
Google Casts a Big Shadow on Smaller Web Sites - iProject
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/technology/google-casts-a-big-shadow-on-smaller-web-sites.html?pagewanted=all
======
staunch
The problem is that Google competes with businesses that once thrived on its
platform. It's similar to when Microsoft decided to bundle IE into Windows.
Google now bundles comparison shopping and local business reviews into search.

If they go too far in this direction it will probably hurt them. Users don't
want a search engine that puts its own, lesser quality, sites at the top.

It'd be amazing if Google spun off Google Search as its own company. The
business is so narrow and successful that it could probably survive for 50
years without any fundamental change. Instead, it's being distorted and
weighed down by a sprawling organization that's desperate to create new
businesses, and compromising the search product to do so.

~~~
itp
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 software that would
only be compatible with a new computer that also ran Windows, for instance.
And Microsoft was able to use that leverage to acquire and keep users of its
browser software.

Google doesn't seem to be following that pattern, as far as I can see. Users
can (and do) make use of Google services from non-Google platforms. Google
makes its products available to people using browsers other than Chrome,
phones other than Android, etc. Performing a Google search requires no
account.

I use Google for a lot of services, and I certainly don't want a lesser
quality site at the top of my search results. I haven't seen that, either. I
_have_ seen Google augment its already stellar services with new features that
enhance my experience, and I ignore those things that haven't. If I ever find
myself unable to ignore or disable things, I'll probably switch to another
search engine. Which I'm free to do, since my use of the internet isn't
controlled by Google!

You make some assertions that I'm just not seeing the evidence for, but I'd
like to hear more about them. It seems uncontroversial that users don't want
lesser quality search results. Where is the evidence that they are seeing
them? And if they are, why aren't they switching to a different search engine?
Why should Google have to separate their "core" search business from their
other ventures right at a time when the expanded product (things like Google
Now) is proving just how revolutionary a next-generation, personalized, multi-
source search agent can be?

~~~
staunch
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't just another application in Windows, it was built-in and
inseparable. The same is true of Google's products, they're automatically
highlighted, and at the top of, every relevant query.

It seems pretty obviously anti-competitive to me. I think their only defense
is that they claim not to be a monopoly, but no one who's on the receiving end
of Google traffic can agree with that claim.

I actually think they should spin off Google Search for their own sake. To
maintain the integrity and long-term quality of the product.

~~~
codeka
> 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.

~~~
FreeKill
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.

~~~
makomk
There aren't. I reckon that's probably why Google offered Google Shopping in
the first place - all the other price comparison sites I've tried sucked, and
it's hard to come up with a suitable incentive not to suck given the SEO
techniques they use.

~~~
FreeKill
That might be true, but it doesn't mean there won't ever be...

~~~
denzil_correa
That line of thinking can turn any organization into an orwellian entity.

------
TomGullen
What's the complaint here? Google makes changes that sometimes negatively
impact someone's business?

As long as Google's algorithm is trending in the correct direction (that is
towards better quality results) then these complaints are just growing pains
and I don't see much of a problem.

Some startups are criticised for simply being features of a chosen platform.
Once they get big enough, the platform in control will simply add the feature
and eliminate the startup. I'm unfamiliar with Nextag but it looks like a
price comparison site and you could perhaps argue that price comparison is
simply a missing feature of Google.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
>What's the complaint here? Google makes changes that sometimes negatively
impact someone's business?

As far as I can tell, it's largely a bunch of spammers trying to attack Google
for downranking their spam.

The argument is that Google competes with them and so shouldn't be allowed to
use its dominance to favor its own service. But it's pure nonsense. These
companies aren't valid search results. They only ever got into the results
through SEO, and then they wail when the algorithm improves to kick them out.
Someone who searches for "kitchen table" is looking for a website selling or
providing information about kitchen tables, not a search engine that allows
them to search for websites selling or providing information about kitchen
tables. The user is already _on_ a search engine -- other search engines are
not relevant search results unless the search term is in the nature of "XYZ
search engine."

What the complainers are doing is the equivalent of going into the largest
chain of retail stores and putting boxes on the shelves labeled with a brand
that the major retailer doesn't carry, which don't actually contain any
product but instead contain a map to other stores that carry the brand the
retailer doesn't. And then complaining when the retailer doesn't allow the
spam products to remain on their shelves, and claiming it's an antitrust
violation because the retailer has the most market share and it sells its own
competing brands of products.

Naturally that doesn't convince judges or sell newspapers, so the spammers
scour the world for instances of algorithmic imperfection that give a bad
ranking to someone _else_ , who unlike the spammers didn't actually deserve
it, and then play ominous music as they reveal the shocking fact that some
Google engineer's 20% project or some little-known subsidiary responsible for
0.00043% of corporate revenue arguably competes with the disadvantaged website
in some fashion.

~~~
Evbn
As HN favorite duckduckgo shows, sometimes the best result a search engine can
provide is in fact another search engine. But not always, and not forever.

------
stfu
_“We try very hard to make sure we communicate with Webmasters,” Mr. Cutts
says. For instance, he says, he reassured Gawker Media that it would remain in
search results after Hurricane Sandy caused it to crash._

This somewhat perfectly summarizes the genius solution Google found to
customer service. Google is very keen to react with a personal face to high
profile cases while at the same time squeezing all the thousands of faceless
small businesses in similar situations into Adwords.

~~~
TomGullen
How is Google squeezing small businesses?

~~~
sudont
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, but I'm not a practitioner of SEO.

~~~
snogglethorpe
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.

~~~
don_draper
I've been spending time in Black Hat internet marketing forums (out of
curiosity). They hate Google. Google is consistently making their search
engine better for the user and worse for spammers.

------
ridiculous_fish
I think the most serious concern is how Google promotes its own offerings
above more popular competitors in the search results section. For example, do
a search for "finance" and Google Finance is shown above Yahoo! finance, even
though Yahoo! finance is better by most measures, and far more popular (see
[http://www.businessinsider.com/google-finance-yahoo-
finance-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/google-finance-yahoo-
finance-2012-8) )

If you rely on Google to drive traffic, but also compete with Google, that
puts you in a difficult spot.

Consumers ought to be annoyed too. Google has historically does a good job
distinguishing between links that are artificially promoted (ads) and
algorithmic rankings. But Google is artificially promoting their own offerings
and presenting them as if they're a result of the algorithm.

This seems like a bad strategy. It has the potential to shake user confidence
in Google's impartiality and link quality, annoy site maintainers, and drive
away advertisers.

~~~
timothya
I'm not convinced that Google moves it's own results up as part of the organic
search results. Bing puts Google Finance first before Yahoo Finance as well.
Regardless of it's popularity, its position may simply because of other
signals in the ranking algorithm.

~~~
ridiculous_fish
Google freely admits to putting their own links first. Here's what Marissa
Mayer said in 2007:

 _We didn't actually have Google Finance until about a year ago. Up until then
we were ordering the links based on various published metrics... We had the
five top finance sites in their order of their popularity listed there. So we
rolled out Google Finance, we put the Google link first._

(You can watch it at <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT1UFZSbcxE> \- that
quote starts at 44:50.)

Your observation regarding Bing is quite interesting. Your theory may very
well be right, but there's a hilarious alternative:

It's known that Microsoft uses Google's rankings (see
[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/microsofts-bing-
uses-...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/microsofts-bing-uses-google-
search.html) ). This would then propagate onto Yahoo, which uses Bing's
engine, which means that Yahoo is told their own site is less popular. But
Yahoo puts their site first, which may mean they're artificially boosting its
ranking, under the guidance of you know who!

So 2012 Marissa Mayer may be artificially boosting Yahoo's rank to defeat
2007's Marissa Mayer's artificial boost of Google's rank. Ha!

~~~
jkn
Mayer's answer actually starts at 44:34 and gives the proper context: she's
talking about the order of links in the OneBox (the area at the top that shows
the current stock price and a plot), not the order of links in the main
results. Danny Sullivan wrote a long post about this:

[http://searchengineland.com/dear-congress-its-not-ok-not-
to-...](http://searchengineland.com/dear-congress-its-not-ok-not-to-know-how-
search-engines-work-either-105265)

------
programminggeek
The problem: "Nextag’s response? It doubled its spending on Google paid search
advertising in the last five months."

Google knows this and they have an incentive to move "commercial" sites
towards AdWords and move "informational" sites higher in the organic results.
The benefit is engineers can claim they are providing a better end user search
experience while AdWords can make even more money.

The bigger problem is that the top 10 on a search string can be very
arbitrary. What should be the top ten for the search term "shoes"? Wikipedia?
Zappos? Local shoe stores? A blog about shoes? Are the top 10 the top 10
because they should be there or simply because Google put them there?

Nextag is an example of a company built on a platform (Google organic search
results) that is somewhat hostile to Nextag's business. It's similar to the
whole Twitter client app situation. Nextag needs Google, but Google doesn't
need Nextag. It's an unequal partnership of sorts and Google doesn't care of
Nextag exists.

It's too bad, but that is the nature of Google's platform.

------
lazyjones
I can sympathize with Nextag on the topic of Google entering their market and
_possibly_ being a little less than objective regarding their own product
(Benjamin Edelman has written about this several times:
<http://www.benedelman.org/>).

On the other hand, getting 60% traffic from Google is very unhealthy (18 mil.
of 30 mil. monthly users?) and doesn't make Nextag look like a site people
stick to because of its quality. None of the sites I visit daily (directly)
has anywhere near that much search traffic (according to Alexa), so perhaps
Nextag hits are perceived by searchers as "generic", interchangeable results
that happen to rank well on Google and they don't care much whether the hits
are from Nextag, Google Shopping or any other e-commerce site.

------
jameswyse
If these kind of sites stop clogging up my search results then I'm all for it,
good job Google!

------
greggoodson
Wow - when will this guy stop? This isn't new. Every few months, Jeff Katz
goes on a Google rant. And it's getting old.

From 2011.
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190337400457658...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903374004576583092262671326.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories)
[http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/08/nextag-ceo-google-is-a-
mono...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/08/nextag-ceo-google-is-a-monopoly-
google-youve-got-plenty-of-choice/)

Having worked in-house for several large online retailers as well as a handful
of independent clients on the side, the comparison shopping engine industry
was my obsession for several years. CSEs can make you money, but it doesn't
take long to figure out all CSEs do is play a game of "sell traffic to
retailers for cheaper than they can buy it themselves." After 12 months of
CSEs, it was obvious that being a "CSE expert" wasn't a good career path for
me.

Arguably, Nextag's four competitors are Google Shopping, Pricegrabber,
Shopzilla, and Shopping.com. Google Shopping was free to list your products
for the longest time (until earlier this year), which provided for a much
better user experience. Between 2008 and 2010, Google Shopping's marketshare
kept eating away at these other CSEs. It was clear their product was better on
all fronts.

I think it should also be noted that in 2005, Shopzilla was acquired by
Scripps for $525M. Scripps sold Shopzilla to a private equity company for
$165M last year. Pricegrabber was bought in 2005 as well - $485M price tag.
They just got dumped for ~$80M.

Most CSEs were founded in the 90s; you could argue that their models haven't
changed since. It's not working anymore. Take it with a grain of salt, but
peek at Google trends and Nextag's Alexa site info:

<http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/nextag.com>
<http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=nextag>

Nextag's services are becoming obsolete. I find it concerning that their
response is to "double its spending on Google paid search advertising in the
last five months". I guarantee you they're seeing the same kind of traffic
patterns in Bing as well.

Nextag is just a whole bunch of click arbitrage silliness. Don't drink the
kool-aid.

------
alpatters
I do wonder sometimes if google's own site would pass its site quality
guidelines. Like duplicated content; the same content appearing on multiple
pages, all pages should be linked from somewhere on the site or a site map,
substantial original content.

I think it fails on all three of these, so in some sense it is anti-
competitive to block other sites that fail these measures whilst it doesn't
hold itself up to those same standards.

~~~
Evbn
Example of a bad google page that ranks high in search?

------
mladenkovacevic
Hmm I wonder if Nextag's traffic is being affected not by Google's algorithm
changing to hurt them personally, but rather to include more localized
results.

Example: Whenever I want to do comparison shopping I would type in "{{product
name}} price canada". A few years ago Nextag would always come up first and I
would click on it, only to be frustrated by the fact that the retailers listed
were all American. Now not too long ago more and more of these services
cropped up that offered Canadian listings (shopbot.ca, canoe.ca, and now even
Canada Post has their own website that does the same thing). Now imagine this
happening country by country all over the world and it's not inconceivable
that Nextag's traffic would be shrinking. Also I've just realized that Nextag
also has a .ca destination but for some reason I've NEVER seen it come up in
my results.

------
joelrunyon
The entire premise of this article seems bogus to me.

"Google casts a big shadow on smaller web sites."

That title implies that Google is specifically targeting smaller web sites
which isn't the case.

The problem seems to be that some shady small business did some shady stuff,
got caught and got mad about it.

Google didn't go and replace them with walmart, they probably replaced them in
the results with a similar sized company. Someone lost and someone won –
that's it.

I'm the first to say Google should step up it's customer service, but it's
disingenuous to act like Google is proactively seeking out small businesses
who never did anything wrong in favor of big massive conglomerations.

------
alexkearns
Our web app has recently been hit by a Google algorithm change. Search traffic
has fallen off a cliff. If it continues, it could be a threat to our business.

We have never done any underhand SEO. We haven't done any SEO at all. People
love the app but now, alas, they can't find it.

Ironically, just before we fell out of the search rankings, a Google developer
evangelist got in touch to say how much they liked our app and that Google
would like to partner with our app on an upcoming initiative.

If there are any Google engineers here who would like to help, I'd be most
appreciative.

~~~
Evbn
Do some white hat SEO.

Google.com/webmaster

------
xpose2000
It's tough to find any wrong doing by Google in an article like this. It's
pure speculation. Many of their tools, step on other sites toes. Hipmunk and
kayak recently had to deal with <https://www.google.com/flights/>.

When searching for goods such as "macbook pro" you'll notice sponsored links
with prices that Google "may be compensated from". That type of stuff seems
unfair to me.

I won't say Google is playing unfair as of late, but they are certainly more
than just displaying results these days.

------
bocalogic
Well, if you are not satisfied with google you can always use bing and yahoo.
I do suggest you search for the same thing on each service to see the
differences in your rankings.

One thing I did not see mentioned was the new google rollout on adwords and
merchant center (google base feed). Google use to allow free submissions of
products into the shopping segment, but now all of your product submissions
must be linked to an adwords account by which google adwords can charge you.
It steps directly on nextags formula.

------
wrath
I work for a company that relied primarily on Google for it's source of
revenue. About a year ago our traffic dramatically dropped because of a change
in Google's algorithm. We always had plans to diversify our business but we
never did. At the time it hit us hard, but we were able refocused our
business. As a consequence our business is far healthier than it was in the
past. Google is only a fraction of our traffic generation strategy,
essentially we have a sustainable business model now.

------
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!

------
joelrunyon
I'm really amazed (and impressed) at how many mentions & links Vote-USA got
throughout that article. Seemed like an inordinate amount for the number of
times it was mentioned.

Also, I get the whole "we got deindexed" from Google, but duplicate content is
not necessarily a new thing. If you got penalized for it, so did a bunch of
other people. You shouldn't act like it's a surprise and whine about it. Just
fix it and move on.

~~~
Evbn
(Obligatory <http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html> link)

------
Xion
> The government’s scrutiny of Google is the most exhaustive investigation of
> a major corporation since the pursuit of Microsoft in the late 1990s.

I can't help to notice that apparently in the last 15 years or so, a
significant government interest was only focused on high-tech companies. Looks
like more "traditional" branches of economy and companies working therein are
generally behaving fine...

Companies like Lehman Brothers, for example.

------
gscott
Google Search is becoming more like adwords. They just removed a site I manage
because it doesn't meet the Google quality guidelines
easyfastcheaponlinetrafficeschool.com. When they remove your site its like
disappearing from the internet... I had to switch the site to a new domain and
the loss in sales has been about $70,000+ so far not to mention spending more
on adwords.

~~~
Evbn
Pretty sure Google's long published webmaster guide discouraged that domain
name years ago.

------
ksikka
Some sites go down in rankings, but other (hopefully) more useful sites go up
in rankings.

Also if your company is impacted negatively by this, you should attempt to
focus more on social network effects to reduce reliance on Google. For
example, integration from Facebook and Twitter opens up more channels for
users to visit your site through.

~~~
victorantos
my 5 year old website has dropped traffic 3X suddenly, I was shocked, who to
blame now, Google? [https://dl.dropbox.com/u/45940875/google-negatively-
affects-...](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/45940875/google-negatively-affects-my-
traffic.jpg)

------
jl00080
Dont want to see Google monopolize the search engine market in future, and it
is the reason why sometimes i will use bing.com. Actually it is not bad.

------
capo
The folks at Nextag (which by the way sells product listings without
disclosing them and then complains about google:
[http://searchengineland.com/given-nextags-lack-of-
transparen...](http://searchengineland.com/given-nextags-lack-of-transparency-
its-wsj-opinion-piece-asking-for-google-transparency-isnt-wise-124045)) are
telling the same sob story to every reporter who would listen. Their complaint
is that they keep getting less _free_ traffic from Google as if they are
somehow entitled to it, they insist that they are living in a "Google world"
and then go on to contradict that by saying that they are diversifying.

It’s frustrating that the reporters are trying to cast doubt over every
instance of a website getting demoted in rank as if the web is static and
Google’s code base is unchanging, and they don't even give much consideration
to inevitable errors in large and complicated systems. They offer no proof
just speculations and innuendo.

But what I find to be most frustrating is that this article shares the same
blind insistence with Google’s opponents that search engines must only rank
blue links, and only links to other websites, which is not only an ati-
innovation stance but also an unintuitive one. As IBM’s Watson and to a lesser
extent Siri has shown, search interface is about immediate answers, and the
ultimate answer to these accusations still stands: if you don't like Google’s
results use another service, if you can't reach a certain website via Google
you can go directly to their website or get their smartphone app or follow
them on Twitter or Facebook or bloody Instagram.

It is also worth mentioning that the NYT ran editorials urging the government
to investigate Google, and I think a disclaimer mentioning that ought to have
preceded the article: <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/15/opinion/15thu3.html>

~~~
doctorpangloss
_If you don't like Google’s results use another service._

Sure, but Google has two kinds of customers: searchers _and_ websites.

Maybe you believe websites shouldn't hide from Google because it makes no
strategic sense. Twitter and Facebook don't let Google index their content.
Why would they let Google front-run ads on their content? It's not a catchall
rule, to hide with robots.txt.

Maybe websites should just pay up: they should auction for higher results, if
their business depends on search placement. But that's misunderstanding
Google's role.

Google isn't a salesperson. It's more like a _road_. Both bring business to
your door (literally), but the latter gets used by everyone for everything.
And it turns out it doesn't matter how you pave the road (roads have been
public since the Egyptian times, yet road-building technology has changed
dramatically) or whatever.

To Nextag, Google is a utility. It is only by tradition that some monopolists
become utilities and others do not. How do you regulate Google for what it is:
a public utility?

~~~
dchuk
No, google has one customer: advertisers. Searchers don't directly make Google
any money, advertisers do. Google is not a public utility, it's the most
successful online advertising machine ever.

~~~
joelrunyon
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.

~~~
dchuk
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, not a utility, not a public service. They are in the
business of profit.

~~~
arrrg
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.)

------
camus
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 businesses rely too much on
google, until google take us out of business...

~~~
snogglethorpe
> _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.]

~~~
enneff
Furthermore, judging by this graph

[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Usage_share_o...](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Usage_share_of_web_browsers_\(Source_StatCounter\).svg&page=1)

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

~~~
Evbn
Recent reports show IE gaining and FF dropping.

