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Froogle tab is now on google homepage.
[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 3:36 pm (utc) on Mar. 29, 2004]
The professionalism will reach out to new Adwords clients who will see the change as increasing the visibility of the PPC listings.
The higher visibility will increase clickthrough rates on Adwords meaning that you won't get an email every day saying that your Adwords campaigns are on hold due to low clickthrough rates which will encourage disgruntled webmasters to increase their Adwords efforts.
The 'lifting' of the search bar, results info and sponsored listings higher up on the page allows more natural search results to be seen above the scroll which is more user friendly.
The merging of the dual coloured Sponsored Links box into one narrower single coloured box will lose some of the commercial 'feel' that Google has been giving off for so long now.
In general the whole page has been given the same colouration whether paid or natural results which gives a better user experience.
In all, I disagree that this is a move by the 'suits' at Google. They would have encouraged more distinction of the paid results rather than blending them into the page to mirror natural results. I think this is the best look out there right now and it gives the best search engine user experience visually.
Their algorithm still sucks ****** ***** though.
GG says there has been no algo change, only a UI change, which rings true looking at the results.
Perhaps the directory has been deprecated for much longer than we realised?
Yahoo was a directory who built a search engine to compete with Google. Google was a search engine who will now build a directory to compete with Yahoo.
Just think - their own editors reviewing sites rather than the very slow and easily bribed DMOZ guys. Imagine the PageRank attributes and relevance they could give to sites they've checked themselves ...
[edited by: internetheaven at 10:12 am (utc) on Mar. 29, 2004]
I guess the AdWord CTR rates will depend on what people have their webbrowsers set to in terms of web browser width. If it's the whole screen, it'll go down if it is narrow then it will go up.
In a search for "widgets", the widgets part of www.thingummywidgets.com is highlighted. Until now, to my knowledge it was generally assumed that Google couldn't parse non-hyphenated domain names.
<added>
ah, already mentioned in msg #20...
</added>
[edited by: John_Caius at 10:13 am (utc) on Mar. 29, 2004]
I like the way the sponsored links fit in
Yes, they're very nicely slipped in ;)
Loss of the directory link seems reasonable, their research probably shows that hardly anyone clicks on it - which is probably true.
I don't think so. I think google is spiraling down like a one wing airplane. It is turning into a viciuous cycle at this point. Results are worse so make adwords bigger so adwords makes more money. Users must be stupid make adwords even bigger. Users must be total idiots (can't be something we are doing) not clicking still...make adwords entire page. Moron user still won't click...gee what went wrong, stupid idiot users should click our ads and make us all rich? Well, maybe you messed up when you decided to not be a search engine any more.
Results look completely messed up when I narrow my web browser.
I agree with that one. On some SERPS, where the sniplett is based on Meta keywords separated by commas and no space between, the new design fails to hyphenate the sniplett and results in a HUGE empty white rectangle.
Good point, SyntheticUpper. Still, the effort required to click on an ad has increased significantly with the new GUI, and that makes me wonder whether a slight decrease in overall CTR might be desirable on Google's part. Maybe they just wanted to filter out accidental/random clicks?
[edited by: Giacomo at 10:38 am (utc) on Mar. 29, 2004]
Now the visible distinction is negligible. And the Adwords are more relevant than the serps themselves for commercial searches (now there's a surprise, wonder how that happened :)
I don't use Adwords, it's just not cost effective in my industry.
My serp position is still good though, but I guess Google has finally stuffed me :)
Nice one! G has finally managed to impose a universal tax on the Internet!
(the new pages do look nice and clean though)
[edited by: SyntheticUpper at 10:57 am (utc) on Mar. 29, 2004]
What an update...
>This will make researching a topic much harder to do. It used to be a lot easier to find related sites.. Google has effectively killed this feature off.
This I agree with. Good news if your site is ODP listed and you come up in the top 10 SERP. Makes it harder now for people to find the competition/related sites. Bad news if you are in the ODP, but don't make page 1 of the SERPs.
This is a Good Thing for UK searchers who aren't looking for UK specific information. Why should a UK searcher want just pages from the UK on a search for "kangaroos"?
I mainly use the UK search when I'm trying to buy something. There's no point in drilling down through USA sites etc. offering great deals, but in dollars with necessarily high transit costs and import duties etc.
Admittedly, there aren't many folks in the UK attempting to buy kangaroos, I can think of only a dozen people I know who have bought one in the past month.
It's guaranteed that there are many pages on the UK with "kangaroos" on them.
>I mainly use the UK search when I'm trying to buy something. There's no point in drilling down through USA sites etc. offering great deals, but in dollars with necessarily high transit costs and import duties etc.
>Admittedly, there aren't many folks in the UK attempting to buy kangaroos, I can think of only a dozen people I know who have bought one in the past month.
Only a very small percent of all Google searches are done by people looking to buy anything. Thus Google defaults to what most searchers want. For the statistically rare searcher looking to buy something, that's what the radio button is for.
I suppose it comes down to what your primary use of google is: 'the world' or 'your country'.
But lets say i'd been looking for stuff on Google.com and i decide that i want to search the UK now. I navigate to Google.co.uk. "oh great now i've got to click the radio button to search the uk" or even worse in my haste to search, i forget to click it at all.
I'll shut up now. Hehe. :D
In other words... Google just SEO'ed for Adwords.
[labs.google.com...]
==
I'm not sure what this thing is supposed to do yet, but that slider sure does move stuff around.
Only a very small percent of all Google searches are done by people looking to buy anything.
How do you know this RFG?
There's also another important use for the country specific search I omitted to mention, if I'm searching for information about, say, a postal, educational or tax issue, I need to see the UK governmental or educational sites. Worldwide results would be meaningless as their laws don't apply to me.
(p.s. I'm surprised no-one picked me up on my statement that only a dozen people I know have bought kangaroo's in the last month. Clearly no-one reads the posts :)
Is this a sign Google is becoming more commercial in their ideals?
[edited by: mikeD at 12:31 pm (utc) on Mar. 29, 2004]
Also ,from Alexa rankings [alexa.com], directory.google.com = 1%
The directory links are a good riddance, as a very small percentage of users actually clicked on them, and we all know the quality of dmoz.....
and we all know the quality of dmoz.....
I edit at Dmoz and would say very high, with the majority of editors being very ethical. Wouldn't believe all that's posted on ww about Dmoz. It's still the best resource on the net for users, maybe not for webmasters because the majority on ww are commercial.
I think the problem most of us have with DMOZ is that you can't get a mom and pop site listed. Even if you drill to the correct location to put it in. If I have a million dollar operation and wait a couple years I might get listed. We just find that unacceptable. Why does Paris Hilton (new porn queen) get listed and we can't? Many suspect is because the DMOZ operation is corrupt.
For instance... Let's say I have a competitor that is a DMOZ editor (maybe the way he got his site listed). Now let's say he sees me request to have my site listed. You think maybe he won't add my site? hmmm? maybe? I really can't figure any other reason. There are certainly a lot worse pages listed in DMOZ than any site I have. But magicly I can't get listed, but one competitor of mine is listed in 3 different categories in a one state market.
also, now i do not have to type the urls of adwords competitors, i can copy url and open in a new window
more effort to click on adwords means better qualified leads and less clicks by mistake, just envy the one or two at the top
