Comments on: Selective intelligence

By: Raj

Raj — Tue, 30 Mar 2004 11:01:10 +0000

I work for a large mutinational company & since a recent network upgrade if I type in http://www.google.com I get instantly referred to http://www.google.fr. (I am based in scotland). Presumably our network makes google think I am in france. However, if I type in http://www.google.co.uk I stay there and am not referred.

By: eszter

eszter — Mon, 29 Mar 2004 16:07:57 +0000

Pilgrim – I would think Google would try to make sure it doesn’t serve up certain results in response to a query based on the IP address of the user not which Google version he or she chooses. With respect to this concern, using info about IP address would seem to be the better way to go.

By: pilgrim

pilgrim — Mon, 29 Mar 2004 15:31:01 +0000

Just to add a little bit to this: One reason Google may redirect, or even attempt to override, a user’s desire to go to the “main” search page at google.com, is because of the differing legal requirements of various countries. If you are connecting from an ISP in France, for example, Google and Yahoo will do their darnedest to keep you from accessing their full content, but instead try to redirect you to the cleaned up French versions. (If you’ll recall, Yahoo faced a major lawsuit and worse for not banning all French people from accessing auctions sites where Nazi memorabilia were sold—LICRA v. Yahoo.)

By: neil

neil — Sun, 28 Mar 2004 21:11:40 +0000

Google is in no sense a non-profit; in fact, they claim to be one of the very few Internet startups which turned a profit early and consistently. They were claiming profitability in early 2001, but as mrs tilton notes, their finances are not public, so it might not be true.

By: Keith M Ellis

Keith M Ellis — Sun, 28 Mar 2004 17:22:36 +0000

Did I say that? But, yeah. Google has been able to get away with doing things that a publicly held company cannot. It will be interesting to see what happens after their IPO. As someone who worked for a start-up that had a fantastically successful IPO, I can say that going public in general and particularly during the dot.com era was, in my opinion, distorting and created forces that acted against the long-term health of the company. On the other hand, even after the crash and having still yet never earning a profit, the company has a few hundred million in cash and is a survivor. So, hey, what do I know? But privately owned companies can look to the long-term while publicly held companies face tremendous pressure for short term results. I think Google has been successful because they’ve been far-seeing and very focused (and disciplined). That may change.

By: Scorpio

Scorpio — Sun, 28 Mar 2004 17:15:29 +0000

Pardon me? You are complaining because the ads don’t work? Geesh!

By: Mrs Tilton

Mrs Tilton — Sun, 28 Mar 2004 15:15:41 +0000

Barry, strictly speaking Google isn’t a ‘non-profit’. (That term has a specific technical meaning.) Rather, it is closely held. It might or might not make a profit, but it is under no obligation to report on its finances to the public. If it goes through with its long-awaited IPO, then it will of course have to give pretty thorough disclosure of its finances, both in the offering prospectus and on a regular basis thereafter.

By: Barry

Barry — Sun, 28 Mar 2004 14:20:21 +0000

Keith M Ellis, a while back (on this blog?) had commented that the genius of Google was that it gave you what you wanted, with nothing extra. Most websites cram as many ads as possible, with the result of cognitively jamming the user. IMHO, and in Keith’s opinion (IIRC), Google has been able to avoid this because it’s been a non-profit. It didn’t have to justify quarterly results, but was trying to build a business. Google’s IPO will be an experiment, of what happens when a market leader enters the profit market as well. I wouldn’t be surprised to see both rational degradation (to make more money) and irrational degradation (because decisions are being made by people thinking about short-term profits and short-term stock prices).

By: Brett Bellmore

Brett Bellmore — Sun, 28 Mar 2004 12:07:50 +0000

“Most U.S. advertisers have no interest in reaching an audience in Hungary, where the advertised products won’t be available.” Funny, I’ve had no trouble ordering product online from Hungary, and getting them delivered to the US. (Warsaw pact surplus electronics components, in this instance, in case you’ve got a need for vacuum tubes to fix that antique radio.)

By: eszter

eszter — Sun, 28 Mar 2004 09:58:08 +0000

Lazyman – thanks, but I know how to set preferences in Google. That wasn’t my point. My point was a comment about default options and assumptions systems make even when the user has expressed certain preferences already. My research on Web-user skill suggests that few people know to tweak things for their preferences usually so default settings matter quite a bit. Kenny – good point. In this case, however, I’m using my parents’ machine at home and they have not changed any default settings.. and most of their searches are in English as well. (And again, I doubt many users would have changed all sorts of settings at a public machine, but yes, such a machine may suggest a confusing user profile based on its history.)

By: eszter

eszter — Sun, 28 Mar 2004 09:51:21 +0000

Arthur, as I mentioned, my query included “domain”, which means it may have to do with domain registration (and that’s what the ads were for). Generic top level domain registration is precisely the type of service that is globally available no matter the registrar. (In fact, I think the registrar I use is based in the UK even though I’m based in the US.) I know of no studies that show what percent of google.com users in Hungary speak Hungarian. From my stay here this time my impression is that more and more foreigners are populating this town and no, they do not all speak Hungarian. When signing up for the Adwords service (last time I checked) Google does not ask to what language queries you want your ads to come up. Rather, they ask in what countries your want your ads to be displayed. Maybe they should be asking about both.

By: Kenny Easwaran

Kenny Easwaran — Sun, 28 Mar 2004 09:48:57 +0000

Actually, if you’re using an internet cafe or something, many users ahead of you have probably changed various settings both on the computer and in the google cookie indicating that they prefer things in Hungarian. Thus, your change on a few things may not have overrided all the other user selection pressure towards Hungarian. So they may be listening to the (inconsistent) user as best they can. Perhaps a setting for public computers would be better though.

By: Dan Levine

Dan Levine — Sun, 28 Mar 2004 08:38:01 +0000

One thing I accidentally discovered while trying to stop the redirection to google.ca on which Google insists (at least for me,) I discovered that ww.google.com performs no redirection.

By: neil

neil — Sun, 28 Mar 2004 04:46:03 +0000

I agree with arthur. Geography does not equal language preference, but it indicates it, and advertising is not an exact science. This policy is probably the best they have found for delivering meaningful ads.

By: arthur

arthur — Sun, 28 Mar 2004 02:37:33 +0000

Google makes a sensible business decision. Most U.S. advertisers have no interest in reaching an audience in Hungary, where the advertised products won’t be available. In general, web advertisers hate the idea that many of the eyeballs they reach are out of the physical range. On the other hand, Budapest advertisers do want to reach those Hungarians who web surf in English, since most of them also speak Hungarian and shop locally.