

My Message To Google: Stop Cheating - thankuz
http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/26/my-message-to-google-stop-cheating/

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wccrawford
Google isn't necessarily cheating.

Perhaps, just perhaps, when people search Google for those things, they really
do prefer the Google.com results that come up. It's a name they already know
and trust, so clicking the link seems like a no-brainer. They don't need to
cheat to get their own results to head to the top of the list.

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worldtize
Let me get this straight, the World is accusing Google of cheating because its
search engine provides a Google based client amongst the first choices instead
of the client that might be more familiar to that factor.........

Tell the Harvard professors to walk into 2,000 McDonalds and order a happy
meal and take a survey and complete case study on how many clerks suggest
Burger King before they suggest a number 3 value meal.

Now, if Google wanted to be firm, and maybe this does exist, not sure, but
when the only privileged results in a search should come from companies who
pay for it, and if they do pay for it, Google should have a special surcharge
from companies wishing to appear above Google services in that specific
search.

Google doesn't cheat, it does what most businesses try and accomplish, a way
to run your customers back into your cycle. - GTV

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nickbp
I don't disagree with the overall point, but the McDonalds analogy doesn't
quite work.

By specifically going to McDonalds you are indeed showing them that you're
shopping for a McDonalds Happy Meal, because that's all they've got to sell.
But when you're searching for a given term on a site that indexes the entire
internet, you're just looking for whatever's most relevant, regardless of
where it's hosted.

If you'd wanted the search to only apply to YouTube, well, that's what direct
youtube.com and the "site:" keyword are for.

~~~
worldtize
Yeah, the Mcdeez analogy doesn't really work, but you know what I mean
anyway....

