to
report bad search results; people do actually triage and read those.

~~~
clarry
> I used to work at Bing. If you really want Bing to improve, the best thing
> you can do is just use it: clicks on search results, plus backs and dwell
> times, are vital training data.

A million flies are attracted to shit. I don't believe this sort of training
data will ever become useful if it's in the same pool with the rest of the
world. See also: voting with your wallet against the tyranny of the majority
of uninformed consumers who buy whatever is most marketed. Those pennies don't
matter.

In fact, I believe this sort of training and optimization for the mainstream
plays a role in allowing bad results to proliferate.

This is before we even consider the fact that clicking on many results can
indicate that they're bad (I click another result because the previous wasn't
good), or because they're good (I'm browsing choices). Dwelling long can be
bad (crappy & slow site, it takes me long to find the information I want or
turn away) or it can be good (I found good stuff and I'm spending a while on
it). Whatever conclusion your training system draws might be completely wrong.
And probably prone to being gamed.

~~~
mturmon
The above heuristic arguments seem inherently weaker than the direct
experience of someone who used to be on the team that improves the results.
They are well-funded and should be able to back out the effects you mention.

~~~
clarry
How are they ever going to know whether they improved results for me or not?
You might as well train AI to play a game without ever checking their score.
Oh, it's spending 20% more time in each room now and firing fewer bullets than
before. Surely it is a better AI now.

Sorry, appeal to authority is no argument. Direct experience is valuable if
there's an argument or some real scenario we can dissect, otherwise it's
nothing more than a baseless claim. Without concrete examples, it's not even
an anecdote. And there are plenty of anecdotes about search results for in-
depth content becoming harder and harder to find.

The person I was responding to posted that they're using this training data to
order the top 10 results or so. That's already an indication that it's not
very helpful for me. I don't get frustrated if the top few results are in
suboptimal order, I get frustrated when I get pages and pages of garbage and
irrelevant results and can't seem to get anything useful out of it.

------
LeftHandPath
I've been using duckduckgo and bing for a while now. Google is just a
fallback.

~~~
0xff00ffee
What does DDG use for an algorithm? Originally Google was just using pagerank
but that was too easy to game by SEO. This means DDG needed to address this,
and apparently they have (e.g, search for 'favicon' like the post). How long
can we rely on DDG staying neutral in their algorithm?

~~~
merpnderp
From wikipedia:

"DuckDuckGo's results are a compilation of "over 400" sources, including
Yahoo! Search BOSS, Wolfram Alpha, Bing, Yandex, its own Web crawler (the
DuckDuckBot) and others. It also uses data from crowdsourced sites, including
Wikipedia, to populate knowledge panel boxes to the right of the results."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckDuckGo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckDuckGo)

~~~
rusk
this brings back memories of metacrawler

------
basch
The FTC has spoke on this before. [https://www.ftc.gov/news-
events/blogs/business-blog/2013/06/...](https://www.ftc.gov/news-
events/blogs/business-blog/2013/06/ftc-staff-search-engines-differentiate-ads-
natural-results)

I believe nearly all the search engines are still guilty of this one.

I also think firms should be able to buy "blank space." For example facebook
or amazon could pay NOT to have an ad above their result. Maybe they already
do, I dont see an ad when I search facebook, however I do see an ad for amazon
above the top amazon result. Google should just be smart enough to see the top
result and the ad are the same link, and handle the situation more
appropriately, like tucking the ad text underneath the result, or signifying
that the top result owner has paid to hide ads. I have to say, I dont find
these results differentiated ENOUGH from the ad.
[https://i.imgur.com/8Dhr1mj.png](https://i.imgur.com/8Dhr1mj.png)

~~~
sukilot
What's the benefit to whitespace over their own domain name?

~~~
basch
Reduction of confusion, and information density.

Why does Amazon need to appear twice in a row -
[https://i.imgur.com/8Dhr1mj.png](https://i.imgur.com/8Dhr1mj.png)

------
jonplackett
I really hate AMP. To the point where I started making an iOS browser that’s
sole purpose was to bounce me from AMP links to the original link and delete
the history step in between. I wish Apple would offer this in Safari - a
simple ‘ignore AMP pages’ check box.

AMP is google worst attempt yet at taking over the web. It’s so user hostile.
It breaks lots of sites with its fake scroll and fake back button at the top
of google news. I hate it soo bad!

~~~
zackees
Are you suggesting that Google is evil?

Because you would be totally right. As a 8.5 year employee of Google I had to
resign and blow the whistle.

I gathered all of the disclosure documents and stored them here:

\--> [https://www.zachvorhies.com](https://www.zachvorhies.com) <\--

It's worse than you can possibly imagine. Everyone else seems to be waking up
to this just recently (last 6 months).

~~~
ben174
Mad respect to you. Odd this is the first I've heard about you. I've got some
reading to do.

------
markosaric
Many don't like Google's new design. Rather than resort to hacks, try an
alternative search engine. There are many and you might even find one you
like.

[https://www.qwant.com/](https://www.qwant.com/)

[https://www.ecosia.org/](https://www.ecosia.org/)

[https://duckduckgo.com/](https://duckduckgo.com/)

[https://www.startpage.com/](https://www.startpage.com/)

[https://swisscows.ch/](https://swisscows.ch/)

...

~~~
searcher1
Qwant, Ecosia, and (to an extent) DDG share the same Bing backend for web
results, so if you're particularly interested in trying out alternatives, here
are some others. All of these have their own search indexes.

[https://yippy.com](https://yippy.com) \- ugly, but probably the best
independent search engine outside the "big ones" and DDG

[https://private.sh/](https://private.sh/) \- Run by PIA as a proxy for
Gigablast, small index but rapidly getting better

[https://mojeek.com](https://mojeek.com) \- UK-based, worth trying but has a
spam problem

[https://beta.cliqz.com](https://beta.cliqz.com) \- German based, their
technical blog has been posted frequently on HN. Will eventually require a
browser extension or their own browser to search.

[https://yandex.com](https://yandex.com) \- Ought to be mentioned, but
certainly not privacy focused.

~~~
__ka
[https://beta.cliqz.com/](https://beta.cliqz.com/) is currently available as
any other webpage, and will continue to be available in the same way in the
future. I think what's being referred to is another search product (search as
you type) we have in the Cliqz Browser. I work on these.

The blog referred to: [https://0x65.dev/](https://0x65.dev/)

------
amatecha
I've been wondering what it is about Google Search results recently, in that
they seem _substantially worse_ than ever before. I hadn't quite noticed what
the difference was, but I was really surprised, remembering how Google Search
results used to be the very best. Now I know what the difference is: making
normal results look the same as Ad results.

"Don't be evil" :)

~~~
tolstoshev
also the habit of putting "missing: <search term>" and showing you stuff that
isn't as targeted as what you were actually looking for.

------
ApolloFortyNine
I've been stuck with this for two weeks now, and it's bad enough that for the
first time ever I've considered using something other than Google. It's just
so much harder for my eyes to read, I feel I can't glaze through the results
like I used to (and I believe the old search would often give date for things
like stack exchange and Reddit, which helps with a wide variety of issues).

I'm pretty sure for the layout itself I'll eventually just get a tampermonkey
script to make it look like the old, but this is the first thing that has
truly made me look for a Google alternative. They have severely damaged their
main product, in my opinion.

~~~
altcognito
It is strangely stressful to even read through the results, let alone find the
right one anymore. Switching to DDG is pleasant, it even seems to respect a
dark mode setting.

------
dehrmann
I remember when Google made a point of being ethical by putting ads on the
right rail with a light blue background so it was clear which results were ads
and which were organic.

~~~
asdf21
Seems quaint now, eh?

------
have_faith
I noticed this on a co-workers screen recently and my immediate thought was
"what dodgy search extensions have they been installing?". Now that it's on my
results as well I can't help but strongly dislike the change for some reason.
The icons are both very small and very distracting at the same time and don't
aid in adding authority or any important meta information about the site.

The changes seem to have added enough noise to make parsing the page annoying,
but maybe it's one of those things you brain learns to ignore after a while.

~~~
ryanmercer
>I noticed this on a co-workers screen recently and my immediate thought was
"what dodgy search extensions have they been installing?".

My legit first reaction when I saw it last week on my daily driver was "I
wonder what extension is trying to cash out".

~~~
woodrowbarlow
(tangent) i really hate what browser extensions have become.

~~~
jrullman
They’re returning to their roots — 3rd party toolbars.

------
vmurthy
If you must use Google, I suggest you use a couple of settings in
uBlock/Adblock as detailed in this 4 day old Lifehacker article [1]

From the article,

\- To remove the favicon: google.com##.xA33Gc

\- To remove the URL: google.com##.iUh30.bc.rpCHfe

\- To remove the arrow next to the URL: google.com###am-b0 and
google.com##.GHDvEf.ab_button

\- To remove everything: google.com##.TbwUpd and google.com###am-b0 and
google.com##.GHDvEf.ab_button

[1] [https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2020/01/how-to-fix-googles-
ugl...](https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2020/01/how-to-fix-googles-ugly-logo-
filled-search-results/)

------
vannevar
Yes, I think Google reached "peak search" awhile back, and we're now on a
downward trend. The search results are increasingly degraded by commercial
intervention, by Google and its paying customers. There has always been a
conflict of interest between Google and its public consumers, and Google is
now leveraging its near-monopoly market position to shift the balance of that
conflict to its financial advantage.

------
acemarke
This GreaseMonkey userscript worked for me to revert the search results to
their previous style:

[https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/395257-better-
google/code](https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/395257-better-google/code)

------
clement_b
I wonder what the tipping point will be? At what point Google Search revenue
will have peaked, pushing Google to accelerate the pace of experiments and new
solutions to make more out of fewer users.

Like many around here, I have (re)started using alternatives to Google
products last year. We're early adopters, so it will take a while for Google
to be affected by a mass exodus, but what will happen when it will start? What
medium will they use to fill the gap. The only (currently) untapped options
matching Search's reach to display ads are: Gmail, Android, Google Photos.
Probably nothing else. What happens for advertisers targeting specifically
users like me who end up stopping using Google Search (e.g., how do you reach
a high earner from Bay Area if they have completely stopped using Search?
Because this, will happen first, and these users are valuable).

The required scale of any alternative is critical. Compensating for Search
revenue decline is no easy feat. So much that, until now, nothing else
generates anything even close to Search's revenue. If you talk profit, it's
even worse as YouTube is probably not as profitable as Google would like
(YouTube Premium anyone?) it to be.

So, the future will probably come from outside of Google's own properties, and
that is why they are slowly killing competition in the ad tech space (3rd
party cookies & Chrome). That is why they have been trying to diversify and
are wisely enough pushing very hard with GCP and other proven revenue streams
like subscriptions (YouTube Music, YouTube Premium, gSuite).

Probably also why founders really left.

It will be an interesting decade, for sure!

------
kfrzcode
Anyone here have a pro-Google stance? Because at this point I'm vehemently
against the company and most of its products.

There's no good replacement for Calendar or Docs/Sheets as of now, that I'm
aware of. Microsoft's suite as mentioned by therealdrag0 is an obvious
alternative, and perhaps less advertiser-oriented, but still not a great in-
browser option IMO.

Especially when considering the interoperability of the "platform," it's clear
Google is streets ahead of the competition.

It's a shame that the best featured tools in this space are also not open-
source, and used (probably) to mine massive amounts of data.

I'd be ok if you mined my data while I'm on your servers, but only if you
allow me to host my own version of your software for when I don't want to be
on your servers.

~~~
gman83
I have a pro-Google stance, but I usually wouldn't talk about it on HN because
people just love to assume the worst about Google and anyone defending them
just gets attacked. Personally, I think that Google's pushing websites to use
HTTPS has done more to improve privacy than anything else I can think of in
the last decade.

~~~
donmcronald
\- HTTPS eliminates proxy based ad blocking.

\- DoH eliminates DNS based ad blocking.

\- eSNI eliminates the last network level option for host based ad blocking.

\- CDNs eliminate IP based ad blocking.

\- Chrome eliminates browser based ad blocking.

IMHO they're securing the web _against_ us, not _for_ us.

------
Zenst
I'm almost at the stage that I almost instantly scroll to the bottom and read
up the results as I'm finding most of my clicks at at best near the middle and
more often finding it's the second page onwards.

~~~
jacurtis
Yes, I too have built a subconcious habit of flicking the scroll wheel on my
mouse twice after clicking enter on my search phrase. I just want to get past
the 4 ads, the pack of local listings that I don't need, and the carousel of
Google Shopping results, so that I can see the organic search results.

Of course if you scroll down too far, Google jams another 2-4 ads at the
bottom of the search results before you can click the link to the next page.

Finding organic search results on a google page is becoming similar to playing
a game of "Where's Waldo" (Or "Where's Wally" for non-US friends). There's
stuff jammed on the top, on the sides, on the bottom. Looking at the real
results is like looking through two slats on a fence. It gets very
frustrating.

~~~
prostheticvamp
> Yes, I too have built a subconcious habit of flicking the scroll wheel on my
> mouse twice after clicking enter on my search phrase.

I hadn’t noticed that I had started doing this, but now that you mention it...

------
danvoell
Total aside, but since we are talking google. It's funny how they have worked
so hard to make sure that relevant results show up correctly but if you are
paying for ad space, they don't care (sure they have relevancy tests but not
if the advertiser is dumb enough to spend too much money). For instance, a
search for an intravenous needle tip might show an ad for Barb's cross-stitch
needle tip (total made-up example). They know that the result isn't relevant,
but Barb is spending so much money they don't care. Seems like there should be
a solution to this. Or at least to let Barb know she is doing it wrong.

------
ryeguy_24
More and more I'm bypassing Google and going to places like Reddit, Quora,
News Hacker, Stack Overflow to search for what I need. I honestly think there
has been a decline in value in the top search results. Hard to pinpoint but
definitely an increasing gut feeling. On average, the top search results I
receive are heavily advertised with lots of clickbait or content that is on
multiple pages of a slideshow. Just overall poor quality.

~~~
sefrost
Same, except to search Reddit I then end up back on Google using the “site:”
keyword because the Reddit search is awful!

------
raz32dust
Funny thing is, this probably did not happen because some PM decided that ads
should look like regular results. It is probably an organic result of A/B
testing over time, coupled with revenue being an important metric. Small
changes that increase revenue get prioritized and over time, it just evolves
into this eventually.

~~~
satyrnein
Yeah, it could have just been designers wanting to put in favicons for their
own sake (which is not intrinsically bad, remember the dark ages before
browser tabs had favicons?) and product managers saying, well, the revenue
looks good...

New Theory of Software Evolution:

Designers = random mutations

Product Managers = fitness function

------
rs23296008n1
Different thought: our expectations are in the way. Let's see it as it is.

If the whole page looks like an ad then maybe we should see it _that_ way.
Google search is now for finding which ad to click on. Its now an advertising
index. Not a general search engine. They don't want you finding anything but
ads. So they've made everything look like ads.

I think I'll stick with DDG. Unfortunately if the whole page is an ad then the
whole page is likely irrelevant. No matter how much data they have on me, paid
content in my search results are likely not what I want to see.

Them knowing I have fish hasn't helped them advertise to me. Google results
don't include who I regularly buy from. Even reading my fish hobby email
account hasn't helped them improve. I've already used google search with that
google account etc. All the ads were completely useless. Trying to sell me
irrelevant items from irrelevant retailers. Wrong fish. Or trying to steer me
towards boats. If anything, I _didn 't_ find what I needed and dropped back to
DDG. I needed information necessary to a sale and paid content is completely
inappropriate.

All that infrastructure slowed down and frustrated a sale. So. Not so good.

------
matheist
Pure uBlock Origin filter syntax:

    
    
        www.google.com##+js(remove-attr.js, onmousedown, .rc > .r > a)
        www.google.com##.rc > .r > a:after:style(content: attr(href); display: inline-block; font-size: 14px; color: darkgreen; white-space: nowrap; width: 100%)
        www.google.com##.rc > .r > a > br
        www.google.com##.TbwUpd
        www.google.com##.B6fmyf:style(right: 0px)
    

This restores the old style: no favicon, full green URL.

(submitted 4 days ago as a Show HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22072706](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22072706))

------
bamboozled
Wow, it’s amazing how a company can stray so far from its humble origins and
original ethos.

It’s an interesting study. I remember Google before Gmail. It was a different
time with such promise for a better web and better world.

What a shame it’s becoming such an irrelevant piece of junk. Then again, where
else could it have went ?

What a shame.

------
seanwilson
I admit it's weird seeing a sudden change to how search results are displayed,
but I think the use of favicons help draw your eye to brands you trust so I
don't mind it.

If this helps ads mix in with real search results, maybe the ads need to be
changed to stand out more? I feel people are focusing on "favicons = bad"
instead of "ads looking the same as search results = bad".

------
sfgweilr4f
Completely agree. I haven't used google for so long I thought I'd mis-typed it
and got some click farm thing.

My impressions were the same as that tweet. I'm not happy with the new Google
search results. At all. I can't tell what is what. Is it an Ad? Is it a page?
Is it...? So I've now told people who contact me to avoid Google's home page
and use DDG so they get the results they're after. Feedback so far is they
prefer the DDG replacement instead of Google. "Fixed" is what one person said.
Their POV was that Google's result page was now "broken". (These aren't tech
savvy people, either)

I also read in one of the follow up tweets that we now apparently have a form
of "banner blindness" where we skip ads because they are deemed not or less
relevant. This theory might be right. But Google's solution is not wise: if we
associate ads as less relevant and fade out attention when we see Ads versus
results, what happens when the _entire google results page looks like ads_?

------
MrPatan
Really, just use duckduckgo.com.

Go to your Firefox' settings and change the default search engine, there,
done. See if you care in a week to change it back, I promise you that you
won't.

~~~
runamok
Even easier you can use the "bang" commands in DDG when you do wish to use
Google, e.g. !g.

E.g. "search something !g".

Stopping using Google by default is a big deal if enough people do it.

------
codegeek
As a small business owner who doesn't run a whole lot of ads and relies on
organic traffic, this is really scary. I could be wrong but as a consumer, I
prefer clicking on organic results than ads for the most part. Now there is no
difference. If my potential customers also think the same way, we would be
screwed. Google, please don' do this.

------
alecbenzer
0.02: I really didn't mind the change, I assumed it was meant to allow users
to more easily identify "well-known" sites in the results: noticing a familiar
icon is a lot easier than noticing a familiar URL. This seems potentially good
for both users and sites? I guess it's bad for sites that are currently trying
to build up their credibility and aren't yet "well-known"?

In retrospect, I'm sure blurring the lines between ads and search results was
probably part of the motivation. But if they modified ads a bit more to
further distinguish them and kept the favicons, I don't think I'd mind.

~~~
sukilot
The icons are unreadably microscopic, though.

~~~
JohnFen
Yes, they are -- and as a result, there are many icons that are different but
look very much the same in the results unless you examine them _very_ closely.

------
nokicky
I made a Chrome extension a few months ago to fix the design, you'll find it
here: [https://github.com/attio/google-ad-
fixer](https://github.com/attio/google-ad-fixer)

I'll try and submit to the Chrome Store, let's see if it gets in :)

~~~
fimoreth
I also have one I submitted over the weekend. They haven't taken it down yet
:). Mine is just geared towards my dislike of the favicons, not distinguishing
the styling of the ads.

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hide-
google-s...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hide-google-
search-favicons/)

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hide-google-
search...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hide-google-search-
favico/minacgnadopeelfnhjhlmoobniogpded)

Source: [https://github.com/Jtfinlay/gsearch-
hidefavicon](https://github.com/Jtfinlay/gsearch-hidefavicon)

~~~
nokicky
Nice! The results look much better without favicons, I'm going to install this
too.

~~~
netsharc
I just created a uBlock origin rule. It seems the extension gets the same job
done by removing all HTML elements with the class "xA33Gc" or "K7JcSb"
(source: [https://github.com/Jtfinlay/gsearch-
hidefavicon/blob/master/...](https://github.com/Jtfinlay/gsearch-
hidefavicon/blob/master/src/content.js)).

In uBlock Origin one could add the rules:

www.google.com##.TbwUpd > .xA33Gc www.google.com##.TbwUpd > .K7JcSb

Or more generally: www.google.com##.TbwUpd > img

to hide the icons...

------
node-bayarea
The redesign is ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE! It's really hard for me to find the
actual results! WTF!

------
RileyJames
It seems like the only difference between the advertising and non-advertising
at this point is the “Ad” fav icon. Plus a small (i) info button on the right
of an ad.

If websites change their fav icons to “Ad”, effectively all results look like
ads.

Doesn’t achieve a lot, but it does highlight an obvious flaw in their design.
It could force a change, but most likely they would just filter the fav icon.

------
decebalus1
Huh... I thought it was just me. I have a rather atypical setup with my
privacy extensions and browser settings, so I just assumed that one of them
was changing the DOM to make it look like this. Just yesterday I was searching
for some ISP offers and clicked on an ad result. Well.. I think I just need to
get over my lazyness and finally host searx locally.

~~~
hnews_account_1
Same here. I think typically antivirus extensions like McAfee provide a few
extra metadata on google search results that makes the page look exactly like
it does now. My first instinct was "oh which extension fucked this up? anyway,
I'll check it out later". Unfortunate to find out it's a change on big G's
end.

------
nullc
Plot twist: Google insiders concerned with the consistently unethical
practices of the company are working in secret to undermine the viability of
their primary revenue stream to save the world from google.

... Fiction aside, since so much evil is done by accident and indifference
it's only fitting that some heroics be done by similar mechanisms.

------
mcv
One of the responses on twitter links to another twitter thread:
[https://twitter.com/johnny_makes/status/1218668895655079936](https://twitter.com/johnny_makes/status/1218668895655079936)

This one explains very well how I've recently come to feel about Google
Search. I still remember when they were new and everybody flocked to them
because they had the cleanest search with the best results. These days I
barely see any results anymore because I'm automatically parsing them all as
ads.

Because that's what they did here: organic results look more like ads now. So
my automatic ad blindness filters them out. Whenever I search on Google, I
feel like I'm only getting useless results, so I switched completely to
DuckDuckGo now (I've used it before, but only occasionally; from now on it's
going to be my default everywhere).

------
BenoitEssiambre
In other news, duckduckgo's growth draws a perfect exponential curve:

[https://duckduckgo.com/traffic](https://duckduckgo.com/traffic)

------
tempodox
Not only that but when I click on a link that pretends to be an actual search
result some random shop page opens and wants to sell me shoes or coats or
whatever. Only when I press the back button and click that link again the real
page opens. Good bye, Google, my search engine is now Bing.

------
a5aAqU
Yesterday, I created a quick browser extension to put URLs back in the search
results, and Google rejected it as "spam".

    
    
        > Your item did not comply with the following section of our Program Policies:
        >
        > "Spam and Placement in the Store"
    

There is no spam. It's just a few small JavaScript functions that put the URLs
under each search result.

Clearly not spam:

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/search-
engine...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/search-engines-show-
me-urls/)

[https://github.com/codeselfstudy/search_engine_show_me_urls](https://github.com/codeselfstudy/search_engine_show_me_urls)

------
rvz
Well this is Google you're up against. We techies complain every now and then
about Google's practices, we hate it and end up moving on and we find
ourselves using them again and again.

They already ruined the web with Facebook by riddling their search results
with ads, being part of the ICAAN and having their own TLD, and then
introducing AMP. In this case for this ad search result problem, uBlock Origin
wipes these ad-links anyway. No need for these other funky hacks suggested in
the Twitter thread.

It's also funny to see some Twitter users in the thread who have a website
only for me to see on uBlock Origin which reports usages of 'Google
Analytics'. Looks like we will all go back to spreading Googleware once again.

------
dend
My assumption here is that this decision is one where someone had an A/B test
that showed people are more likely to click on an ad when the content is
structured the way it’s shown.

Which comes at the cost of a good user experience, where the feature PM didn’t
truly ask: “does this deliver any value to the people using the search?”

Always trying to remember the wonderful excerpt[0] from Ken Kocienda’s
“Creative Selection” on A/B tests - just because the data shows the outcomes
are more significant does not make that a better experience.

[0]:
[https://mobile.twitter.com/kocienda/status/11134509457051770...](https://mobile.twitter.com/kocienda/status/1113450945705177088?lang=en)

~~~
wefarrell
A consequence of having a monopoly is not needing to deliver as much value. I
see comments advocating using a different search engine, but the small number
of users that move do a different search engine because of this won't offset
the increase in revenue Google will see. They pay Apple and Mozilla a
substantial amount of money to be the default search engine and most users
won't bother to change it.

~~~
craftinator
If they get bad enough, people will make the effort to change the default
search engine. Seems Google has been trying to do this slowly (aka boiling a
frog), but similarly to a market bubble, at some point it'll pop and they'll
take exponential losses to their market share.

------
beaker52
Just like Facebook introducing the "big coloured square with text on" statuses
- users give their attention to big coloured squares with text on them, and
thus the adverts they were previously accustomed to scrolling right past.

------
userbinator
I know a lot of Google's own employees read this site and sometimes respond to
comments, maybe even ones who had something to do with this change, so it
would be very interesting to know what they think. Presumably its own
employees use it to search too, so they would've also noticed the decline in
result quality? I wonder if there's any discussion about this on their
internal channels ("why can't I find info about X?" "what happened to the
URLs?")... or do they get a special internal version of search that works more
like it used to for everyone else, so they don't notice?

------
kolanos
Google also broke accessibility of their search results with this change. Now
instead of the page titles, screen readers only read the entire URL. If they
don't fix this soon, I'll be permanently switching to DDG.

------
ppod
I'm confused. I noticed this aesthetic change a couple of weeks ago and I
wondered what was causing it. So now when I saw this post, I turned off
adblock on the search results page to see where the ads are, and I still can't
seem to see _any_ ads.

The sidebar is blank. The main page has results from "Places", "People also
ask" and "images", interspersed with the normal results (which now _look_ more
like the old ads), but I don't see any actual ads, even with adblock off. For
those of you that have the new look and see ads, where are they?

~~~
nogridbag
The ads look nearly identical to the search results now except the icon is
replaced with "Ad":

[https://imgur.com/a/DpYGib7](https://imgur.com/a/DpYGib7)

~~~
ppod
Thanks! I don't get very many and for the searches I tried the first "Ad"
result was on the second page. Yeah, even then they are way too hard to spot.

------
imiric
I've been using a local Searx[1] instance for web search for a few months now,
and besides it needing an update when APIs inevitably break, it's been
relatively pain-free.

What I like the most about it is that I get a unified search results page for
all engines, which avoids some of the profile bubble, and that the UI is
always consistent, avoiding these scummy redesigns A/B tested to infinity and
implemented because it increases their revenue.

[1]: [https://github.com/asciimoo/searx](https://github.com/asciimoo/searx)

~~~
DrPhish
Me too, for about a year.

The anonymizing stuff searx does really seems to work. My search results seem
uniformly neutral regardless of which computer/profile/browser is in use.

I host on my LAN and out on the WAN over https protected with simple auth. All
my devices, including my work computers and cell phone browsers, are set to
use it. I rarely end up on Google in my life.

I actually prefer its interface for everything but images (which are only OK,
but still perfectly usable)

------
vpEfljFL
What did you expect from the advertisement company?

I'm pretty sure ad providers liked the changes because they are getting more
traffic to their websites. So, the actual clients are happy why so much
dislike towards a new change.

The most disappointing thing for me in this thread is recommendations to
install ad blockers. This thing is harming the web the most because instead of
focusing on the issue (bad UI) we just supporting such behaviour by using
websites with bad UI.

p.s. I'm in risk of being downvoted because of just expressing unpopular
opinion about ad blockers.

------
beshrkayali
I was using ddg on and off for the past year, going back to google for
specific searches.

Their last changes are total crap. Designers/product-managers who came up with
this crap are so out of their depth I have no idea how they got their job in
the first place.

Needles to say I've been completely relying on ddg for the past weeks that now
I really find there's no need for google search. So I'm kinda happy they did
this honestly. Hopefully it drives more people away from google.

------
systematical
I thought I was just going crazy. I asked friends and they didn't agree. It
actually looks at lot like duck duck go. I never liked their UI, but if I am
faced with a privacy destroying goliath and a terrible UI or a privacy-
protecting company with a horrible UI...well I think the choice is obvious.

Google took queues from Reddit and fucked their UI. That's why those top UI/UX
grads get paid the big bucks I guess.

------
DesiLurker
I think its time for mozilla or another provider to launch their own fully
open sources web search. its been a while google has has a serious
competition.

------
JohnFen
I had to check Google to see what the fuss is about... yup, that's pretty bad.

------
anigbrowl
At the same time, they've also made filetype icons (like pdf) _less_ visible,
which is hugely annoying when you're searching for a specific document. The
canonical versions of legal filings and government documents are usually in
pdf, because their publication is a legal fact, so it matters quite a bit even
if you don't care for pdf from an interactivity/metaphorical point of view.

 _Also, Carthage must be destroyed:_ the vertical created by ownership of the
database and user interface is a Bad Thing about the web and HTML. Yes, it can
be made consistent for everyone which is great from an adoption or branding
point of view, which in turn generates more economic activity, but it becomes
worse and worse for consumers of the service over time as providers move
toward extraction of economic rents.

On the other hand, perhaps this speeds evolution. I foresee distributed and
(quasi-adversarial) search networks with much more client-side intelligence,
somewhat like Archie and Veronica search engines in the pre-web days.

------
CapsAdmin
Something that's kind of related is that I feel I'm finding more and more
duplicate websites and straight up malicious websites on google. They are
often repeated across many domains and I usually see them on more literal
search results (like searching with quotes).

By malicious I mean websites that destroy the back history, create alerts,
flash the favicon, etc. By duplicate websites I mean websites that take
content from something like stack overflow and puts it on a website with ads.

For example here's how I found it as I was writing this:

I wrote "stack trace" in search to get some auto complete results for
something to test.

I see "stack trace #0 main thrown in" as one of the suggestions and search for
that with quotes.

I get 2 results, one website that looks legit, and one website that's
malicious website, something that redirects me to a website that looks like
facebook telling me I won something. It also destroys my back history.

------
chrisfrantz
It’s interesting, Google is moving completely pay to play if you also look at
the ad tech movement right now.

Google has always preferred you just give them a dump truck of money and have
them run the ads where they would prefer.

With Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) they generate the ads and the keywords you bid
on. Which means you can basically agree to pay Google X amount per month and
they will run ppc ads for you.

The part that you won’t find online, since most of these guides come from
agencies that want you to pay them to manage the ads, is that these DSA search
ads actually work really well, in some cases outperforming agency work.

It could be preferential treatment internally for its own generated content or
maybe google just knows which specific copy to show, URL’s to link to and
which keywords to surface the ads under, better than any human can.

Either way, it’s starting to paint a bleak future for the web and even as a
marketer, it’s not one I’m excited about.

------
typpo
I know Google is unpopular here, but the new design doesn't really change ad
visibility. Just compare the designs side-by-side [1]. If anything, the new
design emphasizes colorful organic favicons.

[1] [https://i.imgur.com/fEo0QF9.png](https://i.imgur.com/fEo0QF9.png)

~~~
crazygringo
Can't believe I had to scroll this far down to see this.

They've also had this new design on mobile since _May of last year_ [1]. But
nobody seemed to care then?

I think people are just bothered by any visual changes in any product they're
used to. I found the change slightly jarring for a day... then realized it
doesn't really feel much better or worse than the previous way.

I guess people were just emotionally attached to URL being in green and below
the title, rather than in dark gray and above. We develop attachments to
familiar things, it's just how we are.

[1] [https://www.blog.google/products/search/new-design-google-
se...](https://www.blog.google/products/search/new-design-google-search/)

------
rinze
Google is an ad network with a search box as the bait. Of course everything
looks like an ad, it's by design.

------
brutus1213
How did this get green-lit? i.e. what story did they have to tell themselves
and externally? This seems like an extremely hostile move to users as well as
their customers (ad sellers). I simply can't distinguish ads from search
results any more. I can't be the only one.

------
michaelpetan
I have some experience with user experience and navigation design. The new
google search experience is horrible. The ads dominate, the scale seems clumsy
and the layout and spacing seems awk-wierd. I was on the launch of NEW COKE
way back when,Seems like a repeat, Coke did a focus group, taste test and
asked "is this new coke was good or better than the old coke." A majority said
better, but they did not know the OLD VERSION (classic ) would be no longer
available. Deleted from memory. The result was a consumer response that i
think has yet to be equaled. Old vs New, if they knew it was an either or the
vote would have been different. I appreciate Hacker News and the intelligence
that is emitted.

------
dmode
Let’s face it. This is largely a first world problem. In a few months we will
soon forget that this is a new design and will shriek when someone shows us
the old design. I am thinking of all the ink that was used up when iOS7 was
launched with flat icons

------
neodymiumphish
My issue isn't so much with the ads being prioritized; it's with when the ad
link goes. For example, I often search for something vague because I can't
remember the name or the site. When I use Google, the first or second ad is
almost always relevant to what I wanted or exactly what I wanted. However,
clicking the ad takes me to some sales-pitch link on the site that I don't
care to go to. Instead, I'm trying to get to the log in page or front page, or
whatever. This forces me to scroll down to the search result of the same name,
or just go back up to the omnibox and type the domain in (now that I know what
it was).

~~~
tajstar
This is more of the site's fault rather than google's since whoever set up the
ads chose that as the landing page. The whole point of the ad is to rope in
new business so if you are clicking on the ad for the login page you're just
going to a page that was made to sell (and eating into that company's ad
spend)

------
NelsonMinar
Not a solution for Google's larger product direction problem, but there's a
zillion ways nerds like us can filter out this crap from search results.
There's a few brand new browser extensions aimed specifically at stopping
this. And if you use an ad blocker, here's some rules:
[https://lifehacker.com/how-to-fix-googles-ugly-logo-
filled-s...](https://lifehacker.com/how-to-fix-googles-ugly-logo-filled-
search-results-1841062453)

In the long run this kind of fix-up is a losing game. But maybe it'll bring
you some visual peace for now.

------
zelly
This was the endgame. Ever wonder why the original release of Chrome combined
the search bar and the address bar?

Nobody bookmarks/memorizes domains or URLs anymore. Google == the web, as far
as most people are concerned.

90% of the time I search for something, I end up on Wikipedia, StackExchange,
or HTML versions of documentation/code repos like Github. So I started just
searching Wikipedia etc. directly. Next step in taking back my sovereignty is
to get in the habit of cloning git repos and ripgrepping the code/docs instead
of relying on Github (another monopoly getting bigger every day).

(Advertising companies HATE him!)

------
Iv
I used to think it was just me not keeping up with the cultural change. Then
Amazon made their search result unusable by interlacing each product row with
a product advertisement row. Browsing visually just looking at pictures became
insufferable.

I then installed Stylus, a firefox extension that allows you to add a few
lines of CSS to any website. I dont do webdev, but the level of CSS it
requires is minimal. I just made filters for all the websites with these toxic
features.

I wish there was a repository where people could share their CSS corrections
with each other to make the web saner.

------
chrischen
I wish there was an easy way to charge customers who are savvy enough to
distinguish between ads and organic results different pricing, but until then
everyone is subject to the Google tax. Our numbers still show a significant
portion of customers come from ad clicks, and we have no choice but to bid on
them to stay competitive. I have no problem with companies charging for
services, but by decoupling the payment for Google's "free" services from the
buyer we're all getting a screwy deal. At least their engineers are paid well
though...

------
umeshgmrl
Bing seems lot better lately

------
hosh
My understanding is that the Google culture has shifted dramatically from
engineering-driven to money-driven.

It reminded me of the story that got posted about Boeing:
[https://qz.com/1776080/how-the-mcdonnell-douglas-boeing-
merg...](https://qz.com/1776080/how-the-mcdonnell-douglas-boeing-merger-led-
to-the-737-max-crisis/)

I don't know if people will necessarily die, like it did with the 737 Max. But
I wouldn't be surprised if the key underpinnings of a participatory democracy
gets compromised.

------
fjabre
Even worse type in "What to watch" and now Google pushes its own app on you
and pushes down legitimate web results for this search in favor of their web
app solution for this search.

As an independent app dev I find this unconscionable.

I expect to be fed web results that are not tainted by Google's own offerings
especially not in the form of an web app that pushes other independent results
halfway down the page.

It's actions like this that make it clear Google is a threat to the web at
large and this threat needs to be neutralized or we will all pay down the
line.

------
techaddict009
And Ads look like Normal result.

Journey of Google Ads from Being Ads to Being Normal Search Result:
[https://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-
content/seloads/2019/06...](https://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-
content/seloads/2019/06/GoogleAds_Timeline_FNL2.001.png)

Source: [https://searchengineland.com/search-ad-labeling-history-
goog...](https://searchengineland.com/search-ad-labeling-history-google-
bing-254332)

------
CivBase
Duckduckgo is just a better user experience. Search results are almost always
good enough (sometimes better), and you can easily fall back to Google by
adding "!g" to the search.

------
mrkstu
Any CSS wizards that could come up with user injected CSS that would move or
highlight ads appropriately?

Is GreaseMonkey the best for that, or is there a nice lightweight alternative
more fit to purpose?

~~~
keb_
Here's some userstyles I made for myself to help get rid of some of the visual
clutter. I use it combined with uBlock Origin though, so it's likely not
perfect. I use the Stylus extension for Firefox.

[https://gist.github.com/keb/8a51c42daeb4c230e7f76664e62f9f42](https://gist.github.com/keb/8a51c42daeb4c230e7f76664e62f9f42)

------
thecleaner
I think this is a deeper problem, one with the limitations of personalized
search itself. In the initial days people were picking up relevant stuff from
the search results offered by Google and the feedback was helpful to improve
the search index. Nowadays, people click whatever is the first result so the
only feedback obtained is that results are great. Everything is so highly
optimized for clickability that users are just not able to think and provide
feedback.

------
vinaypai
Yeah, Google now shows organic results with similar styling with a favicon so
you can only tell the difference by the "Ad" shows next to paid ads. Everyone
should switch to DuckDuckGo which shows search results with a favicon and ads
in the same format distinguished by and "Ad" next to them. Or maybe Bing which
shows the search results with ads mixed in (conveniently distinguished from
organic results with an "Ad" mark).

------
Justsignedup
This is why I adblock. I had adblock disabled for a minute and started
clicking ads by accident because I really couldn't tell them apart quickly.
Terrible.

------
vectorEQ
don't see why ppl are surprised about this from an ad company. its not a
search engine company and never as been, despite having a large search
engine...

~~~
rchaud
Google has been the search champion for close to 2 decades, and are seen as
the pinnacle of SV innovation. That's the starting point of any conversation
about Google, because the victors get to write history.

That's why 'ppl are surprised'. To many, Google's ethos is still 'do no evil',
an absurd mantra for a for-profit enterprise whose business model relies on
developing ever more effective ways to spy on people's behaviours for the
benefit of their advertisers.

What's rapidly

------
shadowgovt
They are still distinguishable (ads have an "Ad" badge as opposed to a
favicon). But yeah, new design seems to push them closer to the same format.

~~~
rstupek
Much harder to visually pick out which are ads versus not now imo which is
probably why they did it

------
juped
Another way every Google result now looks like an ad: they're all SEO-spammed
with hilarious shoehorned references to various years from 2017 to 2020.

------
zmmmmm
Would like to hear anybody from Google (anyone?) try to defend this as "not
being evil".

For a long time I have dismissed the perrenial chant that starts every time
Google does something someone doesn't like that they're now "evil".

But this really seems to be 100% pure user hostile and directly in conflict
with Google's mission to "organise the world's information".

------
teekert
I've been using DDG for a couple of months now (longest streak ever, I usually
go back to Google but the !g options helps). Anyway, I don't see what is
different and the same from what ads look(ed) like? could I have become so
desensitized so quickly? Is it the missing of that green URL? Hmm, didn't even
notice although it's there on DDG.

------
CapsAdmin
Something that's kind of related is that I feel I'm seeing more and more spam
websites and straight up malicious websites on google. They are often
duplicated across many domains.

By malicious I mean websites that destroy the back history, create alerts,
beeps the computer (not sure how that works) and other nonsense about virus
infections.

------
zimbatm
Remember when Google was good?

One of the main selling point when they introduced ads was that they would be
clearly marked as such. The ads were on the side so that they couldn't be
confused with the search results.

This was sold in contrast to all the other "bad" search engines who would
first show a page of ads that looked like search results.

------
keyle
Woah it's quite flagrant.

Personally I wouldn't know I have been using ddg for the last few months and I
highly recommend it.

------
CodeSheikh
So a bad person can steal favicon of say New York Times and trick users
clicking their fake links because eventually users will get used to
establishing "credibility" of brand by recognizing the favicons? (granted the
bad person is great at SEO best practices and their search results show up at
the top)

------
izzydata
I used to use google search regularly to search for new websites with the
types of things I am looking for. Now I hardly bother going to new websites
unless somebody mentions it personally and I navigate to it directly.

I still do lots of image searches. I wonder if those are also heavily
influenced by ads now.

------
varshithr
For people who are suggesting DDG, At the risk of exposing my unpopular
opinion, I kind of like personalized results. In fact, I prefer it. It
improves the searching speed a lot and Google exactly knows what I had on my
mind. Isn't this why still everyone prefers Google?

------
chrshawkes
Whatever happened to following their own stupid advice about not having more
than three ads via ad-sense, not having a bunch of ad's above the fold etc?? I
do a search and I see four ad's and more ad's on a map and it's the entire
screen. Thanks Google!

------
navidkhn1
I wrote a quick css snippet when I first saw it - I use it with the firefox
plugin stylus.

[https://gist.github.com/navidkhn1/a2eff24419ef8d4ff8b40b6498...](https://gist.github.com/navidkhn1/a2eff24419ef8d4ff8b40b6498532ec2)

------
fdr
Yelp has also done this. It's very (or rather, isn't very) noticeable on
mobile, where it takes some attention to see if you are in algorithmic or
sponsored results. Looks like Overture/Goto.com was a bit too early, and a bit
not-monopoly-enough.

------
Angostura
Spot on. I find myself having to concentrate quite hard now to distinguish
between ad and result.

------
jhoechtl
A new search engine outside the hands of Google is overdue. It feels like a
huge ad machinery.

~~~
pmlnr
duckduckgo.com

~~~
jhoechtl
Relies on Google

~~~
Rooster61
Nope. It's powered by Bing by default.

------
presiozo
So interestingly, depending on what you're looking for, Google is actually not
the best search engine to use.

At this point DuckDuckGo is best for keyword searches, Google is good if your
searching for concepts and links sorted by popularity and similar subjects.

------
kqvamxurcagg
It's an example of a product regressing in quality over time. You can't even
search properly using double quotes now. I have to deliberately append
'reddit' or 'stack overflow' to most queries to get decent answers now.

------
mrlala
I just want compact results again.. searching for coding related stuff I need
to be able to quickly scan through a bunch of results to see if it's what I'm
looking for.. but now they are so spaced out it's just weird and inefficient.

~~~
ryanmercer
Yes! My biggest complaint is I can't quickly scan search results now, there's
so much wasted space.

------
acroback
Did some Program Manager needed a promotion at Google? Looks like it.

I personally dislike such changes, which no one asks for. Either people are
just pushing their BS through Google higher ranks or they have no clue how
their users actually feel and use their core product.

...

------
jerrac
To be a bit contrarian, it puts the url at the top, that makes it a lot easier
to tell if the result is a spam site, or an official site. Ads are easily
discernible because they have an icon that says 'Ad'. I like it.

------
GiorgioG
I just switched to Edge and didn't bother switching out the default search
engine (Bing of course) and for most things it works just as well as Google.
Ironically, Google is better at searching for .NET related errors ;)

------
onceUponADime
I wonder - if there is a some economic theory that predicts, that in the end
the only economic feasable solution for any company is to completely ruin
there most important product and commit a sort of sepuku of trust.

~~~
derp_dee_derp
maybe tech companies, but not any company.

coca-cola is still going strong. so is BNSF railway. so is McDonalds.

i mean, i could go on here with more counter examples if you want?

------
thehenster
Even though I want them to have more ad cash, DuckDuckGo isn't vastly better:
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=buy+printer](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=buy+printer)

~~~
saiya-jin
Are you seeing something else than I am? DDG looks lightyears better than
current google now, at least on visual clarity side

~~~
bazonker
I think the point is DDG has the exact pattern you are all whining about: the
organic results have icons and the ad says "Ad" instead.

~~~
mthoms
>you are all whining about: the organic results have icons and the ad says
"Ad" instead.

You're being condescending but appear to have missed the point. The "Ad" text
in Google's results is in the exact same position and is effectively the same
pixel dimensions as the favicon.

It's cleverly designed and placed to resemble a favicon, to give the over-all
layout more uniformity between ads and organic results.

As a user, I want less uniformity between ads and organic results, not more.

~~~
sukilot
DDG is hiding the "Ad" label on their shopping carousel, with unreadable #888
light grey text. That part is worse than Google's darker #666 (and longer
word) "Sponsored".

The screenshot doesn't show any Ad links in the text list results (unless the
ads are wholly unlabeled).

It's not really the same case as the OP.

~~~
mthoms
You're right, good catch.

One _could_ argue the words surrounding the carousel on DGG ("Shopping" and
"Ad") are slightly more transparent than Google's "Sponsored" heading, but
that's splitting hairs I guess.

In either case, I find both carousels pretty obvious in their intent. Maybe
it's because the prices are being shown? I think more sophisticated internet
users are trained to know that when you see a $xx.xx price on the internet,
along with a link to purchase the item, there's probably some kind of
commercial relationship happening behind the scenes.

These days, whenever I see a product mentioned _anywhere_ on the web with
links to purchase it, I default to assuming it's an affiliate link.

------
wnevets
I hate changes like this in general but this one is really bad. Just switch
back

------
notadoc
Suddenly favicon optimization is going to be the hot new trend, and some
nonsense far will impress us all with an atrocious one that catches the eye.
Bright red arrows, green arrows, red stars? Hmm what will it be!

------
unnouinceput
Google changed their results page? I didn't notice. uBlock Origin does wonders
I suppose. For me their results look the same as always. Youtube as well,
barely any ads slips the tight net my ad-blocker has.

------
tensor
On mobile this is even worse. Often the first page and a half of results are
just ads. It's so bad that sometimes I've almost stopped scrolling wondering
if there are even any real results on the page.

------
2OEH8eoCRo0
I disconnect from my phone after 6pm or so and if while doing my crossword
puzzle I need trivia answered or something spelled out I can ask my Nest Mini
and get no bullshit answers most of the time without ads.

~~~
minikites
>most of the time without ads

For now.

------
michaelpetan
i'm not as wise as most here, but as a web UX designer, the new "interface"
feels odd, awk-wierd, and as many are saying hard to see whats an ad or not. I
was around for the NEW COKE, i did the launch event. Coke lost sight of what
the changes, tweaks would mean to consumers. In focus groups the subjects
where not informed that the OLD COKE would be taken away, deleted, gone. so
when asked how it, tasted better the OLD COKE,a majority said better, but
better how, and does better mean your taking away my choice?

------
rafaelvasco
Like someone recommended ,
[https://www.startpage.com/](https://www.startpage.com/) appears to be a
solution. Going to give it a try;

~~~
impalallama
how they different than something like duckduckgo?

~~~
rafaelvasco
They say they're using Google's search engine. They bought the rights to use
it.

------
johan_larson
For what it's worth, Bing doesn't make the distinction much clearer. Ads have
a tiny little Ad icon, but both the background and the text look just like
regular search results.

------
s3r3nity
I think that's the point - when everything looks like an ad, then nothing
looks like an ad. (Read: ads blend in more - so users are probably more likely
to click on promoted links.)

------
NetOpWibby
Investor Driven Design is the best summation of these changes.

------
40four
Good thing I stoped using google search last year :)

Actually I’ve stopping using google for EVERYTHING, except one old legacy
throwaway gmail account. I must say, it feels really good!

~~~
sefrost
What do you use instead of Google Maps?

~~~
40four
Oh yeah, you got me, I forgot about that! Heh, well I do still use Google maps
& Waze. So there’s that. For what it’s worth I use maps without logging in.

------
ljm
This is a good time for education to step in and ramp critical thinking and
deduction to the max.

Google is about as evil as they come now. They’re taking the role MS did in
the 90s.

------
eweise
Funny I didn't even notice the change. I guess after switching to DuckDuckGo a
couple months ago, I haven't felt a need to do a google search.

------
zozbot234
That's just truth in advertising. Just because they're not _Google_ 's ads
doesn't mean they shouldn't be shown as such!

------
amelius
I guess that's a nice job for adblockers, to rewrite the search results pages
into something that doesn't look (and isn't) ad-ridden.

------
flibble
It’s only a matter of time until they intersperse these organic looking ads
into the search results, instead of all at the top and the bottom.

------
robbrown451
This is a horrible decision. I find it jarring and disorienting, like I made a
mistake and am at some non-Google search engine or something.

------
bhartzer
I changed the favicon to a black "Ad" text and Google didn't really like it
that much--they gave the site a manual penalty.

------
shirak_untel
Google proves more often that it transitioned from being user-centric to being
money-centric. It'd do anything to make more money.

------
ghostpepper
Can someone explain to me which of the five links in that image are ads so I
can have the "aha, sneaky google" moment as well?

------
mikorym
Am I correct that it doesn't say "ad" or "sponsored" at all? Is that even
legal (in some countries)?

~~~
skybrian
I just searched on "Hawaii hotels" (to make sure ads show up) and got a bunch
of ad links, each prefixed by _Ad_ in bold, followed by a bunch of regular
links with a favicon (?) where the _Ad_ appears.

It doesn't seem that hard to distinguish? Perhaps other people are seeing
something else?

~~~
mikorym
In the picture in OP I doesn't seem to like like that. Maybe the picture is
not clear or resized?

Edit: I googled as well, and got the same results as you did.

------
Rebelgecko
I've been getting these sorts of search results for a few months. They're
actually what convinced me to move to DDG

------
harel
I don't like it, but I'm glad I'm not alone. I thought something was off as I
was trying to "skip" the ads and get to the actual results but the "ads" seems
to go on and on... Took me a while to realise they are not "ads" but actual
results. I guess they are trying to blur the lines between paid and organic
content by going the other way - instead of making the ads less obvious, they
make the non-ads more ad-ish.

------
ggggtez
I don't get it. They say "Ad" on them don't they?

The picture of the search results doesn't even show any ads in it.

------
kull
Not many posts get close to 3k upvotes on HN.

------
RyanShook
So interesting how Google can tweak just a few lines of code/HTML on a
template and generate so much more in revenue.

------
gdsdfe
It sounds financially absurd or foolish but someone should work on search,
Google can't stay the Monopoly for long

------
bigmattystyles
Does everything look like an ad, or do ads look like legitimate results. I
feel like this is a crucial distinction.

------
aerovistae
First time in my life I've ever wanted to stop using google.

Anyone have an extension to CSS it back to the way it was?

~~~
a5aAqU
Google rejected it as "spam" for the Chrome extension store, but it's
available for Firefox. It was a quick hack yesterday to make the URLs visible.
Pull requests are welcome. It misses a few cases, and the URL should probably
be green rather than highlighted.

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/search-
engine...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/search-engines-show-
me-urls/)

[https://github.com/codeselfstudy/search_engine_show_me_urls](https://github.com/codeselfstudy/search_engine_show_me_urls)

------
ElijahLynn
This makes me close to switching my default search engine to Duck.com. If it
stays it will push harder.

------
dana321
Why don't they put the icon and url underneath the title? Seems like its
around the wrong way!

------
mgh2
I hope they are only A/B testing. If not, will likely jump ship to Bing, that
offers rewards.

------
dandare
Startup elevator pitch: We will do for search what Google did for search.
(Joking, just use DDG)

------
ryanmercer
And it is hideous and much harder to quickly scan for relevant returns (all
that empty space).

------
j45
I miss altavista and the original google layouts. I guess there's always
startpage.com

------
Debonnys
Hey Google, Don't Be Evil.

------
vfinn
Such an idiotic move by Google. You really should switch back for your own
sake.

------
6510
The right question is: How should ranking work in a distributed search engine?

------
_pmf_
ISSUE-345: ADS SHOULD NOT LOOK LIKE SEARCH RESULTS

Fixed by making search results look like ads.

------
geekamongus
So _that_ is what is going on with my search results.

I hate it. It makes me feel dirty.

------
knowThySelfx
It may also be an attempt to work around Ad blocking browsers like Brave.

------
scumbert
Unironically switch to Bing

~~~
rkuykendall-com
I hear Duck Duck Go is pretty good these days. I tried their image search
after Google removed a feature I liked and it had a feature I didn't even
realize I wanted.

~~~
pb7
DuckDuckGo is mostly Bing.

~~~
solarkraft
They have a bunch of own infrastructure and data these days (I have read they
don't use Bing at all now).

Besides: It's cleaner, faster, has often useful instant answers (random,
10011001 in hex, 1 btc in xmr, 40 stones in kg), bangs (!g for Google, !gh for
GitHub, !yt for YouTube, !w for Wikipedia) and actually respects your privacy.

I think this feature could be much improved an expanded, but the location
context switch is a really cool thing as well.

~~~
bduerst
>and actually respects your privacy.

According to who?

DDG is a privately-owned, for-profit corporation, whose code is closed source
and doesn't undergo independent audits or validations of privacy.

~~~
Nextgrid
Their _only_ selling point is privacy, so I feel like they have an incentive
to keep their only lifeline going. If they break their promise it’s
essentially the end of their business as they don’t have anything else
compelling.

Most other companies can get away with violating your privacy because they
have something nobody else has (either because their product is so good or
because of network effects) so you have no choice but to keep using them. DDG
doesn’t have that luxury.

~~~
pb7
This only incentivizes them to maintain this image until they hit critical
mass, hurt competitors (Google), or come up with compelling reasons to use
them. After all, half the discussion below is how Google _used_ to not be evil
but now is; what is stopping DDG from changing their tune later?

~~~
Nextgrid
Not saying they can’t turn evil later on down the line when they do get big,
but at the moment it’s (IMO) a non issue. They would lose their entire
business (whatever little they have) immediately if they did so and presumable
make less money out of the attempt than they make right now by respecting user
privacy and only offering content-targeted ads. For now I’m happy to trust
them - this can of course change in the future.

------
Schnitz
At this point GOOG is just another legacy company ready to be disrupted

------
jijji
the quality of the results is going down, not to mention the suggestions... it
seriously looks like the suggestions were made up by their PR department.
Everything is going downhill, use DDG

------
pepijndevos
This pushed me over the edge to switch to DuckDuckGo. So far so good.

------
i4t
I finally switched to duckduckgo and its fine! No complaints so far.

------
CheesecakeFred
Ok. But who in their right mind still uses google search directly?

------
kunglao
Try using search engines like Qwant. Give others a fighting chance.

------
EasyTiger_
They really couldn’t care less about their reputation could they?

------
nquryshi
Someone needs to fix Google! Non profit based search engine?

------
musicale
Is it too much to ask for a real URL, not some garbage link?

------
akerro
Just use µblock origin, it hides ads from search results.

------
rukuu001
Looks like absolute trash.

DDG is search of choice now, !g a last resort

------
anibalin
Add this filter on ublock origin: google.com##.xA33Gc

------
thowthisaway
Google is a Trillion dollar company for a reason

------
jinushaun
I might just switch to Bing because of this.

------
semerda
Google is now an “ads search engine”. Eek!

------
sm4rk0
PSA: You don't have to use Google.

------
boksiora
yes, the new design is very bad, those icons are very distracting.... please
get back the old design

------
numbol
Because, in some sense, it is tht ad.

------
surferbayarea
Bye bye google. Hello duckduckgo

------
steve1977
People are still using Google?

------
ausjke
from today on I officially set my default search engine to ddg

------
7thaccount
Time for duck duck go

------
stagas
Googlexit, anyone?

------
omani
time to move away from big evilcorp.

Im done with google.

will use duckduckgo.

------
agumonkey
isn't the google star dead already ?

------
nathias
imagine still using google in 2020

------
rawoke083600
Thank You Google... My Life is Better With You.

I'm going to voice maybe the unpopular opinion here... Disclaimer:I don't work
for google, nor am I rich or part of a big corp.

Thinking of what google has given us... mostly for free (yes yes I know we
have paid in data and privacy...)

1\. Really good search results: I remember the day of the search wars.
AltaVista was the best there was and it was kinda crap. But but but I hear you
say.... the results are worse and the ads blah blah so use another search
engine then. For the most part they deliver on what they promised.. Organising
the worlds information and they do it mostly for free for you.

2\. Maps: Holly hell I don't want to live in a world WITHOUT IT !! I'm the
type of person that gets lost in a mall. I kid you not. Yea I had a very
expensive(for me at least) TomTom but Google maps has been free and always in
my pocket.

3\. GMail: When last did you have to delete a mail ? I freaking love GMail.
There are few companies so good at spam protecting a 10 year old email address
! Sure there are things that can be better... ironical for me I wish it was
search-inside-gmail. But apart from that Gmail is amazing they almost never
down and never crap. GMail got there first with the big mailboxes and not too
crappy UI. Thunderbird is a mess and slow. I save so many digital
stuff(forever) just by emailing it to myself. Its Free - You bloody
ungratefull fools !

3.Chrome(Browser). As stated I come from a time of the browser wars and
Netscape and though Netscape was nice for the time. Chrome again blow it out
the water... It just took us to the next level. Fine right now most modern
browsers are at this next level but again Google got their first and again its
free.

4\. ML and Data-Tools. Maybe I get a bit specilzied here but TensorFlow is a
fantastic.. yes its awkward to program but keras is a nice layer on-top of it.
But Google did the ground work and still pushing the boundaries. Guess what
yea... TF is free. Every had to pay for a "Delphi-Component" or any fancy
Borland Compilers ?? Blessed you lucky stars ! Thanks Google !

5\. Targeted Ads: Yea I get ads can be anoying but all these amazing planatary
free service as mentioned above needs to be paid somehow... Guess what I like
personlized ads compared to shitty ads about hair shampoo for women ! I
watched "normal free to air tv" the other day, and q generic ad break came
on... Lol it almost felt cruel to watch this advertiser just blasting it's un-
targeted ads at me that will never buy fancy hair shampoo to the masses. If I
type in plumber by god I want to see plumber ads in my area.

5b GoogleAds: Still the cheapest way to promote your business. Can you imagine
going back to the old day... Printing 5000 flyers paying some kid to delivery
it for you Try working out your CPL on that ! I always try to look for new
advertising opportunities for my small business from newsletters to billboards
the money they want to charge is crazy !! And most of the time untraceable !
With GoogleAds if I spent 1k on ads I can pretty much make up a spreadsheet
model and deduce how much I will get for it. Try doing that with a billboard,
flyers, school newspaper, BingAds( awful ), newsletter.radio or SMS.

Balancing the products and balance sheet of a company as big as Google must be
a nightmare I don't want that job. Most comments here about Google ruining
this and that... well its easy don't use their products go be unhappy on
another platform. My life is truly easier with Google in my life !

Thank You Google.... You Are Like A Long Marriage... Your Not Perfect And
Neither Am I... But My Life is Better With You. Thanks For All The Freebies
And Advances.

------
tclover
stop using google, fools

------
bazonker
Not sure about the facts underlying the analysis. In my search results (and
it's important to remember that it's possible you get different results than
another user, due to launch experiments and trials) the ads do not have icons.
They say "Ad" in bold text. The "organics" results have icons.

~~~
mthoms
But notice how the "Ad" text is specifically formatted (and placed) to
resemble a favicon? They're blatantly trying to make the ads and organic
results appear uniform to someone quickly scanning the page.

As a user, I want the ads more easily distinguishable, not less.

~~~
folkhack
100% - it's a dark pattern and you know exactly why they're doing it: cash
money from advertisers.

The internet is slowly being turned into a corporate power grab and it's only
getting worse YOY =|

------
itamarst
Perhaps it's worth quoting Larry Page and Sergey Brin, in the original paper
on the Google search engine:

> "The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to
> providing quality search to users. ...we expect that advertising funded
> search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away
> from the needs of the consumers. "

([http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html](http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html))

At the time they thought this was a bad thing...

~~~
minikites
Money can change almost anyone's opinion about almost any subject.

~~~
goobynight
Right. And most people are fully persuaded by much lesser sums.

------
mtgx
They're turning the web into a close system, just like Facebook did (kind of),
so that later on, when it's too difficult for anyone to leave this closed
system, they can also start charging sites just for appearing in the "organic
results" \-- just like Facebook did.

------
andresramon
Snapchat is the worst app I ever use

------
nif2ee
Reminder that almost every Google search bashing thread on HN is most probably
injected by DDG. They have been doing that for years and years and it proved
to be very effective. It's a amazing that such a mediocre search engine like
DDG can be popular only based on rants and accusations on the big guy. But it
seems really to be a very effective marketing technique.

~~~
dang
It breaks the site guidelines to post insinuations of astroturfing like this.
Please read
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
and stick to the rules when posting here.

Reams of previous explanation at
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20astroturf&sort=byDat...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20astroturf&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0)
if anyone wants it.

~~~
nif2ee
but it's the truth and if you're seriously unaware of it you have a big
problem; DDG, Brave Inc and some other companies have been doing this on a
regular basis for a long time. You guys should start charging them and at
least make some money off allowing these organized shilling parties.

------
thrower123
It's pretty simple to just use UBlock Origin. Firstly, I don't usually see any
of the doubleclick ad results, because they get filtered out, and secondly, if
I do click on them, it redirects you to a warning page first.

Friends don't let friends use the internet without an adblocker.

~~~
coldcode
Adblockers are mostly useless, companies pay them to whitelist and the
browsers manufacturers (other than the little guys) seem more inclined to make
it less functional. I try at home to use a hosts file (ie a manual pihole) but
it breaks so many websites I can't find some combo that blocks ads but doesn't
break functionality (I still can't comment on reddit any more).

With Google putting ads inline coming from them it gets really hard to filter
without causing even more issues (and most people use Chrome so they can
figure out things out from both ends).

~~~
celsoazevedo
> Adblockers are mostly useless, companies pay them to whitelist

uBlock Origin is open source and doesn't accept donations or payments to
whitelist ad networks:

\- Github:
[https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/)

\- Manifesto:
[https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/master/MANIFESTO.md](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/master/MANIFESTO.md)

------
dcchambers
I _do_ think that Google has done a lot of work to objectively add value to
the results page of most search queries (eg pulling data straight from
websites like Wikipedia, giving better page previews, etc).

However they are an ad company - and they ultimately benefit from blurring the
line between an advertisement and a "real" result. I do feel like it is harder
to find certain types of results as a "power user" though, and it feels like
the quality of results rapidly drops off after the first page. I am not sure
if the fault lies with Google or with spammy websites hacking the SEO.

I wish Google had something like duckduckgo.com/lite (also ddg.gg/lite) for
the atypical "power user." It's nothing but text results. I find it really
useful for certain types of searches and when you don't want to be bothered by
how "busy" the Google search results page has become.

~~~
JohnFen
> it feels like the quality of results rapidly drops off after the first page

Interesting -- I've been playing with Google search this morning, and it's
behaving much like it did when I stopped using it: there is only a very low
chance that I'll get a relevant search result before the third page.

