A few days ago a Google found me something I was searching for, but via ads and not search. In the middle of searching raw part numbers, the ad became 100% relevant. It was a weird experience clicking on the ad; something I never ever do. So maybe this is a bit of good news? Yardinflatables.com if you're curious.
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Google are removing vast amounts of pages from their search indexes, leaving only "primary sources" that AI chat can reference.
So if you have a long-tail page ("obscure part number") then the only way to show it is buying an ad for it.
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I’ve always wondered what % of ad clicks are just misclicks.
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Fascinating; they must be bidding on the part numbers as search keywords.
Now I wonder what the median CPC is for part numbers (I’d guess very cheap), and which one is the most expensive (no idea, super curious).
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Is this how we fix google search? Make advertisers have to provide ads that are actually helpful search results, sort of like https://xkcd.com/810/ but for search ads
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the bigger question is why the heck did you use Google, was it only after you exhausted all other LLM options
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