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Comment by endisneigh | Hacker News Reader

Did anyone replicate this? I couldn’t on desktop and mobile.

Seems like flame bait

Yes, I see this constantly when my adblocker is off. Search for anything related to "job search" et voila: https://i.imgur.com/dBXghPh.png

Here's "mattress," which has ads that extend beyond the fold: https://i.imgur.com/Z9dGSKR.png

Those two I just took. I mercifully cannot replicate this one anymore, but here's one for "indeed" I took in December, where LinkedIn had an ad that took up my entire laptop screen: https://i.imgur.com/x7g5Uo3.png

I can't replicate OP's specific one, but remember that ad buy is very dynamic. I do get the top two positions as competitors, one of which is seen in OP's link as well: https://i.imgur.com/hYjaWm4.png. I certainly do not think this post is fake.

I'm talking about the exact query in the OP. No one is shocked that Google has ads.

There is zero way to exactly replicate OPs query as Google heavily tailors results to each person, logged in or not.

And yes, people are shocked at the amount of ads google is pushing.

This is not true. Ads are preslotted - so you might not get the same ads, but you will get the same number of ads.

The title of this post is "For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads" - I hope it's shocking that that's true, irrespective of if we can replicate the exact ad placements in this post?

I wonder if they ever throw a bit of randomness in there like rand() % 100 * 0.01 * num_ads and he just got the peak value?

This is how search results for "car rentals new york" look like on my display, there are no organic results above the fold.

https://i.imgur.com/CFeWDY1.png

As for your question, there is no point in trying to replicate results for the same query, search results and the displayed ads can wildly differ for the same query based on a large number of factors.

I can't replicate at all, in fact I get zero results labeled as ads for the same search (on desktop, logged in, using FF). I have my search history paused, perhaps that could be affecting it?

Edit: I now see 3 ad results after disabling uBlock origin, but still far from the entire thing being ads. I didn't think it removed ads from the search results themselves (since I see 'sponsored ads' occasionally in my search and things). My bad.

I test it occassionally and regularly see 3 or 4 ads, but not as much as the OP. That is pretty crazy as a result. Normally though I have 2 or 3 layers of ad protection.

I saw this myself months ago with my father. He calls me up, and tells me that Google is only showing him ads, and he can't find any actual content. I figured it was some kind of malware he installed, but nope, I get over there and it's exactly like this screenshot. The entire first screen of results was ads. Then when I scrolled down, there weren't Google ads, but just a bunch of SEO spam. Wasn't gonna waste my time figuring it out, so I put him on DDG, and his problems were solved.

lol, OK what was the query? let's see the DDG and Google results side by side.

I swear people always say nonsense like this and when I ask for specific queries they stop replying. Check my history if you doubt it.

I don't doubt you saw ads, but Google very strictly limits the percentage of the screen that can be ads or percentage of results. If you can find a single query in which every result on the first page is a sponsored ad I'll send you $5 via Venmo right now, no questions asked.

people just like saying 'omg all my screen is ads' and then they crop their screen showing like 20% of the screen on a 1080p monitor. >_>

I'm on a 13" Macbook Pro, here's what a Chrome search for "Salesforce Integration" with my adblocker turned off looks like:

https://i.imgur.com/AkQWJeF.png

100% ads.

DDG for the same search is better, but not by much:

https://i.imgur.com/pcpxr4l.png

what's after the fold? Why do you crop it so it only shows ads? so ridiculous. Google will almost never show more than 5 sponsored ads or some combination of 2-3 ads and sponsored modal. same is true with Bing, DDG, Startpage, etc.

this scenario of all of the results being ads is nonexistent. again if anyone can show me a reproducible query in which all results are ads, $5 - easy.

omg DDG 100% ads !111

https://imgur.com/a/A1bxnVQ

I'm on a 15" macbook pro and also only see ads below the fold. Is it difficult to imagine that most users around the planet aren't working with 27" monitors or whatever size it is you have?

Yes, I just posted an image on a 13" laptop on DDG showing the entire page being ads.

I suspect you misunderstood what folks are up in arms about. No one is claiming that Google is serving an entire page worth of ads. They're angered that the entire above the fold section, typically on a laptop, is entirely ads.

It is nice how passionate you are, though.

Also, appropriately, your screenshot of DDG does not showcase all ads.

I didn't crop it.. that's the point.. on the native resolution of my computer, doing a search for that specific term shows 100% ads after clicking "search".. Obviously you can scroll past them, maybe that's why you're confused?

Nobody's saying the search results are only ads, they're saying that the only results that are shown to consumers without some action on their part are ads...

> Nobody's saying the search results are only ads, they're saying that the only results that are shown to consumers without some action on their part are ads...

The title of this post and point of the twitter thread is:

"For some searches literally the whole screen!! on google is now ads."

Again.. "the whole screen" which implies everything you can see... Not everything that exists.

I agree. Should I make another post stating how DDG only shows ads on the entire screen as well?

It seems that all of the search engines just suck huh.

>The title of this post and point of the twitter thread is:

>"For some searches literally the whole screen!! on google is now ads."

And that's what you see in the screenshots. What's the problem?

You don't know what a screen is? It's the glass thingy above or beside your desktop computer, or on the inside of the lid of your laptop computer.

Sheesh.

I think when people are saying "the whole screen is ads", they mean the _visible_ screen. The person took a screenshot of the first visible screen and it's all ads. You can even see in the tweet that the tippy top of the next result is a non-ad, but all visible results were ads. Even one of the parent comments says "...Then when I scrolled down, there weren't Google ads, but just a bunch of SEO spam", implying that there were non-ads if you scrolled.

So I think there's just a communication breakdown here.

You didn't even read my comment you replied to. Did you not see where I said that I scrolled down past the ads to look at all the totally legit SEO spam?

> Did you not see where I said that I scrolled down past the ads to look at all the totally legit SEO spam?

meaningless because that's an subjective thing.

Maybe people don't reply because they don't care about proving it to you, or they don't care about replying to some snarky-ass comment. I saw what I saw, and don't care if you don't believe it.

Yes. I have seen it a lot. More and more as the days go on. Google search results are no better than any of the other search engines and even worse for people not in tech they do not even know they are ads.

Just dark patterns. Sad it used to be a good search engine.

Yes, with the same query : https://i.imgur.com/ydofyHn.png

There are many factors that could change your results. Since I disabled web & app activity I have seen a lot more ads.

Do you think he created that web-page by modifying HTML?

It’s literally a cropped image that no one has said they can reproduce

So what if it is cropped, is the amount of ads shown in the screenshot with no actual search results acceptable to you? Does the fact OP has a smaller or larger resolution than you change your mind?

Literally the fifth result is what they were looking for. they crop that out and complain on twitter.

so yes, it's acceptable. use ad-block if it's not to you.

So we disagree. Showing me 4 ads before seeing something that is also a thinly veiled ad is not acceptable.

Running other software to make search usable is also not acceptable.

Combined with your misinformation spread in other threads of this topic, your actions appear to be shilling.

by what definition is it not acceptable exactly?

Don’t use Google, or any search engine for that matter, I’d you don’t like ads. Try out Kagi or Neeva.

What “Definition” do you expect? My completely subjective one, duh.

Search "retool slack integration" on google.com with no quotes

https://imgur.com/a/uCK2Ec8

I only see just one ad.

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