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Google Knol is Evil

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Re: Google Knol is Evil

#21

Post by kylec »

tss wrote: post #4

If they don't get the issue of Knol pagerank sorted out soon, they are going to be hit with a massive anti trust lawsuit. And they are going to lose. I'm curious as to why everyone is so surprised that this is happening though. It already worked like this with blogs hosted through Blogspot and websites hosted through Google Pages.

If they don't get the issue of Knol pagerank sorted out soon, they are going to be hit with a massive anti trust lawsuit. And they are going to lose.

I certainly hope not. Google, as a private company, should be free to display whatever they want in the search results. Once we start litigating and mandating search placement it becomes a no-win situation. If site A is placed above site B, site B sues. If site B is above site A, site A sues.

Re: Google Knol is Evil

#22

Post by tss »

kylec wrote: post #21
tss wrote: post #4

If they don't get the issue of Knol pagerank sorted out soon, they are going to be hit with a massive anti trust lawsuit. And they are going to lose. I'm curious as to why everyone is so surprised that this is happening though. It already worked like this with blogs hosted through Blogspot and websites hosted through Google Pages.

If they don't get the issue of Knol pagerank sorted out soon, they are going to be hit with a massive anti trust lawsuit. And they are going to lose. I certainly hope not. Google, as a private company, should be free to display whatever they want in the search results. Once we start litigating and mandating search placement it becomes a no-win situation. If site A is placed above site B, site B sues. If site B is abo…

There is certainly solid legal ground for arguing that Google giving preferential search results to itself is an anticompetitive practice. It would be different if Google didn't control the vast majority of the search market, but it does.

Let's say there is a phone book company that pretty much controls the entire market. Google's actions are akin to the phonebook company only listing businesses that it owns in the main pages, while listing everything else in an appendix. Anticompetitive practice, to be sure. The phonebook company might argue, "Well since we are so tightly integrated with out own businesses, it is much easier to index them. Our competitors ending up in the back is simply an unintended side effect". Possibly true, but it's not going to fly in court.

To be honest, I don't care if Google is giving preferential treatment to Knol. But please, establish some plausible deniability. The speed in which Knol is being indexed is far too obvious. I think it would be a damn shame if Google were to lose its hold on the search market because of a lawsuit.

Re: Google Knol is Evil

#23

Post by kylec »

tss wrote: post #22
kylec wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they don't get the issue of Knol pagerank sorted out soon, they are going to be hit with a massive anti trust lawsuit. And they are going to lose. I certainly hope not. Google, as a private company, should be free to display whatever they want in the search results. Once we start litigating and mandating search placement it becomes a no-win situation. If site A is placed above site B, site B sues. If site B is abo…

There is certainly solid legal ground for arguing that Google giving preferential search results to itself is an anticompetitive practice. It would be different if Google didn't control the vast majority of the search market, but it does. Let's say there is a phone book company that pretty much controls the entire market. Google's actions are akin to the phonebook company only listing businesses that it owns in the m…

Google Maps is also integrated into the Google search. Any time it detects that you've entered a mappable location it provides a Google Maps link. If this feature were removed by, say, a lawsuit by Mapquest I think that Google would become less effective, and everyone would suffer as a result.

That's just my personal opinion, however. I had (and still have) no objection to Microsoft bundling a web browser and media player in Windows, and yet they've been hit by antitrust charges.

Re: Google Knol is Evil

#24

Post by greendestiny »

paul wrote: post #19
aneesh wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=buttermilk+pancakes http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=buttermilk+pancakes&#3... http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0oGkwE.oo5IxRgBQGpXNyoA... Ranking of the Knol on Buttermilk pancakes: Google: #4 Yahoo: #34 Live: #55

Google: #2 http://www.google.com/search?q=Pediatric+Sports+Injuries Yahoo: #1 http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0oGklD1pY5I0hcByd1XNyoA... I didn't bother searching msn. I'm sure the results vary from query to query, as they do for all sites. The point is that many of these pages are ranking quite high on Yahoo as well. Either you can attribute that to Yahoo being in on Google's evil plan, or you can understand th…

It still remains that pages on Knol are getting much higher rankings than the pages themselves warrant. I wondered why the front page of Knol had such a random collection of content links - it seemed very ungoogle - now it looks like SEO that's damaging the reputation of their search engine.

Re: Google Knol is Evil

#25

Post by vaksel »

neilc wrote: post #20
nickb wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the argument. It's Microsoft's operating system, if they want to pre-install certain apps, why not? Google's heading in the same direction as MS. They'll probably end up in the same court room in Washington DC few years from now.

It's Microsoft's operating system, if they want to pre-install certain apps, why not? There's nothing fundamentally wrong with Microsoft pre-installing apps, just like there is nothing wrong with Apple pre-installing apps on OSX, or Sun on Solaris.

if it wasn't, they wouldn't have lost all those anti-trust suits

Re: Google Knol is Evil

#26

Post by paul »

greendestiny wrote: post #24
paul wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google: #2 http://www.google.com/search?q=Pediatric+Sports+Injuries Yahoo: #1 http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0oGklD1pY5I0hcByd1XNyoA... I didn't bother searching msn. I'm sure the results vary from query to query, as they do for all sites. The point is that many of these pages are ranking quite high on Yahoo as well. Either you can attribute that to Yahoo being in on Google's evil plan, or you can understand th…

It still remains that pages on Knol are getting much higher rankings than the pages themselves warrant. I wondered why the front page of Knol had such a random collection of content links - it seemed very ungoogle - now it looks like SEO that's damaging the reputation of their search engine.

I think it had a random collection of links because Knol is tiny and that's all they have. I'm sure it will change as they grow.

Re: Google Knol is Evil

#27

Post by akd »

vaksel wrote: post #25
neilc wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's Microsoft's operating system, if they want to pre-install certain apps, why not? There's nothing fundamentally wrong with Microsoft pre-installing apps, just like there is nothing wrong with Apple pre-installing apps on OSX, or Sun on Solaris.

if it wasn't, they wouldn't have lost all those anti-trust suits

The courts do not always assess right and wrong -- they are concerned with legal and illegal, which isn't the same thing.

Re: Google Knol is Evil

#28

Post by greendestiny »

paul wrote: post #26
greendestiny wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still remains that pages on Knol are getting much higher rankings than the pages themselves warrant. I wondered why the front page of Knol had such a random collection of content links - it seemed very ungoogle - now it looks like SEO that's damaging the reputation of their search engine.

I think it had a random collection of links because Knol is tiny and that's all they have. I'm sure it will change as they grow.

It sounds innocent enough, but it does point to some problems with their search ranking. The quality of their search results has to be far more important than Knol.

Re: Google Knol is Evil

#29

Post by fauigerzigerk »

nickb wrote: post #12
paul wrote: post #9

This is so stupid. Pagerank is based on links, Knol has a lot of links, therefore it has good pagerank. Why is that evil? Update: At the moment this comment is moderated -2, and the factually incorrect reply is +4. Nice.

How many sites/pages have you seen that have received a rank of 5 in a day and appear on the first page of SERPs, often at the top spot? As for number of incoming links, I doubt Knol pages have many from non-Google properties... they've been out there for less than a week.

But think about it. It would be such an incredibly stupid move for google to slay their golden goose just to prop up one of many new projects.

And I am actually unable to consistently reproduce evidence for preferencial ranking. If you search google for "Knee Surgery" knol is #109 and wikipedia is #11. The same search on yahoo gives you knol on #78 and wikipedia on #3

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