11 replies to this topic

[kulpreet_singh]

<rant title="3 in the morning"> :mr_rant:

No matter how big they are, regardless of their monopoly or oligopoly, search engines should be answerable to some regulation authority. If webmasters must follow web standards, if copywriters must follow copyrights, search engines should follow fair standards of practice.

SEARCH ENGINES!?! Answerable to somebody?! :rofl:

Yes.

Over the past few days I have read a few posts from Cre8asite members citing the insane amount of power held by Google. Search engines, especially Google, can make or break someone's business with their decisions. And they are not answerable to anyone.

When Microsoft was fined for monopolistic competition tactics, many people cheered. Almost all industries around the world have regulatory bodies. I don't see as much organized action to curb the monopolistic influence of Google.

Although millions of businesses around the world spend hundreds of millions of dollars on search engine optimization (or more), Google doesn't offer any technical support or solution service for unfair ranking situations. Of course, everybody with poor ranking thinks it's unfair; but I mean, for example, they've introduced a lot of search results features such as the authoritative local result, or the site search within a result, that don't give the user the most relevant results, and unfairly penalize some of the highest quality websites.

There must be some type of authority that can rein these big boys in and make them follow some protocols about the consistency and fairness of their service. Of course the regulation would have to apply across the board, or else other search engines would capitalize on it, but something is really needed!

Am I :violin: or am I ?

</rant>

Edited by kulpreet_singh, 14 March 2008 - 04:30 AM.

[EGOL]

I own a website and nobody can tell me what content must be added and what content must be featured on my homepage. It is my liberty as the owner to make those decisions. If I do a good job at these things then my site will enjoy more visitors and if I do a poor job the visitors will go away - to other websites which do a better job in the opinion of the user. It is a "user's choice" economy and since the price is free there is no loss - even if bad service is delivered.

I think that these same principles apply to google.

Now, if google charges you to be included in their search engine and in exchange for that charge you were promised fair rankings then google would have an obligation to deliver on that promise. But the problem would be deciding what is fair. Quite difficult to define that.

Google does charge for PPC rankings but the user is able to set the price per visitor himself or the price per thousand impressions. If the user is not happy with the results he can go elsewhere to advertise.

I think that it would be very difficult to enforce rules on a company that offers their service for free or offers a service where the user sets his own price.

Last month my income dropped about 30% because of decisions made by search engines. I was smarting over that for a few days but now am back to work on a new opportunity and am making money at it already.

I think that the key is to know your vulnerabilities and anticipate what you will do WHEN (not if) you are hit there. Search engines are opportunities that we can use or ignore. If we use them we need to have diversity in our income streams as we do not control the opportunities presented or the length of time that they will be available.

Edited by EGOL, 14 March 2008 - 08:06 AM.

[Respree]

There's something about a good rant that somehow makes people feel better. I hope it worked for you and that the 3 a.m. was not somehow connected to this issue.

Personally, I think people are sometimes a little too harsh with the search engines with the criticism.

If I go out to a fancy restaruant and drop $200 on dinner, I want to be treated like a king and I want the food to no less than excellent. If I am invited to someone's house for dinner, I don't complain about bad service or if the food tasted lousy. I smile politely and thank them.

Being in the SERP doesn't cost you a dime, which puts one in a similar position of my invited dinner guest. I think if I owned Yahoo or Google and people started complaining that they didn't like the free service I was offering, I'd probably just eject the ungrateful guest from index and see if they liked that any better.

If you think about promotional activities before the Internet, try to add up all the money one would have to spend to nationally promote a product or service - radio spots, television air and production time, printed publications, billboards and the like. The smaller guys (like you and me) would be severely handicapped, being forced to advertise in local newspapers or smaller/local publications. Big guys versus small guys? No contest.

However, the playing field now becomes magically leveled in the SERPs, depending on how well you understand how the (free) game is played. On my primary product, I get preferrential treatment (in the SERPs) over the likes of giant companies like Wal-Mart, only because I've played the game slightly better -- something that would never happen in the non virtual world. In the real world, they get to squash me like a bug (that I am to them).

I wouldn't be too hard on them -- they have their good points too.

Edited by Respree, 14 March 2008 - 12:27 PM.

[bwelford]

Life is invigorated by a good rant, at whatever hour. However on this one, I'm with Respree.

The picture I often suggest that typifies the Internet is "Where's Waldo", that series of pictures for kids. Hordes of people and somewhere or other if you're persistent you can find Waldo. It's just as tough for the big guys to be seen as you and me. With a little smarts and hard work, you can be the one that stands out from the crowd when someone searches with their binoc-googlers.

[iamlost]

I, like many (most?) web developers have a love-hate Google relationship.

The critical things to remember are:
* which bots (including G's) you let in, where, and how often is within your control. In an ideal world all bots would show up and ask politely for access to each room of your site - that fantasy is long gone, except as a dream. But you can still restrict and bounce whomever you desire.

* the only potential 'legal' difficulty G might face is the public available 'cached' version available for many sites, which could be construed as a copyright violation. You can, however, invoke 'nocache' and control that problem.

* there is more to traffic than Google. There is even more to traffic than all the SEs combined. Especially these days with all the SM sites springing up. As a practical business decision I work very hard to create diverse traffic sources. Is Google a major, even the main, player in much of the world: yes. Can one survive, even prosper, without Google traffic - and without AdSense: also yes. But you need to plan and to work at traffic - and revenue - diversification.

There have always been inequities in business as in life. Think about the print Yellow pages: did the full page display ad beat out someone with only the bare basic name and number listing? Probably. For each query return page there are a limited number of spots per page and each subsequent page decreases in value significantly. Can a single player compete against the established 'big boys' for those choice spots? Many have and do.

In any business, to rely on one supplier, one buyer, or who ignores change is a failure waiting to happen. Ask any town based on one industry (the rust belt is a monument worth considering). The sad fact is that most online businesses actually are not being operated as a business (not referring to anyone in particular) but are really just build them and market them and hope like heck fly by the seat of one's pants operations.

We always hear about the successes - and there have been many. We rarely hear about the failures, although from indirect mentions and the anguish in fora they also are many, indeed are likely to be far more frequent than the successes. In the B&M world most small businesses fail within the first three years - which is why the 3-year mark is often used as a profitability marker. Why should the online world be different? Fortunately the online cost of failure is much much lower - giving one many more startups for the same investment.

Business model. Marketing plan. Business plan. The three formalities most often missing from online business.
Lawyer. Accountant. Banker. The three professionals most often missing from online business.

For web developers, Google is a potential resource: a source of traffic, a source of revenue. How one uses available resources is an individual decision.

That said. I enjoyed your rant. Sounds like some I've had. Not the 3am bit though - I am old and need my sleep.

[kulpreet_singh]

Thanks for your comments, EGOL, Garrick, Barry, and iamlost. I agree with most of what you're saying except for the statement that because the service offered by Google in organic search listings is free, it needs not be regulated. There are many companies that offer free services in order to attract mass visitors and then monetize from other services, and their free services are still subject to regulation. For example, no-fee bank accounts, newspapers that are free to the public, public schools, public healthcare (in Canada), or even soup kitchens etc. These services enable and empower the end-user without charge, but they still (should) have standards pertaining to copyrights, or fairness, or safety, even though their funding doesn't come from the direct consumer.

Just a note to clarify: the rant was not about certain rankings being higher or lower - that is the name of the game. It was more about SE's being considered above regulation, which goes far beyond a single consumer.

Edited by kulpreet_singh, 14 March 2008 - 02:57 PM.

[SEOigloo]

Hi Kulpreet Signh -
I have those 3 AM feelings myself some times. Good rant.

2 Things I'd Like To Add:

1) Being free shouldn't be an excuse for being inaccurate. In the organic serps, we deal mainly with the concept of relevance, and for the most part, I think Google is doing a good job with this much of the time. I feel I can usually count on Google to retrieve the information I need. However, this falls apart when we move away to Google's Local vertical. Businesses are literally getting smashed because of inaccuracies and bugs in Google's entity. Having Google scrape a wrong phone number for your business, show someone else's address for your business or lose all of your positive and hard-won reviews can literally kill a business because of the prominence and perceived authority of Maps. I suggested to Mike Blumenthal that because it's a free service, it's hard to complain, and he convinced me I was wrong feeling like this. A company with as much authority as Google needs to take responsibility for getting it right or they adversely affect countless businesses. He's right about this.

So, while the SERPs take users directly to your website where you have total control over the accuracy of your content, the moment Google decided to start representing all local businesses with their local interface, they took onto their shoulders the responsibility of being accurate, transparent and available to business owners, whether they charge for it or not. They are failing to do this well at present.

2) I am curious if part of your rant was fueled by Danny Sullivan's SEL post about Google owning the SEO company. At this point, I feel ready to yell a bit about that. The conflict of interest is evident and undesirable for a fair market and they need to divest themselves of that interest if they want to play nice. Do they want to play nice? We'll see.

Thanks for starting this thread, Kulpreet Singh. It's a good one.
Miriam

[Autocrat]

[Of course, all merely my view/opinion/thought]

...kulpreet_singh...
I can see where you are comming from.

The problem is that people always identify a single source for such topics... namely google.
It is not just Google, it is the web/net industry in general.
Anyone can claim anything, and there is no "wrong" of it (bar certain content/negatives which is the few cases where real world intervenes).

Otherwise, it's more than open to abuse.

Now I know, and appreciate, that others hold a different view; that the net is a wonderful thing... open, writable and permits freedom etc.
Unfortunately, it also means that it is easily abused, used for negatives and anyone can mess others around with it.


I know this will fall on deaf ears, but hear's an analogy.
You want to sell your home.
There is a company that will pop over, have a look, and evalute your house... no charge, no obligation etc.
They then post details of your home in their ever popular houses-for-sale directory.
They give your house a rating of 60 out of 100.
This influences the likelyhood of your house being bought... considerably... no one is likely to offer near the asking price, because of the score that company gave you.

So... you decide to try to improve your house-sale score... unfortunately... all you can find is general guidelines.... that are often open-ended and obscure... "make sure you have good windows"... "have an attractive garden"... "make sure people can access your house"... etc.

So... you can either ask to be removed from the house sales directory, pay someone to come round your house and make improvements (at the risk they will do a bad job!), pay to be listed in private directories etc. (or a mix of those).


Sound about right?
Of course not... you will pick holes, say it's not comparable etc.
No matter - the gist of it is that when you reach a point of power, you get responsibility... and yes, you do become answerable, to those you provide a service to, whether free or not.
This becomes more so once you are a business (making money) whether directly or indirectly.

One little hicup, a silly mistake, a minor change; can ruin millions of businesses and lives.
If you don't think that should be at least "watched"........

[Of course, all merely my view/opinion/thought]

Edited by Autocrat, 15 March 2008 - 06:51 AM.

[kulpreet_singh]

Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts Miriam and Autocrat.

The point you both make is key -- any service, free or paid, should come under public scrutiny and professional regulation once it becomes so influential and pervasive.

Miriam - About Danny's post - no I hadn't read that yet but I will check it out.

Edited by kulpreet_singh, 17 March 2008 - 05:09 PM.

[Ron Carnell]

Y'all are just attacking the middle man and missing the real target. It's not search engines that "can ruin millions of businesses and lives."

It's those damn consumers.

Let's just skip over all the middle-man crap and regulate the people with the money!

First rule: They all have to buy from ME.

Second rule: Since accuracy is important, consumers can no longer buy silly things like pet rocks or geo-pets. Anyone with money can only buy approved and "right" items. Uh, unless of course, they buy them from me?

Third rule: Oh, to hell with all this nonsense about rules. Commerce is stupid any way. Just give me all the money in the world and be done with it.

We all want what's fair, right?

[IncrediBILL]

Sorry, but I must side somewhat with the original poster.

The difference between Google and the old days of Yahoo's directory was that Yahoo was an OPT-IN situation where everyone SUBMITTED to Yahoo to get included. If you didn't want to be included it was as simple as you didn't submit to Yahoo.

However, when the search engines came along even before Google, they just crawled every link whether you wanted to be crawled at all, took your content without permission, and forced people to OPT-OUT of their services.

I would say that the OPT-OUT services which built their billions on the backs of people without permission should give much better service because we were never asked to participate in the first place!

Some here will argue that Google is a "FREE" service but it's also a service full of technically stolen content so having them provide no services for webmasters having problems yet take whatever they want in order to make billions definitely rubs me the wrong way.

The problem is, they provide value in terms of traffic so people kind of overlook the dirty side of the whole search engine business.

Let's face it, without OUR websites there would be no need for search engines so technically WE have all the power.

Now the question is how do you regain that power?

[Ron Carnell]

The difference between Google and the old days of Yahoo's directory was that Yahoo was an OPT-IN situation where everyone SUBMITTED to Yahoo to get included. If you didn't want to be included it was as simple as you didn't submit to Yahoo.

Not quite true, Bill. I have nearly a dozen listings in the Yahoo directory that I never requested. Like any "real" directory, be it Yahoo or ODP or Looksmart, the good editors actively seek out links, they don't just wait for them to be submitted. There are, indeed, a lot of differences between the old Yahoo directory and Google (as is true of any directory versus search engine), but this isn't one of them.