Ask HN: Why does Google shopping showcase scams? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why does Google shopping showcase scams?

11 pointscloudking8 comments

Search Google shopping for 4090 RTX graphics cards and you'll get suggestions like https://pricklycomb.com/product/palit-geforce-rtx-4090-gamerock-24gb/

The card is way below price of retail on this site. Quickly searching for background about this site shows multiple reports that it's a scam https://www.google.com/search?q=is+pricklycomb.com+legit&oq=is+pricklycomb.com+legit

I've noticed this a lot with other searches for high end equipment. So why does Google shopping index and showcase scams sites?

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Google is full of these problems. They refuse to properly review content in favor of automation. As such, Google is a low reputation site. Don't use it if you're not willing or able to wade through spam and malware. Lots of alternatives exist for each of Googles products.

What are some good alternatives to Google Shopping? I'm looking for a meta search that will find the best deals across the web, but from legit sites only.

I mostly avoid online shopping, so I'm unsure there, but others may have suggestions.

Prisjakt.no in Norway.

Why not?

That's the question you should ask. Why not? About 50% of ads on Instagram and Facebook are pure scams, ie you'll pay for a product and they'll just take your money and you never hear from them again. Why not scam as many people as possible, even if you're a huge company like Google or Meta? It's not like people are going to switch to more honest services, they don't care even if they're the victim.

They're probably assuming, or at least their advertisers are assuming, that anyone who would trust Google for anything at this point is a potential mark.

Google also sells advertising spots to vendors of PUPs who will make the ad look like a fake download button. With their scale, it's impossible to manually sift through and fine tune the results.

either the algo or user reports will slap them if it is truly a scam. it is easy to setup an adwords account and scamming people, a bit harder to keep it running for a long time.

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