Google ads look like search results now, hard to tell difference

Source: Boing Boing

Article note: The web has become such a shithole. For decades Google won because their search was just so much better than the competition. I have a mixture of google and duckduckgo set as default on my machines lately, and I'm not sure that DDG's result quality is getting better, but google's is getting noticeably worse of late, for reasons easily explained by their incentive structure pointing entirely to "maximize user interaction with ads."

Google's new redesign of desktop search results makes ads pretty much look exactly like search results. Critics identify it as a dark pattern.

I would argue there is now no visual distinction between ads and results. There is still, technically, *labelling*, but it's hard to escape the conclusion that it is supposed to be difficult to spot at a glance where the adverts end. pic.twitter.com/qjUmisbLER

— hern (@alexhern) January 23, 2020

Writes Jon Porter at The Verge today:

Last week, Google began rolling out a new look for its search results on desktop, which blurs the line between organic search results and the ads that sit above them. In what appears to be something of a purposeful dark pattern, the only thing differentiating ads and search results is a small black-and-white “Ad” icon next to the former. It’s been formatted to resemble the new favicons that now appear next to the search results you care about. Early data collected by Digiday suggests that the changes may already be causing people to click on more ads.

The Guardian’s Alex Hern is one of many commenters to point out the problem, noting that there’s now next to no visual distinction between ads and search results.