They've hosed up the internet

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
The squabble over Reader View got me thinking about this, and also when I try to search for campgrounds in a specific area.

In the quest to commercialize the internet and transition from old media to digital, businesses are getting royally hosed, especially small businesses. It used to be a simple thing to build a website, make sure your meta tags were relevant, and spend a few bucks getting it linked from various places. BOOM. People can find you. Now the search engines cough up their paying advertisers pretty much exclusively. If you don't advertise on Google, your website will likely not be found unless the searcher knows to type in your specific business name and location.

I have to believe Google did this on purpose, just like Yelp promoted itself as a legitimate review site, got everyone using it, then changed it so that only their advertisers will retain good reviews and the bad ones will be sloughed. You'd think this would violate antitrust laws and consumer protection laws. It's clearly a bait and switch.

Then there's the "here's this awesome new thing for FREE!" ruse. So you start to use that free thing, get used to using it, have some of your life invested in it, then they say, oh by the way, if you want to continue using this thing you have to give us all your personal information, including your friends' contact information. At some point they'll start requiring a fingerprint or DNA sample "for security purposes".

One of the things I'm brainstorming is how to promote local small businesses and put their name/product/service in front of their target audience in this new internet environment. What I know is NOT a good idea (talking to you, WSJ and WashPo) is to make people pay for a subscription to your website so that they can see your advertisers. That only lasts for a brief time before consumers don't want to access your site and advertisers realize what's going on and bail. I'm not a large fan of internet commercials that come blaring out of nowhere when you go to a page, and I dislike overly intrusive ads in general - I have much of that blocked. Some of my former favorite sites are so bogged down with ads and affiliate clickbait that they take forever to load and sometimes shut down my browser, so I don't go there anymore. The internet has become like a higgler village - you can't take two steps without being accosted.

Nobody likes being bombarded with advertising when they're watching TV or reading something on the internet, but that's how the content gets paid for. The co-goal is to create awareness for the advertiser. And you certainly don't want to piss off your consumer while trying to accomplish those things or they'll go away and not come back, then you'll have to figure out another way to make money.

I know nobody gives a crap about this except me, but that's what I'm thinking about this morning.
 

Monello

Smarter than the average bear
PREMO Member
Photobucket use to allow you to display pictures on 3rd party sites. Now you have to pay for that feature. And all your previous displayed pictures now show a picture can't be displayed logo instead.
 

Yooper

Up. Identified. Lase. Fire. On the way.
...At some point they'll start requiring a fingerprint or DNA sample "for security purposes"...

...I know nobody gives a crap about this except me, but that's what I'm thinking about this morning.

With you on this. Behavior modification/conditioning. Then on to demands. That's the point behind (the novel, less evident in the movie) of "The Circle" (a chilling read).

I've moved to Duck Duck Go as my search engine. Less impressive results, but (supposedly) no tracking. We've also gone back to up-to-date, hard copy books/guides for our campground searches (as well as asking current campground about future campground suggestions). Tough to go through Google withdrawal but I feel I have to....

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GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
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iswydt



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vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
With you on this. Behavior modification/conditioning. Then on to demands.

See, and I hate that. It works and you make money, but I refuse to use that tactic in my own business. It's shady and bad karma. Upselling and value-added is one thing, but bait and switch is something else entirely and I try not to do things to my clients that would piss me off if some company did it to me.

You have to give it to Facebook - they have an enormous share of not only personal accounts but business accounts as well. Some companies don't even have a website, they just have a Facebook page. So far they haven't taken advantage of that and started demanding payment and blood samples.

So far.
 

stgislander

Well-Known Member
PREMO Member
With you on this. Behavior modification/conditioning. Then on to demands. That's the point behind (the novel, less evident in the movie) of "The Circle" (a chilling read).

I've moved to Duck Duck Go as my search engine. Less impressive results, but (supposedly) no tracking. We've also gone back to up-to-date, hard copy books/guides for our campground searches (as well as asking current campground about future campground suggestions). Tough to go through Google withdrawal but I feel I have to....

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:lol:
 

Clem72

Well-Known Member
The squabble over Reader View got me thinking about this, and also when I try to search for campgrounds in a specific area.

Were you having trouble finding camp sites? I went to maps.google.com and typed in camp sites near 20653 and got a giant list. Didn't see any missing that I am aware of.
 

Yooper

Up. Identified. Lase. Fire. On the way.
Were you having trouble finding camp sites? I went to maps.google.com and typed in camp sites near 20653 and got a giant list. Didn't see any missing that I am aware of.

We've found that Google does, in fact, NOT list (in search) or show (in Maps) numerous campgrounds we had found in our travels. Could be confirmation bias on my part but Google does seem to point you to (or show) the bigger ones (who also, probably, advertise). Don't like that on principle, but even more, we found out we were missing some of the best places. That's why I noted in my initial post we've started to rely more and more on local guides and word of mouth.

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vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
We've found that Google does, in fact, NOT list (in search) or show (in Maps) numerous campgrounds we had found in our travels.

This ^^

Another example:

Wherever I go I try to find a coffee roaster. So logic would tell you to search for "coffee roaster (location)", right? Google will give me all kinds of irrelevant crap that has nothing to do with coffee or the location, and then I'll later find a roastery through other means, check their website, and yep - tags are looking good so there's no reason why they shouldn't have come up in the search.
 

Starman

New Member
Google hasn't honored meta tags for at least 10 years and keyword meta tags for around 15 years or so, since it became apparent SEO "experts" could abuse them, often time to fraudulent ends. Further, they've been irrelevant for longer than that. This has nothing to do with google monetizing their search results; they've been doing that since day one.

You can still get the SEO juice you seek, it just takes a bit of work and a different approach.
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
You can still get the SEO juice you seek, it just takes a bit of work and a different approach.

Yeah, you have to pay Google more than your competitor pays them. Read the thread next time before you comment.

Being neither here nor there, because that does not help me as a consumer find what I'm looking for. Unless you are suggesting I take over every company in the United States' website and tweak it for performance, which I have no intention of doing.
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
That's something else that tweaks me:

Google will downgrade you in results if your site isn't optimized for mobile. So Ma and Pa, who just got a website up and running now have to figure out how to make it mobile-friendly as well. And of course every ####bag in the world is chasing them down trying to hustle them.

Building a website and getting it found used to be pretty easy. Now it's a nightmare.
 

Starman

New Member
That's something else that tweaks me:

Google will downgrade you in results if your site isn't optimized for mobile. So Ma and Pa, who just got a website up and running now have to figure out how to make it mobile-friendly as well. And of course every ####bag in the world is chasing them down trying to hustle them.

Building a website and getting it found used to be pretty easy. Now it's a nightmare.

Perhaps you'd enjoy living in the E.U.:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ce-eu-law-on-business-practices-idUSKCN1GQ315

(Reuters) - Online platforms such as Google (GOOGL.O), Apple (AAPL.O) and Amazon (AMZN.O) face new European Union rules on their commercial practices with smaller businesses that use their services, as Brussels seeks to curtail their huge market power.

The European Commission is drafting a new regulation specifically targeting online platforms such as e-commerce sites, app stores and search engines that will require the companies to be more transparent about how they rank search results and why they delist some services.

The proposal seeks to address potentially harmful trading practices by online platforms and a lack of effective redress mechanisms for smaller businesses that use them to reach consumers.
 
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