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Google Casts a Big Shadow on Smaller Web Sites

nytimes.com

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Re: Google Casts a Big Shadow on Smaller Web Sites

#41

Post by codeka »

staunch wrote: post #25
itp wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you can help me understand this analogy a little better. You say that it's similar to when Microsoft decided to bundle IE into Windows, but the comparison isn't totally obvious to me at first blush. Microsoft went to great (and often illegal?) lengths to prevent customers from considering or being able to make use of alternatives. Consumers had a great deal of lock in -- a user of a Windows computer often had s…

The thing that's similar to what Microsoft did with IE is that Google is leveraging its monopoly position to compete in new businesses. Search "headphones" on Google and you'll see the massive ad spot taken up by Google Shopping. They've done similar things with the way they integrate Google Local/Zagat into local business searches. That's the equivalent of the kind of deep integration Microsoft did with IE. IE wasn'…

> Search "headphones" on Google and you'll see the massive ad spot taken up by Google Shopping

What's wrong with that? If I'm searching for headphones, why would I want to be taken to another search engine that indexes headphones? I want to be see the best prices and be taken directly to the websites that actually sell headphones.

There's nothing inherently wrong with a monopoly. If you think Google is a monopoly, it's only because they provide the best results. Switching to a different search engine is so unbelievably easy, I don't see how you could ever claim Google's monopoly is harmful to consumers.

Re: Google Casts a Big Shadow on Smaller Web Sites

#42

Post by FreeKill »

codeka wrote: post #41
staunch wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that's similar to what Microsoft did with IE is that Google is leveraging its monopoly position to compete in new businesses. Search "headphones" on Google and you'll see the massive ad spot taken up by Google Shopping. They've done similar things with the way they integrate Google Local/Zagat into local business searches. That's the equivalent of the kind of deep integration Microsoft did with IE. IE wasn'…

> Search "headphones" on Google and you'll see the massive ad spot taken up by Google Shopping What's wrong with that? If I'm searching for headphones, why would I want to be taken to another search engine that indexes headphones? I want to be see the best prices and be taken directly to the websites that actually sell headphones. There's nothing inherently wrong with a monopoly. If you think Google is a monopoly, it…

There's nothing wrong with it, other than that fact that you have no choice in that case but to take Google's word for it on the lowest price. Maybe there are other sites out there that do a better job finding low price headphones but you'll never see them in the search because Google prefers its own sub-standard offering instead.

Re: Google Casts a Big Shadow on Smaller Web Sites

#43

Post by EGreg »

It seems like NexTag, and maybe other sites, are complaining that they are getting less free traffic from google. Why do they think they are entitled to have as much free traffic as ever?

Towards the end, they say they are on their way to stop living in "Google's world" and the revised plan gives them "a shot at being a very healthy company," less dependent on Google. Well, great! So if they are able to do that, why involve regulators? They should have done that before!

Re: Google Casts a Big Shadow on Smaller Web Sites

#44

Post by arrrg »

dchuk wrote: post #39
joelrunyon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has 2 customers: Searchers AND customers. Google has to get searchers to sell to advertisers. That said, the generic 'websites' mentioned above are not Google customers. Google does not "owe" them anything – they owe the searchers the best results and the advertisers clicks at a certain cost. The only thing those other websites do with their free listings are attract eyeballs to Google's engine.

No, a searcher is not a customer, a searcher is the PRODUCT. Google is the marketplace, their customers (advertisers) are buying the product (traffic) via ad spend. The entire reason Google improves the search engine is to keep you coming back so they can learn more about you to make their advertising even better. You, as a user of Google, are their product. They are selling YOU to advertisers. Google is a company, n…

The economics of this all are quite interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-sided_market

However, cheap polemics (like being very adamant about who gets to be the customer) help nobody. Two-sided markets can push prices for one side of the market below zero, that’s just an inherent property of those markets. That does not mean the one side is the product.

Google has to provide value to you, otherwise they couldn’t make money. If they screw you they screw themselves.

Now, this doesn’t mean that Google can do no evil, but it does mean that you can’t just assume by default that the relationship between users and Google is an exploitative one.

(And two-sided markets are nothing new. Google has essentially the same business model as the free magazine that informs me about cultural events in my hometown. Because of their very well targeted ads – local restaurants, businesses, etc., often pointing to current events – they can offer that magazine for free. That doesn’t mean I’m the product.)

Re: Google Casts a Big Shadow on Smaller Web Sites

#45

Post by WalterGR »

snogglethorpe wrote: post #12
sudont wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically, the volatility of their algorithm and the opaqueness of it means that any small business that is getting >80% Google-referred traffic is in for a tough time if they're marked as bad. And mistakes happen. Say: * A canonical tag that shows up due to a bug. Dead. * Industry terms that appear duplicative to the NLP parser. Dead. * Too-diverse content. Lower rankings, but functionally dead. There's tons more, b…

This smells like bullshit to me. Google's search results are generally extremely good from the "customer's" point of view. People whining about how they're hurt by losing search position inevitably turn out to be spammers or other lowlife that have been trying to use "SEO" or some other shady practice to artificially inflate their search position. So yeah, Google is bad for con-men. Darn.

People whining about how they're hurt by losing search position inevitably turn out to be spammers or other lowlife that have been trying to use "SEO" or some other shady practice to artificially inflate their search position.

I have a slang dictionary site that's currently being penalized by Google for showing citations of slang use gathered (by hand) from media.

With the penalty, Google sends 1/3 less search traffic. And I whine about it. But I'm not a con man.

Re: Google Casts a Big Shadow on Smaller Web Sites

#46

Post by EGreg »

dchuk wrote: post #39
joelrunyon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has 2 customers: Searchers AND customers. Google has to get searchers to sell to advertisers. That said, the generic 'websites' mentioned above are not Google customers. Google does not "owe" them anything – they owe the searchers the best results and the advertisers clicks at a certain cost. The only thing those other websites do with their free listings are attract eyeballs to Google's engine.

No, a searcher is not a customer, a searcher is the PRODUCT. Google is the marketplace, their customers (advertisers) are buying the product (traffic) via ad spend. The entire reason Google improves the search engine is to keep you coming back so they can learn more about you to make their advertising even better. You, as a user of Google, are their product. They are selling YOU to advertisers. Google is a company, n…

Once Google gets competitors like Bing, the product ceases to be the user and the product becomes the paid ads. If the business isn't getting their money's worth from the ads + the free stuff from google, they stop buying the product. Google apps, analytics, etc. are also products.

Re: Google Casts a Big Shadow on Smaller Web Sites

#47

Post by EGreg »

dchuk wrote: post #39
joelrunyon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has 2 customers: Searchers AND customers. Google has to get searchers to sell to advertisers. That said, the generic 'websites' mentioned above are not Google customers. Google does not "owe" them anything – they owe the searchers the best results and the advertisers clicks at a certain cost. The only thing those other websites do with their free listings are attract eyeballs to Google's engine.

No, a searcher is not a customer, a searcher is the PRODUCT. Google is the marketplace, their customers (advertisers) are buying the product (traffic) via ad spend. The entire reason Google improves the search engine is to keep you coming back so they can learn more about you to make their advertising even better. You, as a user of Google, are their product. They are selling YOU to advertisers. Google is a company, n…

Google isn't selling people, it's selling ads on a platform that people use. There's a serious difference.

Re: Google Casts a Big Shadow on Smaller Web Sites

#48

Post by Joe_Knapp »

ruby_on_rails wrote: post #22
sudont wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically, the volatility of their algorithm and the opaqueness of it means that any small business that is getting >80% Google-referred traffic is in for a tough time if they're marked as bad. And mistakes happen. Say: * A canonical tag that shows up due to a bug. Dead. * Industry terms that appear duplicative to the NLP parser. Dead. * Too-diverse content. Lower rankings, but functionally dead. There's tons more, b…

I also call bullshit on this. Google is very open to webmasters,and has a giant like 40 page .pdf available to them strictly about what things get better search results and what things cause negative results or out right panda-ing. The article says right up front about the voting website that they had duplicated content on pages and no one linking to them to boot. Both are known negatives to anyone working in SEO or…

Okay so how does a small business get their site listed in Google in 2012? Answer: Its almost impossible without at least a $10,000 investment. Some areas much more. Small business is locked out.

Re: Google Casts a Big Shadow on Smaller Web Sites

#49

Post by gojomo »

dchuk wrote: post #39
joelrunyon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has 2 customers: Searchers AND customers. Google has to get searchers to sell to advertisers. That said, the generic 'websites' mentioned above are not Google customers. Google does not "owe" them anything – they owe the searchers the best results and the advertisers clicks at a certain cost. The only thing those other websites do with their free listings are attract eyeballs to Google's engine.

No, a searcher is not a customer, a searcher is the PRODUCT. Google is the marketplace, their customers (advertisers) are buying the product (traffic) via ad spend. The entire reason Google improves the search engine is to keep you coming back so they can learn more about you to make their advertising even better. You, as a user of Google, are their product. They are selling YOU to advertisers. Google is a company, n…

This 'users are the product, advertisers are the customer' insight can be useful, but can also be overdone.

It's also useful to recognize that for some of Google's lines of business, the payment offered is not money, but attention (or perhaps habit). Then, searchers are again customers, after a fashion.

This better recognizes the searchers' customer-like power, in some dimensions. Otherwise, as just the 'product', were they mined from the ground? Grown like crops? Manufactured? No, their attention was acquired in a voluntary, market-like but non-monetary exchange of value for value.

Re: Google Casts a Big Shadow on Smaller Web Sites

#50

Post by enneff »

snogglethorpe wrote: post #14
camus wrote: post #6

The question is, is google the web? why do we rely so much on google ? because we became lazy ... because browsers like firefox promoted google search heavily , until it becomes obsolete as a browser itself because of chrome , because all these comparison sites built their businesses on google search engine, and now google has his own shopping search engine , they became obsolete , and the list goes on and on... our…

> why do we rely so much on google ? because we became lazy Because google delivers amazingly good results. [Oh, and FF certainly isn't "obsolete because of chrome." Both are fine browsers, and the competition has proved beneficial to both of them.]

Furthermore, judging by this graph

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Usage_share_o...

it seems that Chrome's rise in popularity correlates with IE's decline.

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