Amazon is Stuffing Its Search Results Pages With Ads (recode.net) 158
If it feels like Amazon's site is increasingly stuffed with ads, that's because it is. And it looks like that's working -- at least for brands that are willing to fork over ad dollars as part of their strategy to sell on Amazon. From a report: Amazon-sponsored product ads have been around since 2012. But lately, as the company has invested in growing its advertising business, they've become more aggressive. See, for example, our search below for "cereal." The first three results, which take up the whole screen above the fold -- everything visible before you scroll -- are sponsored placements that appear as search results: Ads for Kellogg's Special K, Quaker Life and Cap'n Crunch. (It's similarly dramatic on mobile, where it takes up the entire first screen.) This is followed by a section featuring Amazon's own brand, 365 Everyday Value, which was part of its Whole Foods acquisition. Not until scrolling down halfway on the next browser "page" do organic search results -- non-paid, non-Amazon brands -- come up: Post's Honey Bunches of Oats and Kellogg's Frosted Mini-Wheats and Frosted Flakes.
Not news (Score:3)
But it getting to the point where ublock is having troubles with the page.
Re:Not news (Score:5, Interesting)
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It has been bizarre searching for specific items and seeing the first results have nothing to do with the query, until you realize they're ads. It will be disappointing if we end up depending on Google's index of Amazon's pages to find items...
I already do that ... or increasingly DuckDuckGo.
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And I've given up trying to make sense out of the items that appear in the 'Recommneded for you' categories. Rubbermaid storage container sets in the 'Office' category, Tamiya model masking tape in the 'Home Improvement Hardware' category, joysticks, mice, trackballs, and mouse pads in the 'Cell Phones & Accessories' category, or the fact that you will almost never see an actual physical book or DVD in 'New Releases', any 'xxxxx Books' category, or any 'xxxxx Video' category -- they're 99.99% Kindle e-b
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Amazon search has been increasingly ignoring the input and just barfing out SPAM.
So, just like Google for the last 10+ years.
Re:Not news (Score:4, Interesting)
Product name from previous order: "SHIMANO FC-CX70 Chainring"
Link to still sold product: https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod... [amazon.com]
Link costs $39. Search result finds only a $60 option. Why am I paying for Prime, yet I get Reamed instead?
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The shared panopticon of everything you have bought or searched for or viewed generates not just things you like or may be interested in, but estimates of how much you may be willing to (over)pay for because you are too lazy to comparison shop.
Quelle surprise they take advantage of it.
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I have never shopped for a bicycle parts. The link he shows simply does not show up in the search results for anyone. My guess is sellers need to pay amazon to show up in search results now.
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I really like that point, I'm a prime member also. Shouldn't I have the option to disable ads? I'm already paying extra for the service.
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You know what the trick is for finding good prices on Amazon? Search for the product you want to find in Google with "site:amazon.com shimano fc-cx70 chainring"
Re: Not news (Score:2)
Amazon is the wrong place for bike parts. The prices are way too high. Bike part shops are cheaper, even with the added shipping cost.
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Amazon search has been increasingly ignoring the input and just barfing out SPAM.
SpAmazon
Re:Not news (Score:5, Insightful)
> Amazon search has been increasingly ignoring the input and just barfing out SPAM
Precisely. In the article they search for "Justin's peanut butter" because they want that specific item, but instead Amazon returns results for a bunch of Other peanut butters irrelevant to want the customer wants.
Just now I searched for "Bounty Basic towels" and instead I was hit with a bunch of brands I care nothing about. When I want cheap Basic Bounty, that's EXACTLY what I want.... not other junk,.
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I was recently shopping for a new desk chair. Because I'm a fat ass I specifically entered a minimum weight limit into google. Google pointed me to an Amazon search for essentially the same thing but with slightly different wording, although still with the same weight capacity as a minimum. The first several chairs listed specified max weights 50 lbs lower than I required. To add insult the top result actually had an even lower capacity if you read the technical details as opposed to the item summary at the
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I can tell you it is now not all that easy for me just to browse search results. I have to remember that may results are not going to be what I need, but what advertiser want me to see. For instance, if I am looking for toner, there are going to be results that do not work with my printer, and those resul
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This has been going on even before online shopping existed. Walmart and other retailers charge manufacturers for premium shelf space. The products at the end of the aisle where you are more likely to see them are only there because the manufacturers pay for it. The stuff you see in the weekly flyer is also paid for by the manufacturer. The retailers have a lot of power. The way they present products to the conumsers has a huge impact on how well they sell.
Once upon a time (Score:1)
you walked into a physical store and bought products off the shelf but now amazon is stuffing ads in your face, literally stuffing ads in your face, and stuffing ads in your shoes and stuffing ads in your turkeys and stuffing ads in your pillows
stuffing ads, stuffing ads, stuffing ads, stuffing ads, stuffing ads
Re:Once upon a time (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do you think some items are on endcaps, and some are shelved at eye-level as opposed to floor-level? That's right. Companies PAY to have their products placed at more desirable locations.
As you were saying, ads, ads, ads, ads, ads.
Does this stuff affect what alexa picks? (Score:3)
I know better than to take it's suggestion to "next time, just ask Alexa to order x" since whatever I've searched for is frequently topped by some cheap knockoff that's "sponsored". Does anyone who actually uses alexa to order stuff get that or what?
I use google to search amazon (Score:5, Insightful)
I've found the quality/ranking of amazon results to be TERRIBLE. I always do a google search when I want to find products on amazon.
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Wet Dream Ads (Score:2)
I pretty much only click ads for products I only wish I could buy, maybe if I win the lottery. Makes me a little curious what that does to their add algorithms...
All in a days work (Score:1)
Amazon receives 40% of online purchases and Bezos is supposed to be worth $159 billion and earns $275MM per day.
All of that has to come from somewhere, right?
OMG! Web sales site wants to sell stuff! (Score:2)
Really?
Why is this even news that Amazon wants to sell you stuff?
It's not some secret plot. It's their whole raison d'etre.
If you don't want to buy stuff, don't go there.
Is that hard to understand?
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Crass commercialization sours my Amazon browsing experience. We live in a fallen world.
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I think it's naive to believe that Amazon has ever been about anything other than crass commercialization.
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It's not just about advertising, but this story describes an issue that is a subset of a much larger and growing issue: generally lousy search engines on retail sites that return either not enough or way too many results. It's not just amazon, but many of the big retailers have searches that if they do return items results specific to my search, and pad my results with dozens or hundreds results from departments and categories that have no relation to my search terms.
One one site I search for WASHERS and I
Newsflash! (Score:1)
Newsflash! Guy who owns website likes making money selling parts of it. News at 11!
uBlock Origin FTW (Score:3)
uBlock Origin hides the sponsored listings for me, and now that I've told it, will hide the Amazon brands too.
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YOU ARE ADVERTISING, MANY MANY TIMES ON SLASHDOT OVER AND OVER, and you don't even have the guts to use your name.
You're an asshole and you should be ashamed.
Don't search for something so general (Score:2)
When you search for something so general like cereal then there are going to be a lot of sponsored items to go along with it. All of my searches are for something specific that I know I want and so the sponsored content goes down dramatically. Usually I see the top row of sponsored items and then search results start.
I thought that all the tracking that occurs... (Score:2)
So what? (Score:2)
Oh noes, you're being shown ads to buy stuff!
But wait, stupid, you're on a website that sells stuff. Unless you didn't already know what you wanted to buy, how could ads for other probably similar products be a problem?
no different than brick and mortar (Score:2)
brick and mortar stores does the exact same thing. they also have paid product placement and will place their own brands above others on the shelves. Quite a few displays at the front of the stores, at the register, end caps, or in the middle of the aisles are paid product placements whether it is through special discounts or payments. I really see nothing wrong with Amazon doing it other than it can be frustrating at times when looking for something specific and cheaper.
Web ads LOL (Score:1)
+1 for adblockers (Score:1)
I never noticed the first page of ads because my blocker eliminates them. I do see the house brand first still, but that doesn't really bother me.
Brick-and-mortar stores do it too (Score:2)
It's called paid product placement. If Pillsbury wants their products at eye level at your local Kroger, they have to pay Kroger "slotting fees" for that prime placement. If they don't pay, their product goes to the very bottom or very top shelf, where it's hard to see and find.
So if you're looking for better prices, look high and low on the grocery store shelves.
Amazon is doing the exact same thing, but with virtual shelf space.
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You can't evacuate 30 million people
Nor do you need to. Only the outer islands need to be evacuated.
People living inland, but too close to rivers or creeks need to move to higher ground, but they can still stay local.
Everyone else can shelter in place.
This is being compared to Harvey, which for flooding was a worst case scenario. It stalled over a major city on a plain. The death toll was 82. That is equivalent to a weekend of traffic deaths.
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unpreventable traffic deaths
If you think traffic deaths are unpreventable then you are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Traffic deaths are exactly as preventable as hurricane deaths. That is to say, 100% preventable if you take extreme, unrealistic and oppressive steps to override all other concerns; mostly preventable if people just exercise caution, preplanning and don't behave like idiots (but of course some percentage WILL behave like idiots if someone else doesn't take authoritarian steps to deprive them of the abili
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They should have their supplies already.
They spend a month down here reminding you to do it.
Re: We have more important topics. (Score:1)
Seeing as how every time there is a hurricane forecast to hit land in the US there are hardware stores out of plywood and generators and grocery stores out of bottled water and many food items and runs on gas stations, etc. I guess what you are saying is that they are all idiots. That actually isn't possible since the person of average intelligence by definition is not an idiot.
That's a non-sequitur. Shortages don't require everyone to be idiots; they only require enough idiots to cause a shortage.
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there are hardware stores out of plywood and generators and grocery stores out of bottled water and many food items and runs on gas stations, etc.
Obvious solution: Raise prices.
The higher prices will:
1. Ensure the products go to those that need them the most.
2. Penalize hoarding.
3. Eliminate queuing, so people can focus their time on other priorities.
4. Incentivize sellers to expedite new supplies so they can cash in.
5. Incentivize residents to prepare better next time.
Not everyone is as rich as you (Score:2, Offtopic)
Obvious solution: Raise prices.
The term for that is price gouging when it happens around the time of a natural disaster. Some price fluctuation is to be expected but there is a limit to what is appropriate.
The higher prices will: 1. Ensure the products go to those that need them the most.
Ummm... no. It goes to those who can afford them. Not everyone has an equal ability to pay and price gouging during a natural disaster is a dick move.
Re:Not everyone is as rich as you (Score:5, Informative)
The term for that is price gouging when it happens around the time of a natural disaster.
It is only called "gouging" by people that don't understand markets. The likely storm track has been known for days. So why didn't the suppliers run extra overtime shifts to bring in more supplies? Answer: Because they knew they would not be allowed to recoup the extra costs, since NC has price control laws [findlaw.com].
So anti-market laws were the reason for the shortage. "Price gouging" is the solution. Sure, prices would be higher, but not by as much as you think, since extra supplies would limit the rise. But there would have been far fewer shortages.
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Where's the evidence to backup the hypothesis you state as though it is fact. The UK doesn't have any anti-gouging laws, but negative publicity when petrol stations or similar increase prices in a way that would be termed "gouging" by some means that companies don't do it
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There's people starving in the world, do you think if we increased prices enough they'd be able to get food ...?
Yes. Most starving people in the world are farmers, who grow food. But because of price controls on food in many 3rd world countries, they don't earn much, have little incentive to plant more than they need to survive, and are unable to accumulate any savings. Then when weather or war disrupt this lives, they have nothing to fall back on.
Do artificially low food prices cause starvation? They certainly do.
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they would not be allowed to recoup the extra costs, since NC has price control laws
So anti-market laws were the reason for the shortage.
Hey, we're the government. Anything we can do, just ask -- we're here to help (Ourselves if possible.)
Unintended consequences? No worries, we'll just pass another law. That way you don't have to worry, you'll always be guilty of something. And what more can your government do than provide you with that nice, warm feeling of being wanted?
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The term for that is price gouging when it happens around the time of a natural disaster. Some price fluctuation is to be expected but there is a limit to what is appropriate.
Why? If you keep the price artificially low you stop the market's natural forces from preventing hording. The reason for price spikes in times of extreme scarcity is precisely to prevent hording.
Ummm... no. It goes to those who can afford them. Not everyone has an equal ability to pay and price gouging during a natural disaster is a dick move.
I have news for you: keeping prices artificially low doesn't help your hypothetical poor person, in fact it makes their plight even worse. Now rich people can afford to horde scarce supplies by purchasing 20 of them instead of 5. Now the poor person who might have been able to scrape up the money for the high prices
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Re:We have more important topics. (Score:5, Funny)
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There's no hurricane coming where I am.
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...and vegetarian, non-dairy, gluten-free emergency food.
If it's not vegetarian, non-dairy, gluten-free, pesticide-free, organic, free-range, cruelty-free, carbon-neutral emergency food, you're not a real Californian; you have to get all the feel-good buzzwords in there to get the proper nose-in-the-air sense of moral superiority.
You forgot non-GMO. But I can't figure out how "vegetarian" can possibly be combined with "free-range, cruelty free".
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You forgot non-GMO. But I can't figure out how "vegetarian" can possibly be combined with "free-range, cruelty free".
Listen up brothers and sisters, come hear my desperate tale.
I speak of our friends of nature trapped in the dirt like a jail.
Vegetables live in oppression, served on our tables each night.
This killing of veggies is madness—I say we take up the fight!
Salads are only for murderers; coleslaw's a facist regime.
Don't think that they don't have feelings, just cause a radish can't scream.
I've heard the screams of the vegetables (scream, scream, scream),
watching their skins being peeled (having their insides
Re: Californian here and I'm prepared (Score:1)
Let the celery grow where it wants, and don't toture it. Cut it down humanely, with naked singing farmers, and extremely sharp sheers.
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And then FEMA comes in and blunders around doing random shit trying to look like they're helping while trying to make sure they get as much press coverage as possible.
FEMA is not there to manage the entire recovery process. FEMAs job is to obtain resources (food/water, rescue workers, repair crews, etc), and get those resources to those who need them the most. It is the the job of the local government to know the community and let FEMA know what and where these resources are needed. The governor didn't even know how to contact each mayor, what hospital were open, where shelters were, or even what the heck he was doing; and it showed!
Go back and review the news, the
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There is a fucking HURRICANE coming, why are we wasting time with this?
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/... [rationalwiki.org]
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Landfall isn't until Thursday. As long as you ship overnight, you should be fine. I'm ordering plywood for my windows and a couple of board games. Shame on people who didn't prepare for the hurricane by signing up for Prime.
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Why the fuck should people across the country and around the world focus all their thoughts on this hurricane, over which they have absolutely zero influence.
Are you so fucking feeble minded that you only have space in your tiny little brain for one thought at a time?
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"We" don't all live in the Carolinas, "We" don't all have skin in the game, "We" aren't all affected by it, and "We" don't all give a damn.
It may surprise you to learn this, but the world doesn't stop because there's a storm somewhere.
I've been to the Carolinas, nice place, nice people ... but my life is in no way impacted by this, and I'd
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There is a fucking HURRICANE coming, why are we wasting time with this? This storm will be a Cat 5 blasting into the Carolinas with the force of thousands of nuclear bombs. Are there nuclear power plants that need to be secured? Chemical facilities? Low lying areas where people live, barrier islands, etc? Can we get started early on recovery planning, such as food, water, body bags, sanitation, etc? We shouldn't forget about the animals - we have a good amount of warning that we could be using to evacuate animals as well as people. We should take this as a call to action to accelerate global climate change amelioration efforts and a rapid transition to renewable and carbon-neutral energy as it is obvious to everyone that this monster storm is a direct result of global warming and is only the first of several pointed right at the US like bullets in the barrel of a gun. Up until now, much of the damage due to global climate change has been in faraway places like low-lying islands in the Pacific - this is climate change writ large, come home to roost. We all know that the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere probably cannot be removed, but the least we can do is make a serious attempt to cut back on new emissions and we can and do have the technology to do it, we simply need to find the willpower. What we do NOT need is imbeciles like the current occupants of the White House doing things like this [eenews.net] to actively make the problem worse but put a few extra pennies in the pockets of their big oil campaign contributors. This hurricane, which promises to be ultra-destructive as it barrels towards landfall and then stalls out over the coast due to changed weather and climate patterns needs to serve as a clarion call to arms for all climate warriors to remove by any and all means necessary, even force, people who are trying to destroy our world and our children's world. The time for action has come, and the time for discussion is over. We have tried reason and it has not worked because they will not listen. Nobody can say we didn't try.
I'm gonna study this paragraph and break out all your points into actionable line items and prepare for its arrival and shit the hurricane's up by Idaho already.
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Just great. Fucking ads on a story about ads.