Google Allows Sponsored Rankings...In Ads 234
A number of written that the sky is fallen because Google is allowing sponsored rankings. Of course, if you read the article it's the sponsored links on the right side of the page - where the ads have always been.
This is the way it should have been. (Score:5, Insightful)
Before, all advertisers paid a set fee and were randomly displayed in random order. Now there highest paying customers are shown first.
While I wish they didn't do this, as it affects our advertising budget, I think this is logical and I support their decision to make money. After all, if google doesn't make money, they'll go under and we'll all lose access to the best search engine.
Link to another search engine for the story? (Score:5, Insightful)
You could have simply gotten the information from the horse's mouth [google.com].
Linking to an article that tries to stir controversy and sway readers away from Google is highly sketchy. Google has nothing to hide by this, and even the Slashdot editor who posted this story admitted that it's nothing more than they've already BEEN doing.
They sell ads that show up on the side. We'll always know which results are real and which aren't. The real ones show up in the middle; the results that are paid-for advertisements show up on the right in colored boxes and are clearly marked as advertisements.
Most of the time these "advertisements" are more often useful things than typical gimmicks that you find with image banner ads (i.e. click the monkey - win cash!, if this is flashing you won $100,000, etc etc etc).
It's fine when you dump on Microsoft because they're evil
But don't sling mud at Google. They're just trying to stay profitable so we can continue to use their great service.
EricKrout.com
Lousy Journalism (Score:2, Insightful)
Sounds to me like excite is just jealous because their business model failed.
The Sky Has Not Fallen (Score:5, Insightful)
The few key points that prevent me from worrying me about this are these:They will continue to distinguish between search engine results and advertisements and keep the ads separate from the results, to the right side of the screen. For this reason, that article and the title of this on SlashDot seem to be alarmist and misleading. Google is maintaining its integrity, at least for now.
One might also note that Excite, which published this article, uses Overture for its results, and labels them "Search Results for: [term]." Might they have a bias?
huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess Hemos just wanted to use the dollar icon on the front page. *shrugs*. Nothing to see here, please move along.
Selling rankings is deviously clever (Score:3, Insightful)
The practice that I'm talking about here is that of selling relative rankings in an advertising medium. The beauty of the system is that the value of advertising really does "float free" in the marketplace, but at the same time empowers the seller of the ad space to keep prices up without looking greedy.
In the case of eBay, they keep adding new "features" you can use to increase the relative profile of your auction. Each of these features costs money, of course (other than a couple of basic ones which are included in the cost of a basic auction). Rather than ratchet up the prices on these features, eBay seems to prefer to add new, fancier features which cost more money. But note: these new features have the side effect of making the older features less valuable because they aren't the biggest eye-catchers on the block anymore. This means that the cost of the highest-profile feature keeps going up, even if all the prices of existing features are static.
In searching for precedents to this, I remembered the plain old printed White Pages (TM in various locations, no doubt) telephone directory. This doesn't accept ads, but over time they've gone from "every listing looks the same", to "pay extra for a bold entry", to "pay even more for a SUPERBOLD entry", and so on.
Non-issue (Score:2, Insightful)
Damn it. (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought slashdot collectively stopped caring about this kind of non-issue pap back in 1998.
- A.P.
Re:The Sky Has Not Fallen (Score:2, Insightful)
This story has nothing to do with Excite!! It's from the AP (Associated Press) Wire. Jeez guys, quit looking for conspiracies
Here is a link to the most updated AP article on the subject:
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/main.html?SLUG=GOOGLE-A
Give it a break!
It's NOT the ads on the right (Score:2, Insightful)
The ads appear at the top of the search results. Observe this search [google.com] for computer software. Of course they are quite plainly marked and it's not a big deal.
I just find it interesting that slowly, but surely, Google is doing away with the things that made it unique in the field (at least from a commercialism standpoint).
Oh well...
Re:BFD (Score:4, Insightful)
In fact, I even find this useful. If I'm looking for a product or service, I have been known to click on a sponsored link in the past. I've even bought things from them.
Hooray again as Google leads the way (Score:5, Insightful)
It's sadly quaint to work on the proposition that high integrity is an asset to a money-making company. Google appears to understand this with their refusal to dilute the value of their search results.
Here's hoping that they prove to the world that making money hand over fist is consistant with that attitude, maybe even derived from it.
Re:Damn it. (Score:3, Insightful)
So how can it be that corporate goons got ahold of Google?
It's not that pure... (Score:5, Insightful)
In Overture (goto.com, renamed) you are ranked by bid. If I want to close out a category, I can try to sneak in some irrelevant links (irrelevant with poor wording, for example) to minimize clickthroughs. I've still blocked a space from the competitor, but I likely pay little because I won't get clicked on.
The reason that this makes sense for Google is purely economic. Right now, in popular categories, their adwords are over-subscribed because people can't win the search terms. In unpopular categories, people just optimize for Google and get in the real results, not paying for ads.
A CPC deal allows much cheaper rates for unpopular terms (5 cents/click compared to 8-12 cents per impression based upon placement), while allowing competitive categories to be bid up.
However, the click-pop isn't a user-benefit, it's a Google benefit. The old system moved the clicked on ads to the top (where Google charged more, but you got better clickthrough so it was fine). The new system takes into account your CPC bid and click throughs.
That makes sense. If I am willing to pay 10 cents a click but get twice as many clicks as your 15 cent ad, I pay Google more per page, so Google wants to run my ad.
The real system is likely not that simple, because Google's bid-protection automatically down-bids you to be 1 cent above the person below you. Therefore, like on Ebay, you can bid the max that you are willing to pay.
It's an intelligent system. Google is entitled to run ads. Their advertisements are clearly marked as ads and separated from the editorial. The problem with search engine ads isn't that they run ads, or even targetted ads, its that the search engines intentionally try to confuse you as to what you are getting. The other problem is the bait-and-switch strategy. Several meta-searches built up user bases by giving great results with intelligent use of the engines. Once they got users, they switched to completely CPC systems to leverage their userbase until they got fed up and left.
Repeat after me, there is nothing morally wrong with ads. Poorly done ads that slow my connection make me leave your site, but I haven't been robbed. Making money is not morally wrong.
Alex
Re:This is the way it should have been. (Score:3, Insightful)
What stop's a competitor hammering your ad? (Score:2, Insightful)