Stoppelman's Yelp is a bad example. I don't want to visit a page that pesters me to install their app instead of showing me the reviews I came to read. If Yelp's ranking has been lowered, good riddance.
I don't really want to defend behaviors similar to Yelp's. Because it's indeed annoying. But let's play devil's advocate here.
Part of the reason why Google can have a clear and good user experience, is because they can afford it. On the other hand, for smaller company, not meeting user count goals could mean not getting funding and die. This will force them to nag the users to get them to install the app, even if doing that could annoy some of the users.
And this is pretty much a classic example of why monopoly is bad.
Monopolies are bad because more capital means that you can create a better product?
If beating Google was as simple as needing more money to build a better product, then why couldn't startups just pitch that to investors and raise more funding? Probably because beating Google is harder than throwing money at a random startup's app.
At that rate you might as well outlaw venture capital funds because they disadvantage people trying to bootstrap their own startup.
There are certainly many reasons why monopolies are bad, but having capital is not one of them.
> I don't really want to defend behaviors similar to Yelp's. Because it's indeed annoying. But let's play devil's advocate here.
> Part of the reason why Google can have a clear and good user experience, is because they can afford it. On the other hand, for smaller company, not meeting user count goals could mean not getting funding and die. This will force them to nag the users to get them to install the app, even if doing that could annoy some of the users.
They don't have to do that. They can use the same tracking resources that other online companies use to show increased usage.
I'm not saying that I have a better solution. But their current solution is sub-optimal. Their website is crap, looks outdated. What are they even working on?
The problem isn't that they can afford it, but the fact that they have essentially implemented a vendor lock in for the majority of their products, and have implemented vertical integration in a way that they can very easily expand through acquisitions and their own product listings.
They have a monopoly on what people see when they want to find something, and can use that to point you to google properties, or should they expand into further ventures such as selling their own goods, move you away from other retailers.
i'm not a fan of Yelp's business practices or strategic web decisions, yet, i think Stoppelman may have a point even if Yelp is guilty of the same type of shady practices itself.
IOW, just like i wonder if i'm missing an excellent restaurant when i search for restaurants in Yelp, i also wonder if i'm missing an excellent review website when i search for "restaurant reviews" on Google.
It's funny you mention this: I've discovered that Google is injecting an ad above searches for "mapquest" that leads users who make the mistake of clicking on a Google ad to install a browser hijacker plugin before they can get the directions they're looking for.
This hurts MapQuest's brand, gives people malware, and of course, conveniently, makes Google a lot of money. They've been doing it for at least a number of years. There is no way to report the malicious ad to Google, and I've seen the exact same site over and over again confusing computer illiterate users into believing MapQuest requires they download a plugin.
A significant portion of Google's ad business is malware content, and they put it above legitimate rankings. Which is to say, Google is not downranking bad sites for being bad, Google is downranking sites who don't pay them for the privilege of being on top.
You honestly think Google cares about MapQuest at all? The ad you're mentioning is using MapQuest as a keyword. It needs to be reported. Job done.
Google doesn't care about MapQuest and it remains the top non-advertised listing for searching MapQuest. MapQuest is a has-been and it has nothing to do with Google's ranking them, and everything to do with a terrible UI that was entirely inferior to Maps on release.
You've missed a lot of the point here. MapQuest isn't something Google cares about, but it is an extremely popular search term, particularly among the computer illiterate, who learned what it was back in the 90s, and have ever since considered it "where to get directions". Like many other search terms, it's a high value term for malicious content, and Google's happy to rake in the cash. While "Google does not sell your data", they're more than willing to redirect you to a malicious browser extension that does.
Those of us in the tech industry don't use MapQuest. We don't click on ads. A lot of us have ad blockers. So we don't really think about the fact that the cushy online presence adtech has built for us is built on taking advantage of less technologically savvy. You may not pay for Google, but indirectly, the old lady down the block does, every time she has to take her computer into Best Buy to have the garbage scrubbed off of it.
And where the antitrust drops back in: Google doesn't let people bid on ads for their own products, so "google maps" never returns a malicious map site.
And, as I noted above, this site's been heavily promoted in Google Ads for years, at least five, and there's no way to report it in Google Search. Several Google employees are likely reading this thread who have the ability to do something about it or know who to escalate it to, but I'm reasonably confident it'll still be there next week.
I'm happy to be proven wrong that a Googler has accomplished such a task. As I stated in two of these comments: There appears to be no place to report an ad on Google Search. Can you explain where this feature is, because I've explicitly looked for it many times.
I see a dropdown that offers me a single option: "Why this ad?", which of course, just tells me it's based on my current search terms since I have personalization off. Clicking Ad Settings didn't bring me a report option either. I was kinda expecting a button like the "Report Ad" button you can see if you look at an ad on DuckDuckGo.
EDIT: I've bookmarked the below link and will use it liberally against malware.
...And I'll use the generic "submit feedback" button to point out I should really just be able to report a bad ad on the ad itself.
(Note: "Send feedback" has gotten pretty obscure on Google Search, nobody scrolls that far! On Google+, it's always on the left, on Gmail it's on the settings gear (I checked Settings on Google Search first and didn't find it there.)
>I'm happy to be proven wrong that a Googler has accomplished such a task. As I stated in two of these comments: There appears to be no place to report an ad on Google Search. Can you explain where this feature is, because I've explicitly looked for it many times.
As far as I know, there should be a "send feedback" button on the bottom of pretty much any page. It could be used for something like this, although I have no idea how long resolution would take in that case.
There's also this form[1], which I found by Googling "report bad Google ad" (its accessible via the first result). This is essentially what I did.
Hey Joshua, just a note: Five hours ago, I confirmed you were right, the ad was gone. But it looks like the same site is back in business: https://www.google.com/search?q=mapquest
Specifically, in every test I've ever run, Google puts http://www.mapsanddrivingdirection.com/Maps as the ad run above the official MapQuest link. It's a company out of Cyprus that repackages OpenStreetMap data with a big giant "Download to Continue" button when you try to get directions.
I can tell you the download requests admin privileges on your machine to install (aka, is not just an extension alone), and overrides your New Tab page and changes your search provider. I will admit I didn't have the courage to actually install it anywhere to confirm the extent of it's behavior, but placing the registry key that disables Chrome auto-updates is pretty par for the course on these type of infections.
