this post was submitted on 24 May 2024
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It’s not A/B testing if they aren’t getting feedback.
Wouldn't they be? They could measure how likely it is that someone clicks on the generated link/text
Just because you click on it that doesn’t make it accurate. More importantly, that text isn’t “clickable”, so they can’t be measuring raw engagement either.
What this would measure is how long you would stay on the page without scrolling. Less scrolling means more time looking at ads.
This is the influence of Prabhakar Raghavan.
Given the choice between clicks/engagement and accuracy, is pretty clear Google's for the former is what got us into this hell hole.
Yup, if you have to repeat your search 3 times, you're seeing 3x the ads. If you control most of the market, where are your customers going to go? Most will just deal with it and search more.
Google runs passive A/B testing all the time.
If you're using a Google service there's a 99% chance you're part of some sort of internal test of changes.