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Comment by tyingq | Hacker News Reader

Google search does tend to still do well for areas where they see there's no money to be squeezed.

There's a stark difference if you try to search for something where Google can net a big cut of the outcome. Try searching for "vegas hotels". Once upon a time, google returned a healthy mix of results that directly benefited them, and ones that didn't.

Here's the portion of the page (yellow rectangle) that now appears to be presented to actually help visitors, and not directly pay Google: https://imgur.com/a/hAFas On my PC, you have to scroll down 2 pages to see that.

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I don't see how you can justify the claim that a scrollable map with hotel locations and prices isn't "presented to actually help visitors".

Of course there's some synergy between helping visitors and profit to Google, that's how business models work. And if you think that following the links to hotels.com and tripadvisor.com will get you more altruistic and unbiased information than the Google links then I'd like to sell you this fine bridge with air conditioning, great views and swimming facilities, which 93% of visitors rated as 4 stars or higher.

Google has control over the map, which listings show on (and below it), etc.

Back in the "10 blue links" day, the organics that showed, above the fold, were driven by factors that didn't include "Google's cut".

Similar for Google shopping. It's predecessor, Froogle, weighted on consumer factors. The replacement does not.

If the organics are basically bad now too, the blame goes to the same place. In fact, crappy organics encourage more ad clicks.

To me it is obvious that this map is not targeting visitors but hotels to draw them in and have them fill the google database with their details.

Actually, I think the Google-provided map of hotels is a lot more useful to me as a search user than almost everything else likely to be returned from a spammy-hellhole-producing search term like this one.

I don't know how to make such search terms useful again. Maybe by aggressively delisting anything that reeks of SEO, has ads or otherwise wants to sell something. If that filters out everything but the personal homepage of Johnny S. Hotels of Las Vegas, then so be it.

Google maps is useful, no doubt. But surely they are monetizing it, not always by presenting what's best for you.

How do you know? The map has been super helpful and to me and if Google is also able to monetize is that not a win-win?

How would know if it was actually super unhelpful ? for example by reporting a business as closed when it actually is open ?

What about the business itself ? Would it survive if google told people it's closed when it's open ?

I'm asking because this is one of the high profile case that has been proeminently featured to showcase how the maps can have devastating effects.

https://www.wired.com/2014/07/hacking-google-maps/

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