The Far Side of Tech - Latest Comments in How Price Comparison Site Results in Google Hurt Consumers

Re: How Price Comparison Site Results in Google Hurt Consumers

Aaron — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:57:57 -0000

They appear to have taken it down unfortunately, but there used to be http://mindset.research.yahoo.com which had a slider for 'buy' or 'find out information' and it reorganized the search results based on where you put the slider. I used it a couple of times when it came out and it was pretty nifty.

Re: How Price Comparison Site Results in Google Hurt Consumers

gene haynes — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 02:45:31 -0000

The problem of overadvertising can be addressed.

If consumers organized large-scale boycotts of specific products or services, we could 'take back the streets' from the market bullies.

It is deflating to hear people say over and over in America, 'there's nothing we can do.'

It's time for savy Americans to stand up for what they want instead of watching our ownership dwindle. The public owns the market. The market should not own us.

Re: How Price Comparison Site Results in Google Hurt Consumers

Margaret Seymour — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 00:11:15 -0000

Point taken. But I doubt our collective "vote-ups" have the power to do anything about it.

Re: How Price Comparison Site Results in Google Hurt Consumers

Heofz — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 21:31:11 -0000

Check out this then:

http://www.givemebackmygoogle.com/

That site was put up specifically for this reason :)

Re: How Price Comparison Site Results in Google Hurt Consumers

sunflower — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:09:47 -0000

The real answer is to use a search engine other than Google. A better search may exist... someday. I've used Yahoo search more recently for some things.

Microsoft wanted to buy Yahoo? The better answer is to simply build a better search engine, with a clean interface like Google.

Re: How Price Comparison Site Results in Google Hurt Consumers

dumb — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:30:13 -0000

How many damn price comparisons do we really need though? I am SICK of trying to find information about a product and can only find keyword spammed price comparisons. They don't even have the product half the time. Kill 'em all I say!

Re: How Price Comparison Site Results in Google Hurt Consumers

Devindra — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:26:33 -0000

@Rajan Try another search?! Blasphemy!

Honestly though, thanks for bringing up Live search. I've heard good things, though I'd still rather Google fixed their own search results.

Re: How Price Comparison Site Results in Google Hurt Consumers

Rajan — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:23:45 -0000

Ok Isn't it time you tried some other search engine then. Try this:

Live search not only got me wize as the top result but a single glance report of general reviews.

Google also has modified their search results so that now cnet is at the top of the list now.

Re: How Price Comparison Site Results in Google Hurt Consumers

elGordo — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:14:44 -0000

You can also try to filter your Gooogle search by using the minus sign. For example, search for "Samsung 906BW review -price". The -*criteria* in this case will automatically remove any search results that contain the word price. Exclude different terms for some slight variations on your results.

Re: How Price Comparison Site Results in Google Hurt Consumers

Adrian — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 07:49:15 -0000

You should check out http://www.gmbmg.com which tries to filter out some of that crap in your google searches.

Re: How Price Comparison Site Results in Google Hurt Consumers

Julian — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 07:38:43 -0000

I couldn't agree more, Devindra. However, it's not just these price comparison sites that are the culprits. One major piece of open source e-commerce software - OSCommerce - used by thousands upon thousands of online retailers, always put the word "review" on every product page. This "review" of course refers to customer reviews, but how to distinguish them from "expert" reviews? And the annoying thing is that these keywords show up even if there are no reviews.

As a site owner and author of many "expert" reviews (and I use that term in all humility), it is very disheartening to see these "empty" search result show up before articles and content which you've worked so hard to produce, which you know can benefit others but is being hidden in the spam.

Re: How Price Comparison Site Results in Google Hurt Consumers

Rob — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:09:07 -0000

When you are searching for Samsung 906BW or any other "keywords" like this you get results with price comparsion sites. But when search phrase contains many, many words like 'Samsung 906BW black silver 19 inches canada' than very often all what you see is spamblogs without any content but adsense. This problem is much bigger in my opinion.

Re: How Price Comparison Site Results in Google Hurt Consumers

Andy — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:27:57 -0000

we use powerreviews to allow consumers to review products. The thing I like is even if we reject a review because it is off topic to the product, etc. all reviews for powerreviews will be posted at www.buzzillions.com. There are a lot of companies getting on board and soon if not already I expect to see buzzillions being the place to get unbiased reviews from consumers.

Re: How Price Comparison Site Results in Google Hurt Consumers

PENIX — Mon, 07 May 2007 19:19:29 -0000

But what makes a good reviewer? User opinions are frequently unreliable. One man's trash is the next man's treasure. Often times I've seen bad reviews when the user was clearly using the product wrong. "Expert" reviews can't be trusted either.

Re: How Price Comparison Site Results in Google Hurt Consumers

Devindra — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 12:23:50 -0000

What does that even mean? We want legitimate reviews to show up when we search for them. Sites like yours, (*cough* www.DEALTAKER.com)</i>, just make that entire process difficult. Linkfarms are annoying in their own right, but at least I usually only have to see them when I mistype a URL. I see sites like yours every day amongst my general searching and they never cease to be annoying.

I'm a fan of deals as well, I'm totally in love with <a href="htttp://www.bensbargains.net" rel="nofollow">Ben's Bargains and Techdeals, but they also don't get in my way when I need to get legitimate searching done.

Re: How Price Comparison Site Results in Google Hurt Consumers

Coupons — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 10:19:05 -0000

I guess I'd rather see a price engine show up than those funky ad sites where they scrape the world and and it's bareley legible.

Re: How Price Comparison Site Results in Google Hurt Consumers

Wing — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 17:53:11 -0000

Angela, the thing about price comparison sites is that they offer price comparisons. Sometimes (most often) I don't want that. In fact I only want the price of something at the end of my purchase-making decision. They just shouldn't show up when I Google for a review or other articles. The worst thing they do, as Devindra said, is that they mascarade themselves as review sites, and that is not only annoying but also wrong.

Re: How Price Comparison Site Results in Google Hurt Consumers

Devindra — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:28:18 -0000

Angela is a plant, but I'll bite for now: I'm not saying I don't find these sites useful, but do they really need to get in the way search of results as they do? If only Google had some sort of filter to turn these things off, then I would have no reason to complain. Hell, you should understand my pain being affiliated with some comparison sites and all ;)

Re: How Price Comparison Site Results in Google Hurt Consumers

Angela — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:10:18 -0000

<del>As an online shopper, I LOVE price comparison sites and don't see the harm in allowing online consumers to participate in online one-stop shopping. Personally, my morning isn't complete until I've checked the daily deals at www.---.com or their sister site www.---.com That's the first place I go if I'm looking for a specific item, since the filter allows me to not only see which retailer has the item the cheapest, but any current promotional coupon codes that are valid on that purchase. If saving time and money is wrong, I don't want to be right...</del>