TechCrunch, a leading technology blog, in an article today, has raised concerns that Google is trying to monopolize its search results at Google Search with regard to search of keywords relating to places and is trying to promote its own contents. It suspects that with the launch of Google Places last week, Google is trying to push its own Places pages on the search results when you search about any place. TechCrunch also cautions Google that “if it keeps going down this path. It will turn into Yahoo”, by citing the example of Yahoo which allegedly used to try to keep the users from ever leaving its search results pages due to which it failed as a search engine.
Trunch further writes:
“When you click on a pin for a local business or place of interest on Google Maps a bubble will open up, and if you click “more info” sometimes it will take you to the Google Places page. So far, so good. Google Places is simply making Google Maps better, right?
The concerns arise, however, back on Google’s main search page, where Google is indexing these Places pages. Since Google controls its own search index, it can push Google Places more prominently if it so desires. There isn’t a heck of a lot of evidence that Google is doing this yet, but the mere fact that Google is indexing these Places pages has the SEO world in a tizzy.
And Google is indexing them, despite assurances to the contrary. If you do a search for the Burdick Chocolate Cafe in Boston, for instance, the Google Places page is the sixth result, above results from Yelp, Yahoo Travel, and New York Times Travel. This wouldn’t be so bad if Google wasn’t already linking to itself in the top “one Box” result, which shows a detail from Google Maps. So within the top ten results, two of them link back to Google content.”
However, the fallacy of the arguments put forth by TechCrunch is exposed by its own statement made in a subsequent paragraph, where it writes:
“…Even if they make it onto the first page of Google search results for legitimate reasons, their very presence goes against the fundamental principle that Google’s main purpose is to link out to the best information on the Web, not to hoard the links for itself.”
Once it is realized that the fundamental principle is that Google’s main purpose (for search results) is to link out to the best information on the web, I see no conflict in what Google is doing to index its own Places pages for putting them in Google search results. The question is, if a particular Google page is in a position to provide the 5th best or the 8th best information why should it be relegated to 69th position or 187th position (or thrown out from Search Results at all) just because it is Google page? Why can’t such 5th best information page get linked to in the top 10 Google search results? Should such page giving useful information be denied its legitimate due and its rightful place merely because it is maintained by Google itself?
The fact remains that most people trust Google services, that’s why Google Search is used by two-thirds of the Internet users all over the world. Similarly, many of their services (which are free, too) are excellent in content and quality. In fact, it adds value to the search results if a page giving best information is in the top 10 search results.
Moreover, it is not that Google has not been indexing its own pages, earlier. For example, if you search some keyword related to Gmail, you’ll always find a Google Help page at the top of the search results in Google. And, many people will trust that page because it will give you useful and important information. Then what is the problem with the Google Places pages? A lot of useful information has been assimilated by Google over the years about each and every place on earth. They have been researching about maps, places, satellite images, details of establishments at various places, for last many years. They have invested heavily in all these projects. You’ll rarely find more useful information about a place at a central place, in a concise to-the-point form, and with meticulous accuracy, than in a Google Places page. Why the users should then be deprived of such useful Google Places pages when they want to search about a place?
By the way, have you noticed how many TechCrunch pages are referred to in any given article on its own site? When TechCrunch writes an article, is it not its duty to refer to the best material on the Internet? Then why most of the references in its articles are to its own other articles? TechCrunch may argue that it has already given references in those earlier other articles about best material on the Internet (in fact, those earlier articles will give references to its own more earlier articles, and so on). OK, then Google can also claim that it is already giving best references to the useful information about a place on its Google Places pages!
In fact, in my honest opinion Google is extremely fair in its approach while producing search results. Sometimes, when you search for something relating to a Google product, you may not find even a single reference to a Google help page. And, if you do find Google pages in the search results, they are clubbed together in one entry (may be with a sub-entry just below that). But then, one often notices that such Google pages found in the search results contain a lot of relevant and useful information which definitely deserve to be amongst top 10 search results.
One has to appreciate that Google Search is ultimately a private property owned by Google. It is not an open-source or General Public License product. Moreover, it is not that no other search engine is permitted on the Internet. At least Google has not restricted any other entity to launch a new search engine and become equally popular one. There are many other search engines on the Internet but worth mentioning are only three, in my view, Google, Yahoo and Bing. However, that does not mean that other companies are not permitted to launch their own search engines. So, how can we dictate to Google what to show and what not to show on it search results pages? Can you dictate to Yahoo or would you tell Bing what to show or what algorithm to use? Then why dictate to Google? Just because it is the leading search engine? If TechCrunch has a grudge, why can’t it start its own search engine and then promote its own contents in all of the top 10 search results of its own search engine!!! Or, why can’t you start some open-source search engine (yeah, you can create an algorithm for search, but where are the funds to finance huge server infrastructure in an open-source project?) as has been done in respect of software to break monopoly of software companies such as Microsoft? Is it not a story of sour grapes? (By the way, have you checked TechCrunch site and noticed how many Google ads they show on their site?)
Let it also be understood that if Google creates a monopoly in search results and moreover it abuses such monopoly, then there are more than a billion of net-users who will decide whether to stop patronizing Google Search and shift to some other search service. But, what are the other choices for search, today? Yahoo? TechCrunch itself says in the above article itself that Yahoo had been guilty of monopolizing its search results due to which it lost confidence of people. Bing? But, isn’t it a fact that Bing belongs to Microsoft, which has always been criticized as the biggest monopoly in software? So, where does one go? Which is the other search engine worth mentioning? Is TechCrunch launching its own new search engine?
In any case, if Google does not behave impartially in producing its search results, as TechCrunch suspects (but which does not appear to be correct) that it is going to happen, then the collective body of Internet users will decide what to do next. If top 10 search results on Google always show 7-8 useless results which have no substance or no contents, people will immediately shift their loyalties towards some other search engine. TechCrunch should trust the common sense approach of hundreds of millions of Internet users.
In so far as my vote is concerned – it is definitely in favor of Google showing the best page links in its search results, especially in the top 10 search results, as it has been doing thus far impartially and perfectly well, irrespective of whether such page belongs to Google or some other site, including that from TechCrunch which is definitely a very useful site and I often visit that site.
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Techcrunch wrote the google thing on the basis of only 1-2 searches on Google pages. They should have waited for more evidence before equating Google with Yahoo.