The mysterious case of missing URLs and Google's AMP(sonniesedge.co.uk)
sonniesedge.co.uk
The mysterious case of missing URLs and Google's AMP
https://sonniesedge.co.uk/posts/amp-urls/
118 comments
Ahahahahah!
A monopoly, or cartel, is a business that keeps competitors from entering the fray.
Please go on the street corner with your WLAN and portable server to offer search/CDN and whatever, and you'll quickly attract government thugs who will shut you down for lack of permission from the monopoly bureau (Govt regulation). So Yes it is a big, fat, and really fucking juicy monopoly. That's what govts and big corps all are, a big bunch of fascists handing each other 'licences' stipulating their exclusive self-granted right to do x or z.
A monopoly, or cartel, is a business that keeps competitors from entering the fray.
Please go on the street corner with your WLAN and portable server to offer search/CDN and whatever, and you'll quickly attract government thugs who will shut you down for lack of permission from the monopoly bureau (Govt regulation). So Yes it is a big, fat, and really fucking juicy monopoly. That's what govts and big corps all are, a big bunch of fascists handing each other 'licences' stipulating their exclusive self-granted right to do x or z.
Google to me seems like a case of natural monopoly[1]. Competition in this market is stifled by the amount of investment and infrastructure needed to make a good search engine.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly
"Monopoly" now seems to mean "preferred by most people."
From the standpoint of the consumer they may not have a monopoly, but from the standpoint of the website they do.
The website makes effort to please Google because Google is the user's freely chosen search agent. If the users en masse chose Bing or Oath/Yahoo or DDG instead (or in addition), the website would make effort to please them instead.
Nothing you’ve said contradicts the argument that they have a monopoly over websites. The fact is, is that people once chose their search engine and today they no longer make that choice even if they have the ability to exercise it.
From the perspective of a website developer, Google has a monopoly.
It’s interesting how all these points would be super simple to validate a decade ago.
> They have no exclusive rights to "search". Bing, DDG, Yahoo, and more all compete in the same space.
They sponsor firefox and safari, so have exclusive rights on the default settings though.
Bing can’t be the default search engine on anything with more than 10% user share.
> They are not prevent me from using another search engine
Android system search is locked at the maker level if they include Google Play, and isn’t bootloader locking becoming the norm, worsening the locking ?
> They have no exclusive rights to "search". Bing, DDG, Yahoo, and more all compete in the same space.
They sponsor firefox and safari, so have exclusive rights on the default settings though.
Bing can’t be the default search engine on anything with more than 10% user share.
> They are not prevent me from using another search engine
Android system search is locked at the maker level if they include Google Play, and isn’t bootloader locking becoming the norm, worsening the locking ?
> They sponsor firefox and safari, so have exclusive rights on the default settings though.
"They pay to be the default so no one else can" is kind of a silly argument. If Yahoo had paid more and/or hadn't had terrible results, it probably still would be the default.
"They pay to be the default so no one else can" is kind of a silly argument. If Yahoo had paid more and/or hadn't had terrible results, it probably still would be the default.
And they have the money to pay for placement because they make more money from search because everyone uses Google already... hmm.
If everyone likes Google best, why do they bother paying anything for the default settings? Or are they simply protecting their dominant position by using their dominant position?
If everyone likes Google best, why do they bother paying anything for the default settings? Or are they simply protecting their dominant position by using their dominant position?
Nobody made anyone use the telephone network either. There were alternative, less preferred methods of long distance communication. But once an incumbent builds in self-reinforcing network effects--be they telephone lines or a rich network of data--they are able to leverage it to immense strength, left unchecked.
That'd be like saying Search isn't a monopoly because a library lets people find information too. No one is making anything even close to that argument, so your post is just a strawman.
Search isn't a monopoly because there are other companies that do nearly the same thing, that customers can switch to them at nearly 0 cost.
Search isn't a monopoly because there are other companies that do nearly the same thing, that customers can switch to them at nearly 0 cost.
I think where we disagree is "do nearly the same thing". If Google search results are qualitatively better than those of their competitors, to the point it's a different product, it's a monopoly. You are free to disagree on that, but that doesn't make my argument a straw man.
A monopoly doesn't mean users don't have choice! Like the car manufacturing example, there are economies of scale that let Google build up external barriers and dictate anti-competitive behavior because of the dominance in the market. It isn't about user choice, it's more about website owner choice.
To play off the merged car company metaphor, imagine if 80% of all cars were Ford. And Ford comes out with an electric car that is really efficient (AMP), but it really only gets that added boost if every gas station in America install a special Ford Pump that charges cars in 2 seconds. And the gas station doesn't get any money from the pumps, but since 90% of cars are Ford they better install those pumps if they want to sell chips and soda in their little store. Otherwise, everyone will just use the gas station across the street.
But hey, no one is making them install those Ford Pumps! And it's great for Ford owners... until all the gas stations start to close.
AMP is bad enough, but having it influence pagerank means Google is leading websites to accept AMP or immediately lose Google traffic. And because Google is dominant in providing traffic to sites, there is very little choice here for site owners and no benefit.
To play off the merged car company metaphor, imagine if 80% of all cars were Ford. And Ford comes out with an electric car that is really efficient (AMP), but it really only gets that added boost if every gas station in America install a special Ford Pump that charges cars in 2 seconds. And the gas station doesn't get any money from the pumps, but since 90% of cars are Ford they better install those pumps if they want to sell chips and soda in their little store. Otherwise, everyone will just use the gas station across the street.
But hey, no one is making them install those Ford Pumps! And it's great for Ford owners... until all the gas stations start to close.
AMP is bad enough, but having it influence pagerank means Google is leading websites to accept AMP or immediately lose Google traffic. And because Google is dominant in providing traffic to sites, there is very little choice here for site owners and no benefit.
Hence the geographic control comment. There's a reason utilities are often considered natural monopolies.
a monopoly is not defined by the things you list. it is instead defined by the ability to exert disproportionate power on a market, enough to create favorable conditions for itself (i.e., it's anti-free market).
it's usually characterized by a large, but not necessarily majority, market share in a given industry or segment (monopolies can have as little as 30% market share), and pricing power, both of which google has in search.
it's usually characterized by a large, but not necessarily majority, market share in a given industry or segment (monopolies can have as little as 30% market share), and pricing power, both of which google has in search.
What is the search pricing power?
the ability to order search results and to choose when and where to display ads provides pricing power for google's many forms of advertising.
and google is relatively immune to the reactions of it's competitors, like bing, in how it prices its ads.
and google is relatively immune to the reactions of it's competitors, like bing, in how it prices its ads.
But this is true of all websites. Are you suggesting that AdWords (not AdSense) holds a plurality market share of the online ad industry? Or that search result ads should be evaluated as their own industry? The first is I believe just not true, and the second seems like an issue of p-hacking your way to a monopoly.
AFAIK all these - Bing, DDG, Yahoo, and more all compete in the same space. - are simply a single search engine (Bing) with some additions over the top. I suspect that there are about 4 true search engines remaining in the world, two of which are strictly regional (Baidu and Yandex) and Bing is only remaining afloat due to sheer willpower of MS which may end abruptly, as with some other products. I consider this state (with all other factors) as effectively a monopoly.
Just look at this graph from June 2018:
https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/graph/png/Web_sear...
https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/graph/png/Web_sear...
None of those things necessarily constitute a monopoly - but when barriers to entry are too high to facilitate other entrants, when they have first dibs on all of the talent, deep lobbying power etc. then it can become monopolistic.
A good example is their commoditization of adjacent economies: they give Android away for free to make sure that there are few competitors who can make a dime there. Apple, the biggest company on the planet, being the only one who can hold a toe in that market.
Similarly as the default search engine on Chrome - Google definitely wants to make sure browsers are 'free' 'open source' etc so they can fuel the dominant entity and make sure the surpluses are captured in search, not elsewhere.
Microsoft would use their monopoly power in one area (OS) and leverage that into monopoly in other areas, i.e. office software.
If GM, Ford and Daimler Chrysler were to merge, they would be a monopoly even though the merged entity wouldn't meet any of the criteria you've highlighted.
Google can't necessarily be described in network effects either, but generally the very fact of their market penetration almost proves that there are systematic barriers.
They make gazillions of dollars - so why aren't there gazillions of competitors and tons of choice? Because of those barriers.
And they will keep extending themselves as they see fit to use billions of dollars to either dominate - or remove all surpluses form adjacent industries, thereby leaving the surpluses in their core offer, like search.
If you take a minute to consider why in 'free trade' deals, nations that participate are forbidden from government intervention in local companies. It's not really 'free trade' if for example the government can use tax base from the broader economy to support a strategic players and enable them to 'dump' their product on the market at what would otherwise be below market value. In that context, Google could be described as 'dumping' Android and Chrome on the market in some sense.
It's definitely grey but I think it's reasonable to consider Google as a monopoly.
A good example is their commoditization of adjacent economies: they give Android away for free to make sure that there are few competitors who can make a dime there. Apple, the biggest company on the planet, being the only one who can hold a toe in that market.
Similarly as the default search engine on Chrome - Google definitely wants to make sure browsers are 'free' 'open source' etc so they can fuel the dominant entity and make sure the surpluses are captured in search, not elsewhere.
Microsoft would use their monopoly power in one area (OS) and leverage that into monopoly in other areas, i.e. office software.
If GM, Ford and Daimler Chrysler were to merge, they would be a monopoly even though the merged entity wouldn't meet any of the criteria you've highlighted.
Google can't necessarily be described in network effects either, but generally the very fact of their market penetration almost proves that there are systematic barriers.
They make gazillions of dollars - so why aren't there gazillions of competitors and tons of choice? Because of those barriers.
And they will keep extending themselves as they see fit to use billions of dollars to either dominate - or remove all surpluses form adjacent industries, thereby leaving the surpluses in their core offer, like search.
If you take a minute to consider why in 'free trade' deals, nations that participate are forbidden from government intervention in local companies. It's not really 'free trade' if for example the government can use tax base from the broader economy to support a strategic players and enable them to 'dump' their product on the market at what would otherwise be below market value. In that context, Google could be described as 'dumping' Android and Chrome on the market in some sense.
It's definitely grey but I think it's reasonable to consider Google as a monopoly.
Are there actually barriers to search? I feel like I could start writing a web crawler and index the results with little/no real problem, other than how much worse I would be at it than Google is.
Does being really good at something actually constitute a barrier for others? Practically, it definitely does, but wouldn't any check on that provide some pretty perverse incentives?
Also, I don't think GM, Ford and Daimler Chrysler would merge to become a monopoly. Volkswagen, Honda, BMW all would still provide stiff competition.
The thing we care about w/r/t monopolies is the stifling of innovation. Do you think innovation is being stifled, in any of the areas Google has products in? I largely do not.
Does being really good at something actually constitute a barrier for others? Practically, it definitely does, but wouldn't any check on that provide some pretty perverse incentives?
Also, I don't think GM, Ford and Daimler Chrysler would merge to become a monopoly. Volkswagen, Honda, BMW all would still provide stiff competition.
The thing we care about w/r/t monopolies is the stifling of innovation. Do you think innovation is being stifled, in any of the areas Google has products in? I largely do not.
Crawling the web is very resource intensive. You'll need thousands of machines, and probably a pretty sizable IPv4 allocation to go with that. You'll find that people allow GoogleBot and maybe a few other crawlers, but don't allow you -- because crawling causes too much load on their site.
Once you have a snapshot of the web, you have two problems. The first is that your snapshot is out of date; you're going to have to continuously update it. The second is you have to figure out how to turn that enormous data into something useful. That's probably going to take thousands more servers, plus or minus lots of development to figure out what's useful.
And then, if you do manage to decent results, you have two more problems. speed -- to compete with Google, you need to be fast, and to be fast, you need to be close to users, which means you need datacenters spread throughout your market area. Even if your results are objectively and subjectively better if blind compared, people are going to prefer the google results because they have google branding.
It's not an insurmountable barrier, but it's pretty big.
Once you have a snapshot of the web, you have two problems. The first is that your snapshot is out of date; you're going to have to continuously update it. The second is you have to figure out how to turn that enormous data into something useful. That's probably going to take thousands more servers, plus or minus lots of development to figure out what's useful.
And then, if you do manage to decent results, you have two more problems. speed -- to compete with Google, you need to be fast, and to be fast, you need to be close to users, which means you need datacenters spread throughout your market area. Even if your results are objectively and subjectively better if blind compared, people are going to prefer the google results because they have google branding.
It's not an insurmountable barrier, but it's pretty big.
None of this sounds like "barriers" in the sense that I need to do any of this to release a search engine. My engine may be utterly terrible, but the barriers aren't to entry, they're to competence.
That seems fine to me. You have to be better than the competition to enter the market, or have some kind of innovation that obsoletes their business method. Makes sense!
That seems fine to me. You have to be better than the competition to enter the market, or have some kind of innovation that obsoletes their business method. Makes sense!
I don’t think anti-monopoly laws were intended to prevent the physical enslavement of customers who are begging to stop using a certain project but are forced to continue.
It’s common sense. Sometimes profit-seeking companies amass an amount of power within the market that allows them to do things that are bad for their customers, bad for the market, or bad for society. Because we don’t have modern regulations in this country (sadly, Elizabeth Warren’s efforts in this direction will be thwarted by the corrupt legislators her laws would target), the cult of “delivering value to shareholders” often distorts the behavior of companies in this direction.
I’m not sure about Google, but it’s a totally reasonable to be asking these questions. Whatever term you want to use, Google could have a big enough influence on the market to create outcomes (like AMP!) that are conspicuously shitty for people who use the Internet overall. That’s really important and we should stop them if that’s happening.
It’s common sense. Sometimes profit-seeking companies amass an amount of power within the market that allows them to do things that are bad for their customers, bad for the market, or bad for society. Because we don’t have modern regulations in this country (sadly, Elizabeth Warren’s efforts in this direction will be thwarted by the corrupt legislators her laws would target), the cult of “delivering value to shareholders” often distorts the behavior of companies in this direction.
I’m not sure about Google, but it’s a totally reasonable to be asking these questions. Whatever term you want to use, Google could have a big enough influence on the market to create outcomes (like AMP!) that are conspicuously shitty for people who use the Internet overall. That’s really important and we should stop them if that’s happening.
This needs to be repeated because it helps to understand the issue.
There are only four (4) search indexes of sufficient size in English, these are Bing, Google, Baidu (Chinese), and Yandex (Russian).
Everything on the internet that calls itself a "search engine" gets its search result data from one of those four indexes. Different front ends provide different features around the results, whether it is privacy enhancement, ad enhancement, Etc.
Google's English language index is generally considered the 'best' based on the depth of the index with respect to its crawl size and that index's ability to provide both good precision and recall.
You can use any search site you want but you will likely be using Google search results. If you feel like you're results aren't quite as good as Google's, and you are in the US, you are probably using Bing. Neither Baidu nor Yandex have US data centers so latency to their indexes is pretty bad for most front end web sites.
There are only four (4) search indexes of sufficient size in English, these are Bing, Google, Baidu (Chinese), and Yandex (Russian).
Everything on the internet that calls itself a "search engine" gets its search result data from one of those four indexes. Different front ends provide different features around the results, whether it is privacy enhancement, ad enhancement, Etc.
Google's English language index is generally considered the 'best' based on the depth of the index with respect to its crawl size and that index's ability to provide both good precision and recall.
You can use any search site you want but you will likely be using Google search results. If you feel like you're results aren't quite as good as Google's, and you are in the US, you are probably using Bing. Neither Baidu nor Yandex have US data centers so latency to their indexes is pretty bad for most front end web sites.
This is incorrect, not everything on the internet that calls itself a search engine get their results from one of those four. There's also Exalead, Gigablast, Mojeek and Findx for example.
Disclaimer: I work for Mojeek so know that it only gets results from it's own index.
Disclaimer: I work for Mojeek so know that it only gets results from it's own index.
That is awesome love that you've crossed a billion pages in the index. I worked at Blekko (VP Eng/Ops) and at its peak it had about 5 billion pages indexed, and that is pretty good for targeted search. It loses on the long tail though for generalized search.
Something we did at Blekko which was really interesting/helpful was to feed a search query to our index, Bing's, and Google's and then compare the results. That was a great way to compare notes on ranking strategies between the three engineering teams.
[1] "In 2015, Mojeek's index surpassed the billion pages, the only search engine in the UK to accomplish this and one of just a handful worldwide to maintain an index of this size (English language). Although, passing this milestone is only the first step and Mojeek is continuing to increase its index size and improve relevancy." -- https://www.mojeek.com/about/technology.html
Something we did at Blekko which was really interesting/helpful was to feed a search query to our index, Bing's, and Google's and then compare the results. That was a great way to compare notes on ranking strategies between the three engineering teams.
[1] "In 2015, Mojeek's index surpassed the billion pages, the only search engine in the UK to accomplish this and one of just a handful worldwide to maintain an index of this size (English language). Although, passing this milestone is only the first step and Mojeek is continuing to increase its index size and improve relevancy." -- https://www.mojeek.com/about/technology.html
Thanks for the info. Marc (who created Mojeek) mentions Blekko a lot as he considers yourselves to be the last ones so far to have a proper go at creating a search engine from scratch. Also, we're now up to 2.2 billion pages and it's only a lack of servers that stops us from increasing at a much faster pace.
For what its worth, this is the ultimate calculus for a search engine; The revenue you can produce is proportional to your query rate, your query rate is proportional to your recurring user base, and your recurring user base is proportional to the usefulness of your searches, which is proportional to the number of pages in your index which is proportional to the number of servers you have running which is proportional to the cost of running the service.
One of the things I would have done differently at Blekko is that I would have created our own in house ad serving system (network) way earlier in the life cycle (Blekko never did have an in house ad network). It gives you better control over advertising latency and the quality factor of the ads. You also get to keep all of the ad revenue rather than just some of it. And you can deal directly with advertisers rather than the ad-tech crowd which can be quite scummy at times.
I wish you the best of luck in your endeavor, if you can crack the secret of surviving in a market where Google pays people over $4B/year just to send their search traffic to them, then you will be one of my heroes.
One of the things I would have done differently at Blekko is that I would have created our own in house ad serving system (network) way earlier in the life cycle (Blekko never did have an in house ad network). It gives you better control over advertising latency and the quality factor of the ads. You also get to keep all of the ad revenue rather than just some of it. And you can deal directly with advertisers rather than the ad-tech crowd which can be quite scummy at times.
I wish you the best of luck in your endeavor, if you can crack the secret of surviving in a market where Google pays people over $4B/year just to send their search traffic to them, then you will be one of my heroes.
DuckDuckGo have their own crawlers right?
They used to, but now they don’t.
Do you have a source link where I could read up on this? It would seem that DuckDuckBot is still alive and well.
https://duck.co/help/results/
> We source from Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex.
> We source from Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex.
(which is kind of funny because Yahoo forwards (forwarded?) all their search traffic to Bing per their agreement with Microsoft when Microsoft didn't buy them. Not sure what Verizon does with that now.
From https://duck.co/help/results/sources:
> DuckDuckGo gets its results from over four hundred sources. These include hundreds of vertical sources delivering niche Instant Answers, DuckDuckBot (our crawler) and crowd-sourced sites (like Wikipedia, stored in our answer indexes). We also of course have more traditional links in the search results, which we source from Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex.
Interesting that DuckDuckBot is now relegated to Instant Answers.
> DuckDuckGo gets its results from over four hundred sources. These include hundreds of vertical sources delivering niche Instant Answers, DuckDuckBot (our crawler) and crowd-sourced sites (like Wikipedia, stored in our answer indexes). We also of course have more traditional links in the search results, which we source from Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex.
Interesting that DuckDuckBot is now relegated to Instant Answers.
It's a de facto monopoly.
Each of those points could have been made about Windows at the time (considering Mac), yet the European antitrust commission decided it was a monopoly and fined them. Quite seriously, if memory serves.
Where do those rules come from? Are they part of the official definition for monopoly? Why did the EC not deem them relevant (enough) when ruling against Microsoft? Why would they not do the same with Google (if ever relevant)?
Is there official reading on this?
Where do those rules come from? Are they part of the official definition for monopoly? Why did the EC not deem them relevant (enough) when ruling against Microsoft? Why would they not do the same with Google (if ever relevant)?
Is there official reading on this?
The first theory that some designers think URL's are bad for users seems more plausible. Most people don't think of themselves as the villains in a movie. What kind of conversations do you think Googlers have?
We've seen this before with Gmail hiding email addresses. You can still show them with one click. These redesigns are annoying but world didn't come to an end.
We've seen this before with Gmail hiding email addresses. You can still show them with one click. These redesigns are annoying but world didn't come to an end.
Hiding email addresses is really annoying, and a security hole because email users can lie about their name.
Look at the problem with the telephone system where scammers can spoof caller ID.
Look at the problem with the telephone system where scammers can spoof caller ID.
People can already spoof email addresses pretty easily though.
Yes, it's very plausable, but I wonder why I haven't heard about more email scams being attributed to Gmail's UI?
> The hiding of URLs fits perfectly with AMPs preferred method of making sites fast, which is to host them directly on Google’s servers, and to serve them from a Google domain. Hiding the URL from the user then makes a Google AMP site indistinguishable from an ordinary site.
Hiding URLs isn't necessary for sites hosted on the AMP cache to look just like other sites; Web Packaging will allow this while preserving the URL: https://www.ampproject.org/latest/blog/a-first-look-at-using...
(Disclaimer: I work at Google)
Hiding URLs isn't necessary for sites hosted on the AMP cache to look just like other sites; Web Packaging will allow this while preserving the URL: https://www.ampproject.org/latest/blog/a-first-look-at-using...
(Disclaimer: I work at Google)
> If this sounds all conspiracy theory, then good for you - you’ve just earned the Junior Meta Sceptic Badge.
At least the author seems to be aware that the article isn't anything more than a conspiracy theory. What is not clear, is why they then published it.
There are plenty of things to complain about with AMP. But, it also does address some very real problems - slow, inneficient, hard ti use web pages. What I'd love to hear about is a different approach to address these issues - and not something handwavy about how it could be done in a weekend. Actual code.
At least the author seems to be aware that the article isn't anything more than a conspiracy theory. What is not clear, is why they then published it.
There are plenty of things to complain about with AMP. But, it also does address some very real problems - slow, inneficient, hard ti use web pages. What I'd love to hear about is a different approach to address these issues - and not something handwavy about how it could be done in a weekend. Actual code.
You don’t need a different approach. It’s absolutely possible to build fast websites today without AMP - it’s just a collection of good practices and strict limits.
In fact, you can even use AMP itself without any of the Google garden parts.
In fact, you can even use AMP itself without any of the Google garden parts.
So, your alternative is to do nothing. That's a valid alternative.
My experience, however, is that the web is clogged up with slow, painful to use web pages. Despite AMP's short comings, I do know that when I click on an AMP page, it's going to load quickly and behave consistently. IMO, those are pretty big benefits it would be good to bring to a larger portion of the web, regardless of it's via AMP or some other mechanism.
My experience, however, is that the web is clogged up with slow, painful to use web pages. Despite AMP's short comings, I do know that when I click on an AMP page, it's going to load quickly and behave consistently. IMO, those are pretty big benefits it would be good to bring to a larger portion of the web, regardless of it's via AMP or some other mechanism.
Google has already made speed a stronger part of their ranking system, and they could do more; when it comes to performance, they can prioritize fast and bloat-free websites regardless of AMP - I see it being more about controlling the platform, and the advertising revenue that comes with it than an improvement in tech.
Yet we observed a decade of increasing bloat with no sign of it changing. Ultimately, content producers want scripts for analytics. They have an incentive to stick more crap on the page. They have very little incentive to reduce bloat.
Therefore the status quo will not lead to lean sites.
Therefore the status quo will not lead to lean sites.
> it’s just a collection of good practices and strict limits.
No, it's a subset of HTML that a third party can validate is safe to prerender.
No, it's a subset of HTML that a third party can validate is safe to prerender.
Google Search prioritize good content, they decided that AMP was better content (for good reason, it's faster), thus prioritize AMP.
Sure they could prioritize website well built, they probably already do and will do it better and better, but they also prioritize AMP.
Sure they could prioritize website well built, they probably already do and will do it better and better, but they also prioritize AMP.
At first glance, AMP will make life easier for Google's search robots, but the standard would also seem to benefit a competitor like Duck, Duck, Go by standardizing code organization, making it easier to find the true 'intention' of a website's pages. Is AMP contrived to benefit Google? For sure, but not sure it's a terrible idea.
They're paralleling the days of AOL in a lot of ways.
Doesn't bother me. IPFS makes AMP obsolete.
If you joined Google to make the world a better place, it's time to look for greener pastures.
Why, exactly?
The worst case is that Google is transforming itself from a web search engine to an app store, with AMP "sites" being the apps, and google.com search results being a directory of apps you can "buy" (i.e. read and pay with your attention, instead of cash).
This is certainly not a good direction for "the web", but it's not an illogical path to go down. People seem fine with publishing apps and being beholden to someone's walled garden. Apple does this quite well; people seem to prefer apps to opening a browser and visiting some URL. (As an example of how crazy things have gotten... I wanted to post to Instagram from my computer once, but there is actually no way to do it. You have to transfer your photo to your phone, obtain their app through a walled-garden app store, and THEN upload the photo via the app. What?)
I'll also point out that Google is not really the arbiter of what is and is not the web. Yeah, it's a pretty good search engine. It's the one I open by default. But they have less and less leverage over you every day. In Windows 10, I have a search bar in my taskbar. It does not use Google. I cannot change it to Google. If my interface to the web is a Windows machine, I have to go out of my way to use Google. (I just disabled Cortana completely because I don't use it... but I will still hit the Windows key, type something like "cmd" with the intent to run cmd.exe, typo it, and end up on a Bing page with random search results. Man Google is so evil for doing that to me... wait...)
Whether or not making news articles with ads proprietary (AMP) is good for the world really depends on who you are. If you are writing articles that are funded with ad views, and your readers decide "this loads too slowly, so I've lost interest" or "I know how I can make it faster, install an ad-blocker!", then AMP is great for you. If you are the average HN reader and think "my websites are never slow and ads are evil", then you will think the opposite. Depending on how you look at it, you can easily see working on AMP as changing the world by making independent journalism profitable and easy to read. Or you can see it as throwing away the open web, which is the paragon of all that is right in the world.
Anyway, what I'm saying is that it's not black & white. It's a change, for sure. Some changes are good. Some changes are bad. What you think should dictate whether or not you choose to work on it, because there is no path towards the world being great that everyone agrees on. If there was, we'd all be working on that. Instead, there is disagreement and people have chosen sides. You are on one side, but not everyone agrees with you; hence, there is another side.
The worst case is that Google is transforming itself from a web search engine to an app store, with AMP "sites" being the apps, and google.com search results being a directory of apps you can "buy" (i.e. read and pay with your attention, instead of cash).
This is certainly not a good direction for "the web", but it's not an illogical path to go down. People seem fine with publishing apps and being beholden to someone's walled garden. Apple does this quite well; people seem to prefer apps to opening a browser and visiting some URL. (As an example of how crazy things have gotten... I wanted to post to Instagram from my computer once, but there is actually no way to do it. You have to transfer your photo to your phone, obtain their app through a walled-garden app store, and THEN upload the photo via the app. What?)
I'll also point out that Google is not really the arbiter of what is and is not the web. Yeah, it's a pretty good search engine. It's the one I open by default. But they have less and less leverage over you every day. In Windows 10, I have a search bar in my taskbar. It does not use Google. I cannot change it to Google. If my interface to the web is a Windows machine, I have to go out of my way to use Google. (I just disabled Cortana completely because I don't use it... but I will still hit the Windows key, type something like "cmd" with the intent to run cmd.exe, typo it, and end up on a Bing page with random search results. Man Google is so evil for doing that to me... wait...)
Whether or not making news articles with ads proprietary (AMP) is good for the world really depends on who you are. If you are writing articles that are funded with ad views, and your readers decide "this loads too slowly, so I've lost interest" or "I know how I can make it faster, install an ad-blocker!", then AMP is great for you. If you are the average HN reader and think "my websites are never slow and ads are evil", then you will think the opposite. Depending on how you look at it, you can easily see working on AMP as changing the world by making independent journalism profitable and easy to read. Or you can see it as throwing away the open web, which is the paragon of all that is right in the world.
Anyway, what I'm saying is that it's not black & white. It's a change, for sure. Some changes are good. Some changes are bad. What you think should dictate whether or not you choose to work on it, because there is no path towards the world being great that everyone agrees on. If there was, we'd all be working on that. Instead, there is disagreement and people have chosen sides. You are on one side, but not everyone agrees with you; hence, there is another side.
Side Note: Instagram allows you to post from your computer if you use turn on the mobile emulation from your browser devtools :)
Do you believe that URLs are the optimal way of identifying web content? The web is wildly different from the early days where it was a series of documents arrange in a hierarchical manner. If we were designing the web today from scratch, URLs would likely not be the solution.
What is wrong with considering that there may be something better?
What is wrong with considering that there may be something better?
Small, fast, user-friendly web pages sound like a better place to me.
Sure, please point to some that pay equally well and offer equally interesting coworkers and tasks.
meesterdude(2)
Those sound more like things that would be important to someone who joined Google because it paid well and offered "interesting" coworkers and tasks, not someone who (naively) joined Google to "make the world a better place".
If you really do not care about being well paid and want to change the world, Red Cross is hiring.
They are.
However there is a sliding scale here, and a lot of people will willingly take somewhat lower pay in order to work for places they consider reasonably ethical and transformative.
Pay is not everything, but neither is it nothing.
(My partner works for the Red Cross in the UK, they are a great organisation)
However there is a sliding scale here, and a lot of people will willingly take somewhat lower pay in order to work for places they consider reasonably ethical and transformative.
Pay is not everything, but neither is it nothing.
(My partner works for the Red Cross in the UK, they are a great organisation)
So is Hyperbole R Us.
He's talking altruism, you are talking about personal gain. From the start these are distinct categories.
Sure, sometimes they overlap, but Google is past that point lately.
Sure, sometimes they overlap, but Google is past that point lately.
_dmurph(4)
This article, and the one it references about AMP, all throw the word 'force' around a lot. No one is 'forcing' you to do anything with your website, wanting to be top of Google SERP is optional.
So the pro-Google argument I'm hearing is something like: "Google is making a better experience for users and no one is forcing you to use Google."
If you think Google is in the right here you have to say Microsoft was totally right to push IE and make it the default on Windows machines and make certain pages only load in IE and all the rest. After all, you could simply go install Firefox or not view pages on Microsoft.com.
The problem is that Google is using it's market advantage to do things that takes control from websites and affects their economics directly. Google using it's influence to dictate best practices is nothing new (and has always been worrisome), but AMP directly affects websites owner's control of their content and they are continuing down a path that weaken the economics of site owners, especially smaller sites.
You can say it's great to strip out bloated stuff from pages, but if Google strips more value from websites and gives them nothing in return, it just leads to sites closing down or producing less content because Google is absorbing their value.
And also don't forget good content that doesn't care about AMP or isn't part of an economic machine that jumps when Google says jump. That content just gets further pushed down the SERPs for big entities that follow Google's rules, regardless of it the content is better or if it has any "bloat" to strip in the first place. How exactly is that good for users?
If you think Google is in the right here you have to say Microsoft was totally right to push IE and make it the default on Windows machines and make certain pages only load in IE and all the rest. After all, you could simply go install Firefox or not view pages on Microsoft.com.
The problem is that Google is using it's market advantage to do things that takes control from websites and affects their economics directly. Google using it's influence to dictate best practices is nothing new (and has always been worrisome), but AMP directly affects websites owner's control of their content and they are continuing down a path that weaken the economics of site owners, especially smaller sites.
You can say it's great to strip out bloated stuff from pages, but if Google strips more value from websites and gives them nothing in return, it just leads to sites closing down or producing less content because Google is absorbing their value.
And also don't forget good content that doesn't care about AMP or isn't part of an economic machine that jumps when Google says jump. That content just gets further pushed down the SERPs for big entities that follow Google's rules, regardless of it the content is better or if it has any "bloat" to strip in the first place. How exactly is that good for users?
Are you kidding? If someone controlled most of the world's food supply, and said that each night you had to do the moonwalk to have access to their food supply, would you say they are forcing you to do the moonwalk? I would, and I'm pretty sure any sane person would. Because the other option is starvation, which leads to you ceasing to exist. How anyone can actually believe the "logic" you're proposing here is really beyond me.
I work for a large publisher. Google isn't putting a literal knife to anyones throat, but they are not so subtly suggesting that search traffic is tied to your usage of AMP. That qualifies as `force` in my book.
> they are not so subtly suggesting that search traffic is tied to your usage of AMP.
Do you have an example of someone who works for Google saying this, or Google documentation that says this?
Also, it doesn't seem that most publishers are seeing the search traffic that they're imagining AMP will give them: http://blog.chartbeat.com/2018/08/23/research-study-1-3-publ...
Do you have an example of someone who works for Google saying this, or Google documentation that says this?
Also, it doesn't seem that most publishers are seeing the search traffic that they're imagining AMP will give them: http://blog.chartbeat.com/2018/08/23/research-study-1-3-publ...
But this is the opposite of force.
A threat can be a way to force.
Saying a threat is the opposite of forcing is definitely wrong.
Saying a threat is the opposite of forcing is definitely wrong.
The original post talked about "a literal knife to anyones throat" which means physical force.
But what is supposed threat about? We are talking about whether or not Google links to a website, which has nothing to do with that. Linking is purely voluntary and there is not even a contract.
Of course, at scale, financial incentives are still very important for businesses, but let's be clear about this. There are no goons or threat of goons involved.
But what is supposed threat about? We are talking about whether or not Google links to a website, which has nothing to do with that. Linking is purely voluntary and there is not even a contract.
Of course, at scale, financial incentives are still very important for businesses, but let's be clear about this. There are no goons or threat of goons involved.
> The original post talked about "a literal knife to anyones throat" which means physical force.
Here is exactly what you replied to:
> Google isn't putting a literal knife to anyones throat, but they are not so subtly suggesting that search traffic is tied to your usage of AMP.
1. Notice the use of isn't. I'm not a native English speaker but it still seems clear that you are reading something that isn't written.
2. The threat of being shunned is still a threat. Also there is something about abusive relationships where the abuser will say: I didn't force anyone, but everyone knows there would have been "consequences" if the victim didn't do what they were told.
Here is exactly what you replied to:
> Google isn't putting a literal knife to anyones throat, but they are not so subtly suggesting that search traffic is tied to your usage of AMP.
1. Notice the use of isn't. I'm not a native English speaker but it still seems clear that you are reading something that isn't written.
2. The threat of being shunned is still a threat. Also there is something about abusive relationships where the abuser will say: I didn't force anyone, but everyone knows there would have been "consequences" if the victim didn't do what they were told.
You're implying physical force by comparing to an abuser situation where an implicit threat of physical force is involved. If you don't want to imply violence, don't use a violent metaphor.
> No one is 'forcing' you to do anything with your website, wanting to be top of Google SERP is optional.
Not if you want people to be able to find you…
Not if you want people to be able to find you…
Maybe it's time people stop giving a fig about Google search.
It probably wouldn't work for a site that is trying to pull in a national or international audience, but local and regional web sites can.
Someone I knew socially operated a very successful web site and did exactly zero SEO. Instead he went the old-fashioned route: Advertising.
He started with ads in regional magazines, then went to billboards, public radio sponsorships (those HD2/HD3/HD4 channels are incredibly cheap to sponsor), and eventually some pretty craptastic local TV ads.
It wouldn't work for every site, but it worked for him. His site is the leading property in its space in its region.
He's proud to boast that not once did he get in the Google hamster wheel.
It probably wouldn't work for a site that is trying to pull in a national or international audience, but local and regional web sites can.
Someone I knew socially operated a very successful web site and did exactly zero SEO. Instead he went the old-fashioned route: Advertising.
He started with ads in regional magazines, then went to billboards, public radio sponsorships (those HD2/HD3/HD4 channels are incredibly cheap to sponsor), and eventually some pretty craptastic local TV ads.
It wouldn't work for every site, but it worked for him. His site is the leading property in its space in its region.
He's proud to boast that not once did he get in the Google hamster wheel.
> Instead he went the old-fashioned route: Advertising.
Not the best point to bring up, considering that Google owns a significant portion of online advertising…
Not the best point to bring up, considering that Google owns a significant portion of online advertising…
Real advertising. Not online "advertising" that is so full of fraud and bogus traffic that it's worthless.
That typically applies to all monopolies in free countries
* They have no exclusive rights to "search". Bing, DDG, Yahoo, and more all compete in the same space.
* They do not have a geographic right to any areas.
* They are not prevent me from using another search engine
I choose to use Google because it gives me the results I expect. Nobody is forcing me to use Google over other search engines. If anything, Google has raised the quality for all search engines by consistently producing the best product available.