Is Google Broken?

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2007/10/03/is-google-broken.aspx

This grabber headline by Rick Aristotle Munarriz leads into a story which observes that several of Google's partners are stumbling: MIVA, Answers...

Quote: "Google arms third-party publishers with industry-leading monetization tools, but for those publishers, it's strictly BYOE -- bring your own eyeballs.... Answers.com has been sprinkling its reference pages with Google ads since 2005... Again, the Answers.com slump isn't a reflection on the quality of Google as a monetizing genius. The company conceded at the time that its site traffic was off by 28%, due mostly to a change in Google's search-engine algorithms... "

So the message is, if you get your traffic from Google, don't try to monetize there ..  If you become too successful, Google's algorithmic search side will scrub your pages from their index.. Then they'll rotate other relevant publishers into your position... all in the name of keeping Google's front-door search users happy.

Quote: "So we shouldn't assume that weakness at Google's partners spells weakness at Big G itself."

.. As a publisher, I've always viewed Google as a bit of a predator in this context..  taking publishers in, convincing them to serve Google ads, and then allowing those publishers to toil for Google, working sites into their algo to serve the beast, all for increasing revenues, finally to have Google's algorithm scrub you from the index if you become too successful at punching ad converting pages to the top..  Good publishers take on the role of sacrificial lamb to show the algo guys where the holes are and they get to ride the express elevator to the street as a reward.

As Aristotle points out.. The publishers who do best at Google are those with high quality content and no ads at all (Wikipedia) or those who deliver quality non-Google originating traffic to Google's ad marketplace (domain names).  If Google could find a way to chew and spit those parties in the name of a better Google, it would.

Comments

[Andrew Johnson]

It would seem it is in Google's best interests for all of its top organic positions to monetize through them.

May be they really are focused on delivering the most relevant search results. Given that Answers.com is just a rehash of other people's content, a loss of traffic on their part is not surprising.

Even more, Wikipedia represents a real strategic threat to Google. Already a good chunk of my searches go straight to Wikipedia (search plugin with Firefox makes this very easy.) Additionally, we know Jimmy Wales is building a search engine to compete with Google. Whether or not he will be able to use Wikipedia to drive traffic to it is unknown.

I think its a farce to call either MIVA or Answers.com Google partners. Both are just arbitragers. In Answers case, they are arbitraging free traffic (which really isn't free because it takes time and capital to rank on Google.) The Fool article has some good info, but the premise of it is misleading.

[Danno]

Hi,

"".. As a publisher, I've always viewed Google as a bit of a predator in this context.. taking publishers in, convincing them to serve Google ads, and then allowing those publishers to toil for Google, working sites into their algo to serve the beast, all for increasing revenues, finally to have Google's algorithm scrub you from the index if you become too successful at punching ad converting pages to the top...

Good publishers take on the role of sacrificial lamb to show the algo guys where the holes are and they get to ride the express elevator to the street as a reward.""
_____
Frank, very nice photo you selected to put next to this part of the story...it adds thousands of more words to the story.
_____

I am going to have to re-read this article to see if I want to comment on it further.

After posting this story:
http://frankschilling.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/10/so-it-begins.html

And then coming right back with this story...you gotta love Franks blog here at 'seven mile'.

I will just say this right now,

This is the Google I know. With things like whats in this story coupled with everything else about Google...Google is not the domain owner(s) or website owners friend. Not if you want to make stable, long lasting income from theses assets from Internet search.

Peace!
Dan

[Crystal L. Cox]

So, is it Bad to have google ads on your website or is it good ? Do you suggest diversification for the ads one places on their websites or domains ?

[rhart]

Frank,

Some may notice a recent drop in Google PPC. In our opinion, it is Yahoo that is pushing down Google Adsense sites in search results, not Google.

R