Re:Google is Backtracking on its Controversial Desktop Searc...
by xp84 on Friday January 24, 2020 @04:15PM
(#22142533)
> "that’s been tested and has shown positive feedback on mobile over a long stretch of time."
This is a very smart argument for Google to have shifted to.
The thing is, this UI change is quite attractive. I 100% believe that they focus-grouped this, and that a vast majority of users agree that this looks nicer.
The "problem" with it, as you probably know, is that the redesign was done to make ads blend in with real results more effectively to further increase the no doubt already impressive share of searches that end in a user clicking an ad.
Users pretty much don't care about this. They generally click whatever's first and don't care that some retailer or whoever paid Google $1 for the privilege of appending ".com" to what the user typed and providing a link to be clicked.
The people speaking up are primarily:
* Geeks, who in general avoid ads because they know that they add no value and instead just get in the way of the actual results.
* People who have to pay Google due to this racket, who will have to pay slightly more now that even more users will conflate paid ads with results, meaning that having the best and most relevant website matters less and paying Google the most money and having a higher-clickthrough paid Google ad matters more.
It's simultaneously true that Google tested this and picked a design that nearly all of its users prefer, and that they're acting like greedy, craven racketeers here.
This is a very smart argument for Google to have shifted to.
The thing is, this UI change is quite attractive. I 100% believe that they focus-grouped this, and that a vast majority of users agree that this looks nicer.
The "problem" with it, as you probably know, is that the redesign was done to make ads blend in with real results more effectively to further increase the no doubt already impressive share of searches that end in a user clicking an ad.
Users pretty much don't care about this. They generally click whatever's first and don't care that some retailer or whoever paid Google $1 for the privilege of appending ".com" to what the user typed and providing a link to be clicked.
The people speaking up are primarily:
* Geeks, who in general avoid ads because they know that they add no value and instead just get in the way of the actual results.
* People who have to pay Google due to this racket, who will have to pay slightly more now that even more users will conflate paid ads with results, meaning that having the best and most relevant website matters less and paying Google the most money and having a higher-clickthrough paid Google ad matters more.
It's simultaneously true that Google tested this and picked a design that nearly all of its users prefer, and that they're acting like greedy, craven racketeers here.