Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/01/23/google-ads-look-like-search-re.html
Latest update blurs ads vs. search results line
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I guess they look identical if you donât know how to read. I agree, to hell with sponsored results, but srsly?
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I guess one more reason to be glad that my pihole blocks google ad services.
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itâs like having a door with a tiny sign that says push, but a handle that has a vertical grip rather than a horizontal bar.
if youâve literally never tried to pull such a door open, well youâre in a community numbering one.
design matters. and google just changed all the door handles.
( would this be a good time to point out that boing boing has ads which look just like the articles? )
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Agree with both your points, marketing trick is still a marketing trick and this one forces you to pay more attention to the ads or you risk clicking on in-ad-vertentlyâŚ:-/
Also, yes, boing boings use of inline ads in comments and pops that I have to close trying to get me to read another article in very annoying, to me at least and Iâm close to abandoning it altogether. I realize ads bring revenue but that doesnât change the fact they are annoying.
oh and those âpretendâ stories that are really ads by boing boing authorsâŚmmm.
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re DuckDuckGo
also Ecosia.org - they respect your privacy, and they plant trees for ya!
Allegedly. Who knows for sure.
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Oh yeah, fuck Google, man! Dig this though: I heard Verizon has a private search engine now!
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Most of the results have been ads, advertorial âreviewsâ or sales sites for years.
I tried googling the seasons for a couple of fish earlier today. I got dozens of pages pitching fishing charters and the Wikipedia page for the species 10 results down.
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Huh. Thatâs really weird.
Google is - was - reputed to be full of really smart people. I wonder if any of them ever read Aesopâs âThe goose that laid the golden eggsâ.
Time to get serious about that switch to duckduckgo, I guess. (thanks @Solderer for the short url and @jeddak for the alternate suggestion)
Edit: did anyone else have trouble getting to this particular comments thread? I kept getting errors from the link at the bottom of the article, but finally got in through the forum listing, although even that took a bit of finessing.
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I think Iâll change my siteâs favicon to their Ad graphic. People will think that I have a fortune in advertising budget to throw around.
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I canât see the post at all, i had to go to the forums and find the topic. And if i go to the post through here i still donât get it to load but clicking back on my browser the forum then refuses to load and i get a âCorrupted Contentâ error
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Meh, the indicator is the same size font as the search result, in bold, on the left, since we read left to right. Google is doing more evil things elsewhere.
Boingboing on the other hand is starting to look like geocities with all the obnoxious, irrelevant ads that I canât block on mobile.
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It doesnât escape me that people tricked into clicking these ads will have a bounce rate of nearly 100%, and advertisers will be paying Google for every erroneous click.
What a shame it would be if I were the kind of person making ad buy decisions for a company. Oh snap, I am.
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so you agree the change is evil.
cool, me too.
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If you have an iThing you can install 1Blocker from the appstore for free basic web ad blocking.
On Android you can install most adblocking extensions for the desktop on Firefox mobile. I use UBlock Origin.
Also on Android you can install Blokada which works as your DNS resolver to block ads and tracking calls even for non-browser apps. Really saves battery life and reduces your chances of infection.
1Blocker for iThings: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/1blocker/id1365531024
UBlock Origin for Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm
UBlock Origin for Firefox (both desktop and mobile): https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/
UBlock Origin for Edge: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/ublock-origin/9nblggh444l4?activetab=pivot:overviewtab
Blokada for Android: https://blokada.org
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those are easily skipped by filtering out the phrase â20,000 hours of javascript training for $20â
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OK Google.
Ecosia is powered by Bing, which often yields poor search results or simply NO search results for obscure or complicated terms.
