I'm having trouble understanding how the site would have lost potential revenue. All the query wanted to know was the net worth of someone. I don't imagine anyone casual enough to use Google to answer that who would be willing to spend a lot of time trying to figure that out using an advertisement-laden "free" website. I don't imagine anyone professionally interested in that answer who'd use Google as their primary resource nor would they click on ads on the target site.
On the other hand, Google gets to know who's talking about whom. That in and of itself is/can be valuable. I can see an argument be made for abuse of monopoly here. On the other hand, I think what Google does indeed benefit the consumer in this case. The casual user's experience is likely improved and the professional user's experience still wouldn't use Google as a primary resource.
They lost ad impressions.
I don't imagine anyone casual enough to use Google to answer that who would be willing to spend a lot of time trying to figure that out using an advertisement-laden "free" website.
Why not? It's not like that they had any other options than trying to extract that information from ad-laden websites. Most people read rather slowly, and by the time they either find out what they need or decide that they give up, lots of ad impressions have already had happened.
Sure, that counts as revenue. It's not something I'm going to lose sleep over. I don't exactly think that advertisements should be a profitable "feature" of the internet in its current form.
> Why not? It's not like that they had any other options than trying to extract that information from ad-laden websites.
You completely missed my point. Now that Google "owns" the data and provides the answer, the user won't need to click on a scummy site.
Moreover, casual questions not answered directly by Google are answered by casual browsing. Casual browsing happens with ad blockers. If a site breaks when an ad blocker is in use, users exit the site.
Essentially, if Google's data source isn't getting paid, the data source is not going to remain accurate, and hence, neither will Google.
Paying people is no guarantee of accuracy in either direction. Heck paying people for it encourages putting any ole bullshit there to farm it.
No, it could mean that Google itself provided an acceptable answer for you in an infobox.
For example, if you search for "San Francisco temperature," the top-of-the-page result is an interactive box showing the current conditions and 24-hour forecast for the city.
That's reasonably likely to answer the implied question without redirecting you to another site, so it is an example of a successful "zero-click search."
If I search for something using Google, and don't click on a link, doesn't that mean my search was fruitless? What else do we mean by 'zero-click searches'?
Edit: Unless it's the simple '6 x 10' or 'What is the time in London', in which case, are we surprised these queries are handled by $SearchEngine? DDG does the same thing (albeit, uses a third party website and gives credit)