How much for "A"
So how much will google charge to be result #1 for the letter "A"?
Update: This story has been continually updated with additional info from Google's press event. Google has unveiled what it calls Google Instant, a "streaming" version of its search engine that rejigs results pages in "real-time" as you type individual characters into its search box. "Today's announcement does represent what …
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It's a good thing I:
1. search from Opera's search box,
2. would prefer not to waste bandwdth on this kind of shenanigans, and
3. really don't have much respect for Google to begin with.
Otherwise I would be quite miffed at their lack of [programming ability/awareness of the best browser available] (choose whichever option works for you -- or both.)
2-5 seconds per search, right.
I'll use the time I save every day for an extra exasperated sigh at all the effort that goes into doing something stupid just because it sounds like a good idea.
Anybody know of another search engine that is what Google >used< to be, you know, clean, simple and none of this "look at the l337 stuff I can do with a script" BS?
two issues here..... firstly the ajax like most ajax type sites isnt instant, i'm not even sure i'd go as far as near instant. I wouldnt go as far as slow.... just a definite lag.
secondly, dunno about everyone else, but im finding im typing my search in much slower and watching the results appear instead of typing at full normal typing speed with a return key at the end.
Maybe it's just me, but it's live in the UK already. It's irritating to say the least, though I'm sure I'll get used to it.
@Geoff Johnson - it brings up "Sex and The City" when you enter the first three letters of sextant. And Google Analytics when you enter "anal"... just so you know... ;)
Google uses a particularly stupid browser-sniffing algorithm that doesn't realize that Opera can handle this type of thing, despite the fact that the DOM standards include tests for actual functionality that any programmer with more than a passing familiarity could have implemented easily.
I suggest you either (A) change your Opera settings to impersonate Firefox, or, (B) be thankful for their gaffe and avoid this waste of bandwidth, depending on your taste for this sort of thing.
just when I thought "Search" couldn't get any more annoying and bandwidth hogging, they managed to make it more so. And of course, a wonderful side effect is that it uses more energy on their servers, the user's PC, and the net itself, thus allowing search to contribute even more to global warming.
It's quite beautiful, isn't it? Wish we could do the same thing. "Never underestimate the importance of fast" - and if you're Google just forget about the cost of bandwith because OF COURSE everybody has enough. Idiots the lot... At least we've gotten rid of streaming. Took a bit of work and left a few execs bleeding in dark corners of the basement, but we'll manage.
Good to see they didn't get the obvious fail on adult terms - even clever enough to cope with 1st word acceptable, 2nd word = dodgy. Managed not to fail on scunthorpe or even some film about a couple of girls. even copes with foreign language terms
Good work oh google overlords
For crying out loud!
All you lot moaning and whining and whingeing about this feature and saying you're going to boycott Google, firebomb Mountain View or have Eric Schmidt indicted for crimes against humanity: How hard is it to click on the 'Instant is on' link, a gnat's to the right of the search button, to switch it off?
Unbelievable!
I'm afraid that's the last straw for me, as I see it this will probably trend people to search for what Google want you to search for, and then what the highest bidder wants you to search for. The search suggestions was bad enough, rarely came up with what I was actually wanting to search for. Now I have to see the results I don't want too?
Mind you, I use Opera so I guess I'll be lucky for a while.
It's invaded google.com and google.co.uk, but so far doesn't appear to have invaded the Firefox Start page (which loads fine in Chrome):
http://www.google.co.uk/firefox
PS. As for the sextant, the top results for the first three letters relate to a certain TV programme featuring Sarah Jessica Parker.
As for single letters, here's the alphabet according to Google:
A is for Argos
B is for BBC
C is for Currys
D is for Debenhams
E is for Ebay
F is for Facebook
G is for Google Maps
H is for Hotmail
I is for ITV
J is for John Lewis
K is for KLM
L is for Lotto (UK National Lottery)
M is for MSN
N is for Next
O is for O2 (the company, not the molecule)
P is for PayPal
Q is for QVC
R is for RightMove
S is for Sky (Rupert Murdoch's baby)
T is for Tesco (you have to type tw for you-know-what)
U is for YouTube (I kid you not!)
V is for Virgin (Virgin Atlantic being the top result)
W is for Weather
X is for XBox
Y is for YouTube (again!)
Z is for Zara
What about Google by Numbers?
0 is for O2 (oh two)
1 is for 192 (dot com)
2 is for 24 (TV Series) on Wikipedia
3 is for 3 (the mobile phone network)
4 is for 4OD (Channel 4's video on demand service)
5 is for 5 day weather (BBC then Met Office)
6 is for 6 music (the radio station saved from the axeman)
7 is for 7zip (the open source compression software)
8 is for 8 Ball
9 is for 90210 (TV series) on Wikipedia
...almost all of it useless. That's the real headline here - not this crap about Google's new "Instantly Find Even More Spectacularly Irrelevant-to-your-Search Results" feature.
I remember when I had high hopes for the (all-encompassing) internet. This isn't rose-tinted glasses talking - I remember full well how awful Usenet was _even before_ Eternal September - I just can't help but think that, despite the fact that we have nearly limitless access to information, most of it is far more useless (and quickly becoming harder to find, especially in regards to correct, relevant info) than that which we could find by stepping into a library or by picking up a phone and calling an expert on the subject. I hold no illusions here - people probably spent more time playing MUDs back in 1990 than they ever did writing scripts to calculate new and infinitely higher prime numbers.
Perhaps it was just the fact that we were all interacting with a newborn technology that was constantly changing and constantly being innovated. It's fairly safe to say that a lot of semi-underground pop culture felt the sea change coming - look at how deeply invested in concepts as abstract as the world wide web and the internet books like "Neuromancer" and "Snow Crash" were. They had all the hope in the world, as did we. I think every engineer who reads The Register can remember the days when we all hoped that every home would have a computer in it, so that mom, dad and little Timmy could get online and better their lives through free access to education and information, where all three could communicate with friends and family across the world and talk to new, interesting and often times strange people in other countries. What a great concept.
Too bad it got proper fucked. You know what you can do for me, Google, instead of finding ways to make your homepage utterly unusable shite? Create the metaverse and let me ride a virtual motorcycle down to a virtual library where I pull out from the shelf one of the millions of public domain books you ripped off, at which point I'll likely find a far better written, far more concise and far more useful answer to my question than any of your fucking "results" are likely to provide these days.
Instead of trying to read my mind to predict what I am trying to look up, why don't you read my mind to predict what I am looking FOR?
Image search "cute japanese girl", about half the results range from soft porn to OMFG-I-didn't-know-that-was-possible. Funny, I tend to think cute girls look cuter with their clothes ON, 'cos they all kinda look alike otherwise...
And why is Boris Johnson in the 15th round of results? He's neither Japanese, nor cute, nor a girl.
And that's just one thing. I bet readers here have dozens of stories of interesting Google searches gone awry. So if you want to data slurp in epic scale, at least give us a search that is always accurate and always correct. You can do that, can't you?
When I use the auto-suggest answers I usually type a few letters, scroll down the list and then use right-arrow to select the item off the menu, then click search. However this process now takes me directly to the first search result, meaning I don't see the results and I'm less likely to view any related ads. Apart from adversely affecting ad impressions I think this places greater emphasis on initial keyword advertising and organic 1st position ranking.
Alongside the "we just want to help people get results quicker" angle, there is a subtler motivation for Google.
I am pretty sure that more people enter search terms from the General to the Specific than vice versa: people enter "Kitchen Worktops in Coventry" more than they enter "Coventry Kitchen Worktops".
By serving results before the customer has finished typing, Google are encouraging more people to act on a broad search term rather than a specific one.
That hands a gift to national/international operators whose sites make onto the front page of broad-term results an organic basis. So far, that’s not worth anything to Google. But everyone else will find themselves competing for Sponsored Links using the same few broad search terms, which will result in the auction price zooming up. That does make a difference to Google.
It will make life more expensive for mid-scale operators, who will end up spending more on Google if they want to keep their traffic flowing. But it might have even bigger impact on smaller players.
A small hotel in Coventry might have featured well on “Hotel in Coventry” – or might have been able to afford to buy a Sponsored Link for “Hotel in Coventry”. But with Google Instant, they will see a proportion of those searchers being tempted away by the listings that appear as soon as they have typed “Hotel”.
That small hotel will not have a hope of a front-page organic listing for “Hotel”. Nor will they have a hope of affording to bid for a Sponsored Link for “Hotel” (their click-through rate would be so much lower than a chain that their bid would have to be astronomical).
So, forget the disintermediation that we were told would be the result of the web. Google Instant is just one small step along the road which is forcing that small hotel to pay to appear on an aggregator site which can compete on a national/international scale.
(I don't live in Coventry, or run a hotel, by the way).
I don't get the whining here. I love the new instant search!
It is especially useful if you do not know the exact search term, e.g. if I look for information about something in Germany, it is sometimes better to use search terms in English, sometimes better in German. So I first type in the base term or name, and then try the English term - if I see that this brings the wrong kind of results, I just hit backspace and type the German term or try a different refinement.
On the other hand, when I know exactly what I am looking for then I hit "Ctrl-L gg <search term" and are not bothered at all by instant search. It's called "Keyword" in Firefox.
So what is the silly whining about?
Maybe I am being really dense here, but doesn't this mean that (once this goes live) if I type 'The Register' into Google it will effectively have performed 12 separate searches by the time I finish the sentence?
So this would presumably use 12 times as much of my bandwidth.
Also I don't use google advertising - is it all 'pay per click' or is some of it paid for by the number of times the ad is served? If the latter surely this is about revenue - They start serving ads the moment anything is typed in the box and as the word/sentence develops they serve different ads for each letter entered. Cha-ching!
I like how they have spun the story as though it's some huge benefit to the user. Of course, in actual fact, it's a huge benefit to Google. It means many more advert impressions per search term.
If I type "java netbeans platform" with the present system, google get one opportunity to serve paid-for ads. Now they get an apportunity for (possibly) every letter you type?
That means a lot more expense for the people taking out adverts, and a lot more money for Google.