Google vs. SlashMySearch and Why I Choose Not to Get Paid

I had a thought today, why do I use Google when I can use SlashMySearch and get paid to search? I’ve been signed up for SlashMySearch for some time now yet, I rarely use it. The incentive is definitely there, get paid to search, and who doesn’t want to do that? I’ll explain why I don’t and the fact that it’s all to do with design.

SlashMySearch
When I first signed up I thought, “Great, paid to search! I’m online all the time and I search a lot, win win…” After visiting the site it instantly became clear to me that it wasn’t going to work out.

When you go to SlashMySearch’s home page you get this:

Google vs. SlashMySearch and Why I Choose Not to Get Paid

They feature a huge unappealing page that requires lots of scrolling just to get to the bottom. This is a pain if you aren’t signed in since you are forced to scroll through a bunch of text and ads before you get to where you want. They do provide some information that could be useful but they could’ve cut the text amount down. Creating some simple “Look What’s New” text links would suffice and would help the overall appeal of the site. First impression is everything.

If the viewers want to know then they’ll read it by clicking the links, don’t force them to scroll through it.

Alignment and Excessive Ads:
After you’ve signed in the homepage changes to this:

Google vs. SlashMySearch and Why I Choose Not to Get Paid

Notice the amount of ads? I’ve cut some out in the image above, but it looks something like this:

Ads

Banner

Search bar

Ads

Ads

Top Stories

Ads

Navigation

Again they have you scrolling down to the bottom to get to the navigation. Of course this is all planned, but creating a user friendly environment should be just as important (if not more) than trying to get people to click those ads. Cut down the ads, make people happy.

Less text is good to see but what have they done! That’s right, centered text. Even with the excessive text in the first example they managed to line it up.

Alignment of text is very important for any sort of design, but especially for web sites. People hate to see things that don’t match or line up, it’s just too much to handle and gives no direction for your eye to follow. Every aspect of the web page should be unified and organized.

Example. Would you rather see this?

Google vs. SlashMySearch and Why I Choose Not to Get Paid

Or this?

Google vs. SlashMySearch and Why I Choose Not to Get Paid

I thought so, and that’s why alignment is key. It makes everything easier to both read and look at. Centered is not a useful or practical alignment and should definitely not be used in websites.

SlashMySearch spent some time updating, and it seems that they now have Snap searching to show the search results.

Google vs. SlashMySearch and Why I Choose Not to Get Paid

I’m still undecided if this is a good move or not. The Snap search/site preview system does look nice, and is a good change from SlashMySearch’s homepage, but then again change can be a bad thing. Your site’s audience doesn’t want to be confused by being taken to another site when they click a link or search.

Now, on to Google and why I choose them for my searching needs.

Google

Everyone knows Google. Instead of saying, “search for it” you say “Google it.” Google is known worldwide and used by pretty much everyone. Why is this? What drew people to Google. Again, I’ll explain my thoughts of the design of Google and why it works.

Simplicity and Alignment
Unlike SlashMySearch’s homepage, Google gives you exactly what you need and want and nothing more.

Google vs. SlashMySearch and Why I Choose Not to Get Paid

Also, note the guide lines I’ve placed in to show the alignment. The Google logo lines up with the search options and the search box lines up with the bottom text/links. Everything else in between is lined up to the center and has the same space on either side of the guides. I know you’re hating me now for accepting the centered text on Google but, since the text is very minimal and as just explained everything is aligned with perfect spacing so, I’ll allow Google to get away with it. If the search results were centered though, that’d be a whole different situation.

The Google homepage, it’s simple, it’s clean, it works

Now, onward to the search results page.

After searching you’ll see this:

Google vs. SlashMySearch and Why I Choose Not to Get Paid

Google uses the exact same style, look, and feel as their homepage. This makes the viewers happy since they know they are still on the Google site. Google logo, search bar, and important links aligned to the left, a nice blue bar separating everything and of course your search results below aligned to the left as well. This creates for easy reading and you can quickly find what you’re looking for. The logo draws the eyes in and marks where to start viewing the page. Absolutely no confusion for the reader is created, and that’s why I choose Google.

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