Fast Company | Schmoozing with the Enemy: "Some search-engine optimizers, or SEOs, earn a living by tricking Google's search engine into ranking a Web page higher than it otherwise would appear. In other words, they try to game Google. So the idea of Google throwing them a bash seems akin to Nixon inviting Communist spies for brunch in the Rose Garden.
But no, Google insists. 'This is all good. We want to work with SEO's . . . the ethical SEOs,' says spokesperson Nathan Tyler. 'This is like us extending an olive branch.'
Ah, of course. Ethical SEOs comply with guidelines laid out by Google on its Web site--and many encourage clients to buy sponsored ads, a big money maker for Google. They avoid such tricks as 'cloaking,' building one Web site to be seen and ranked by Google, then a second actually viewed by consumers. Every time such manipulation succeeds, it corrodes the integrity of Google's search engine and thus the Google brand. Google doesn't like that! Typically, offending sites are purged from Google's index.
The trouble is, such crimes occur in cyberspace. In the real world, it's hard to tell the good guys from the bad. So Google invites all SES registrants, ethical or not, and tells staffers to 'smile real nice.' But many attendees guess there's more going on. 'I think this might be a marketing stunt,' says Micah Baldwin, a Web marketer from Denver. 'I think [the] Google [code] is broken, and they know it. They just don't want any of us to know it, so they throw this huge party to make you think everything is fine.'
Or Google may be mining for information. Under a tent, guests get brief tutorials on how to improve a site's rank following the real Google Dance. Lots of people appear to be participating. But what are they really getting? 'No one is learning anything inside that tent"
Friday, November 07, 2003
Surprised Google & Microsoft Talked Takeover? You Shouldn't Be!: "Google used to say it was focused on search, but these days it's about 'organizing the web's information.' Email is information. And with email spam a growing problem, I could see Google seeking a spam-filtering company such as Brightmail or SpamCop (which I use and highly recommend). A plus to such a move is that this type of service would generate subscription-based revenue that Google currently lacks.
Perhaps Google might seek a company that lets people sell products online, which would then feed into an actual Google shopping or auction area...
"who's going to win" in the search race that continues to heat up. Don't expect this to be the service that uses "personalization" to prevent switching, as the article suggests. Yahoo and MSN already have personalization. That's not kept people from going to Google when they want to search.
Instead, you're not likely to see any clear winners. Why? Think television networks. In the US, there are four major networks that capture viewers. None of them are going to collapse overnight, though any one of them will gain or lose users depending on its programming.
Search is programming. As long as Google's programming stays substantially good, users are going to keep tuning in out of habit. Potentially, it is "easy" to switch from Google. But ask any smoker how easy it is to give up cigarettes.
"who's going to win" in the search race that continues to heat up. Don't expect this to be the service that uses "personalization" to prevent switching, as the article suggests. Yahoo and MSN already have personalization. That's not kept people from going to Google when they want to search.
Instead, you're not likely to see any clear winners. Why? Think television networks. In the US, there are four major networks that capture viewers. None of them are going to collapse overnight, though any one of them will gain or lose users depending on its programming.
Search is programming. As long as Google's programming stays substantially good, users are going to keep tuning in out of habit. Potentially, it is "easy" to switch from Google. But ask any smoker how easy it is to give up cigarettes.
while Google got Microsoft's pitch, there's no doubt Microsoft heard Google's. "Use us," Google would argue, "because we are far less competitive with you than Yahoo."
For the time being, both sides seem to be sticking with the status quo. But don't be surprised if we hear more about Microsoft and Google talking. It's unlikely to be about a takeover, but it certainly could be about working together."
Guardian | Google fights for top spot: "Against that, Google's search is stuck: its database is not getting bigger, and its search results are not getting better, they are getting worse. Things that were simple when Google had just a few geek users are now hard because it is under continuous attack from thousands of people who track its every move and will resort to any trick they can find to get their sites ranked higher. The technology that won the last search engine wars won't be enough to win the next one, as Google surely knows.
According to Pitkow, the one most likely to win in the long run is the one that can increase its "switching costs" by adding personalisation. At the moment, anyone can search at Google or Teoma or any other search engine, and there is no penalty to switching. That's different from, say, Amazon, where things like one-click ordering, intelligent book recommendations, wish lists and other personalisation features discourage users from defecting to rival sites, even if they are cheaper.
It's hard to switch from Yahoo if you use its personalised My Yahoo service, email, instant messaging, chat and shopping facilities. It's hard to avoid Microsoft if you use its operating system, browser and Hotmail email service. It's easy to switch from Google. Whether they know it or not, the people who plan to buy Google shares could be taking a gamble on it solving that problem, and soon"
Perhaps Google might seek a company that lets people sell products online, which would then feed into an actual Google shopping or auction area...
"who's going to win" in the search race that continues to heat up. Don't expect this to be the service that uses "personalization" to prevent switching, as the article suggests. Yahoo and MSN already have personalization. That's not kept people from going to Google when they want to search.
Instead, you're not likely to see any clear winners. Why? Think television networks. In the US, there are four major networks that capture viewers. None of them are going to collapse overnight, though any one of them will gain or lose users depending on its programming.
Search is programming. As long as Google's programming stays substantially good, users are going to keep tuning in out of habit. Potentially, it is "easy" to switch from Google. But ask any smoker how easy it is to give up cigarettes.
"who's going to win" in the search race that continues to heat up. Don't expect this to be the service that uses "personalization" to prevent switching, as the article suggests. Yahoo and MSN already have personalization. That's not kept people from going to Google when they want to search.
Instead, you're not likely to see any clear winners. Why? Think television networks. In the US, there are four major networks that capture viewers. None of them are going to collapse overnight, though any one of them will gain or lose users depending on its programming.
Search is programming. As long as Google's programming stays substantially good, users are going to keep tuning in out of habit. Potentially, it is "easy" to switch from Google. But ask any smoker how easy it is to give up cigarettes.
while Google got Microsoft's pitch, there's no doubt Microsoft heard Google's. "Use us," Google would argue, "because we are far less competitive with you than Yahoo."
For the time being, both sides seem to be sticking with the status quo. But don't be surprised if we hear more about Microsoft and Google talking. It's unlikely to be about a takeover, but it certainly could be about working together."
Guardian | Google fights for top spot: "Against that, Google's search is stuck: its database is not getting bigger, and its search results are not getting better, they are getting worse. Things that were simple when Google had just a few geek users are now hard because it is under continuous attack from thousands of people who track its every move and will resort to any trick they can find to get their sites ranked higher. The technology that won the last search engine wars won't be enough to win the next one, as Google surely knows.
According to Pitkow, the one most likely to win in the long run is the one that can increase its "switching costs" by adding personalisation. At the moment, anyone can search at Google or Teoma or any other search engine, and there is no penalty to switching. That's different from, say, Amazon, where things like one-click ordering, intelligent book recommendations, wish lists and other personalisation features discourage users from defecting to rival sites, even if they are cheaper.
It's hard to switch from Yahoo if you use its personalised My Yahoo service, email, instant messaging, chat and shopping facilities. It's hard to avoid Microsoft if you use its operating system, browser and Hotmail email service. It's easy to switch from Google. Whether they know it or not, the people who plan to buy Google shares could be taking a gamble on it solving that problem, and soon"
Thursday, November 06, 2003
Search patents:
United States Patent: 6,615,209: "Abstract
An improved duplicate detection technique that uses query-relevant information to limit the portion(s) of documents to be compared for similarity is described. Before comparing two documents for similarity, the content of these documents may be condensed based on the query. In one embodiment, query-relevant information or text (also referred to as 'snippets') is extracted from the documents and only the extracted snippets, rather than the entire documents, are compared for purposes of determining similarity. "
United States Patent: 6,615,209: "Abstract
An improved duplicate detection technique that uses query-relevant information to limit the portion(s) of documents to be compared for similarity is described. Before comparing two documents for similarity, the content of these documents may be condensed based on the query. In one embodiment, query-relevant information or text (also referred to as 'snippets') is extracted from the documents and only the extracted snippets, rather than the entire documents, are compared for purposes of determining similarity. "
Adsense example:
UpMyStreet FindMyNearest: Reading, Reading: "Sponsored links" on right hand side.
Possibility for totaltravel adsense boxes to appear on other sites ( not thinking for tt to have ads for other sites - traffic probably too low to be eligible )
UpMyStreet FindMyNearest: Reading, Reading: "Sponsored links" on right hand side.
Possibility for totaltravel adsense boxes to appear on other sites ( not thinking for tt to have ads for other sites - traffic probably too low to be eligible )
CHART
Google Search Engine Dominance: "This tells us what we already knew -- that Google is dominant. If you consider that Google also fed Yahoo and AOL search listings during this time period, then Google traffic amounted to 90% of the search engine driven traffic to my site. That's huge. No wonder Yahoo! and Microsoft are preparing to go head-to-head with Google in the future."
Google Search Engine Dominance: "This tells us what we already knew -- that Google is dominant. If you consider that Google also fed Yahoo and AOL search listings during this time period, then Google traffic amounted to 90% of the search engine driven traffic to my site. That's huge. No wonder Yahoo! and Microsoft are preparing to go head-to-head with Google in the future."
Key Google quotes by Google:
Google Corporate Information: Today: "It is a core value for Google that there be no compromising of the integrity of our results. We never manipulate rankings to put our partners higher in our search results. No one can buy better PageRank. Our users trust Google's objectivity and no short-term gain could ever justify breaching that trust."
Google Job Opportunities: "Google's goal is to do important stuff that matters to a lot of people. In pursuit of that goal, we've developed a set of values that drive our work, including one of our most cherished core values: 'Don't be evil.'"
Google Corporate Information: Today: "It is a core value for Google that there be no compromising of the integrity of our results. We never manipulate rankings to put our partners higher in our search results. No one can buy better PageRank. Our users trust Google's objectivity and no short-term gain could ever justify breaching that trust."
Google Job Opportunities: "Google's goal is to do important stuff that matters to a lot of people. In pursuit of that goal, we've developed a set of values that drive our work, including one of our most cherished core values: 'Don't be evil.'"
Wednesday, November 05, 2003
Interesting re patentsGoogle & The Bad Guys Newsletter 077 -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum: " Google was just granted a patent (Oct 21) that I think will change a LOT of how the results are posted. It's a duplication detector that seems quite good, but will have huge implications for SEO's and copyright holders. Not all of them good. I'm saving it for a different post (and re-reading it several times to make sure I fully understand it)"
More re personalisation
It's in the algorithms - A glimpse into the future of mapping the Web
: "new technique for speeding up the computation of PageRank™ by 30 percent, and he proposed several algorithms for personalizing the ranking function to produce more relevant results for each individual searcher (see " )
potential competitors include WebFountain, Nutch and Netnose.
Developed by IBM, WebFountain (www.almaden.ibm.com/WebFountain) wants to challenge Google in the corporate market. WebFountain will collect, store and analyze vast amounts of information from unstructured and semi-structured sources including Web sites, news feeds, Weblogs, bulletin boards, enterprise data, legacy data, licensed content, newspapers, magazines and chat room text. The project's claim is that it can read and understand text, and use natural language processing, statistics, probabilities, machine learning, pattern recognition and artificial intelligence to keep organizations informed of emerging trends, competitive activities and "buzz".
Nutch (nutch.org) is an open source search engine that, unlike commercial search engines, will lift the veil on its ranking algorithms and demonstrate to users that there is no bias in its Web crawling and search returns. High scoring ranks will not be bought, sold or otherwise fudged.
Netnose (www.netnose.com) is the first search engine to claim to be "powered by people"; meaning search accuracy will be controlled by the voting public rather than a computer algorithm. Users will cast votes to determine what words should find what Web sites and as more people use the engine to match Web sites to search terms, the developers claim searching will get more and more accurate.
It's in the algorithms - A glimpse into the future of mapping the Web
: "new technique for speeding up the computation of PageRank™ by 30 percent, and he proposed several algorithms for personalizing the ranking function to produce more relevant results for each individual searcher (see " )
potential competitors include WebFountain, Nutch and Netnose.
Developed by IBM, WebFountain (www.almaden.ibm.com/WebFountain) wants to challenge Google in the corporate market. WebFountain will collect, store and analyze vast amounts of information from unstructured and semi-structured sources including Web sites, news feeds, Weblogs, bulletin boards, enterprise data, legacy data, licensed content, newspapers, magazines and chat room text. The project's claim is that it can read and understand text, and use natural language processing, statistics, probabilities, machine learning, pattern recognition and artificial intelligence to keep organizations informed of emerging trends, competitive activities and "buzz".
Nutch (nutch.org) is an open source search engine that, unlike commercial search engines, will lift the veil on its ranking algorithms and demonstrate to users that there is no bias in its Web crawling and search returns. High scoring ranks will not be bought, sold or otherwise fudged.
Netnose (www.netnose.com) is the first search engine to claim to be "powered by people"; meaning search accuracy will be controlled by the voting public rather than a computer algorithm. Users will cast votes to determine what words should find what Web sites and as more people use the engine to match Web sites to search terms, the developers claim searching will get more and more accurate.
Tuesday, November 04, 2003
Google & theories of knowledge
Web Epistemology : References: "Search Engines
Web surfing as an epistemic practice
Democratisation of knowledge
Distributed Cognition
Miscellaneous publications "
Google dance :
looks like there is still some heavy duty filtering out of totaltravel pages...
Basic: G allinurl:www.totaltravel.com 37,500
Across 10 data centres: T10 allinurl:www.totaltravel.com 64,100 n/a 92,900 78,700 69,000 71,500 78,700 84,700 51,400 36,900
Web Epistemology : References: "Search Engines
Web surfing as an epistemic practice
Democratisation of knowledge
Distributed Cognition
Miscellaneous publications "
Google dance :
looks like there is still some heavy duty filtering out of totaltravel pages...
Basic: G allinurl:www.totaltravel.com 37,500
Across 10 data centres: T10 allinurl:www.totaltravel.com 64,100 n/a 92,900 78,700 69,000 71,500 78,700 84,700 51,400 36,900
Monday, November 03, 2003
Bit of a backlog here from when blogger was down...
fantomNews - the ultimate search engine optimization know how on fantomaster.com! Archives - 2003-11-03: "puts the issue of Google's search
dominance (or, as many will have it: monopoly) in a
global, political perspective"
Here's a fairly telling quote:
"If you have a 75 percent monopoly, and it's growing,
and perhaps there's an IPO around the corner, you keep
your mouth shut and hope for the best. That's what
Google is doing. The other problem is that geeks have a
poor record on social ethics, and Google is very geeky.
They don't know what the word 'public interest' means;
it's completely outside their frame of reference. Most
of those PhDs at Google wouldn't recognize a
philosophical principle if they ran over one in their
SUVs. It's all binary to them - either they're gaining
market share or they're losing it."
He also lets on about getting kicked from the Webmaster
World Forum some months back for taking a somewhat too
pronounced anti-Google stance. Interesting.
Read the full Counterpunch interview here:
Mark Hand: Searching for Daniel Brandt: "Searching for Daniel Brandt"
Lately, Brandt has been leading an opposition against what he calls the "hegemony" of the Google search engine. On his Google Watch website, Brandt says his struggle against the search engine's ranking system "feels like the right thing to do. It's the cyber equivalent of my draft resistance days...
It's always a moving target, and the game isn't always fair. But it's the only game on the Internet these days. Many webmasters who follow the situation are hopeful that Yahoo's recent acquisition of Inktomi will mean that Google may see some competition in 2003. Presently Inktomi provides results for the MSN network, and that may change as well.
To give you an idea of the scale involved with respect to search engines, from 1995 to 2000 we averaged about 300 page accesses, or name searches, per day. Recently we've been doing over 15,000 per day...
Brandt: No, Google is not responsive to public criticism. Rumor has it that they may file an IPO [initial public offering] in 2003, which could introduce some new variables into the equation. I have never heard directly from Google about anything. They use robots to answer email, so I'll just keep on nagging them, like a robot. I have noticed that other webmasters agree with me more often these days. Only six months ago I was a lone voice in the wilderness. I got kicked off of one of the webmaster (www.webmasterworld.com) forums for being too anti-Google. But recently I've felt that a fair number of webmasters have come around to my position on Google.
Still, this has had no effect whatsoever on Google. If you have a 75 percent monopoly, and it's growing, and perhaps there's an IPO around the corner, you keep your mouth shut and hope for the best. That's what Google is doing. The other problem is that geeks have a poor record on social ethics, and Google is very geeky. They don't know what the word "public interest" means; it's completely outside their frame of reference. Most of those PhDs at Google wouldn't recognize a philosophical principle if they ran over one in their SUVs. It's all binary to them--either they're gaining market share or they're losing it. If they're gaining, then all is well with the world. Ethics is too fuzzy a concept for Silicon Valley geeks.
PageRank is very important. The smaller you are, the lower your PageRank, and the more desperate you become to get Google to steer traffic to you. At the moment it's do or die with PageRank. I'm hopeful that things will loosen up in 2003 somehow, perhaps with some new competition from Yahoo."
greyed link pages
Very many link pages seem to be greyed out in PageRank - Best Practices Search Engine Forums: "Very many link pages seem to be greyed out in PageRank "
opping for the UK Marketing To The Uk -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum: "marketing to the UK"
fantomNews - the ultimate search engine optimization know how on fantomaster.com! Archives - 2003-11-03: "puts the issue of Google's search
dominance (or, as many will have it: monopoly) in a
global, political perspective"
Here's a fairly telling quote:
"If you have a 75 percent monopoly, and it's growing,
and perhaps there's an IPO around the corner, you keep
your mouth shut and hope for the best. That's what
Google is doing. The other problem is that geeks have a
poor record on social ethics, and Google is very geeky.
They don't know what the word 'public interest' means;
it's completely outside their frame of reference. Most
of those PhDs at Google wouldn't recognize a
philosophical principle if they ran over one in their
SUVs. It's all binary to them - either they're gaining
market share or they're losing it."
He also lets on about getting kicked from the Webmaster
World Forum some months back for taking a somewhat too
pronounced anti-Google stance. Interesting.
Read the full Counterpunch interview here:
Mark Hand: Searching for Daniel Brandt: "Searching for Daniel Brandt"
Lately, Brandt has been leading an opposition against what he calls the "hegemony" of the Google search engine. On his Google Watch website, Brandt says his struggle against the search engine's ranking system "feels like the right thing to do. It's the cyber equivalent of my draft resistance days...
It's always a moving target, and the game isn't always fair. But it's the only game on the Internet these days. Many webmasters who follow the situation are hopeful that Yahoo's recent acquisition of Inktomi will mean that Google may see some competition in 2003. Presently Inktomi provides results for the MSN network, and that may change as well.
To give you an idea of the scale involved with respect to search engines, from 1995 to 2000 we averaged about 300 page accesses, or name searches, per day. Recently we've been doing over 15,000 per day...
Brandt: No, Google is not responsive to public criticism. Rumor has it that they may file an IPO [initial public offering] in 2003, which could introduce some new variables into the equation. I have never heard directly from Google about anything. They use robots to answer email, so I'll just keep on nagging them, like a robot. I have noticed that other webmasters agree with me more often these days. Only six months ago I was a lone voice in the wilderness. I got kicked off of one of the webmaster (www.webmasterworld.com) forums for being too anti-Google. But recently I've felt that a fair number of webmasters have come around to my position on Google.
Still, this has had no effect whatsoever on Google. If you have a 75 percent monopoly, and it's growing, and perhaps there's an IPO around the corner, you keep your mouth shut and hope for the best. That's what Google is doing. The other problem is that geeks have a poor record on social ethics, and Google is very geeky. They don't know what the word "public interest" means; it's completely outside their frame of reference. Most of those PhDs at Google wouldn't recognize a philosophical principle if they ran over one in their SUVs. It's all binary to them--either they're gaining market share or they're losing it. If they're gaining, then all is well with the world. Ethics is too fuzzy a concept for Silicon Valley geeks.
PageRank is very important. The smaller you are, the lower your PageRank, and the more desperate you become to get Google to steer traffic to you. At the moment it's do or die with PageRank. I'm hopeful that things will loosen up in 2003 somehow, perhaps with some new competition from Yahoo."
greyed link pages
Very many link pages seem to be greyed out in PageRank - Best Practices Search Engine Forums: "Very many link pages seem to be greyed out in PageRank "
opping for the UK Marketing To The Uk -> High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum: "marketing to the UK"
Keeping up with the forum debates I started is heavy going, but as long as there are no more sleep-overs so I am not seperated from my keyboard it should get easier.: ..especially as it got a mention in Search Engine Guides "Forum discussions of the day" & Jil herself says "Hey all! Wow, this topic is being discussed everywhere!"
Cre8asite Forums
"The other more more important point Jill made is that she thought attempts to catch devious SEO tricks was something Google was diligent about catching. She's finding this may not be true. From an SEO perspective, why in the heck should ANY SEO bother to follow Google's own guidelines for SEO's when Google itself isn't monitoring what's going on?"
Choice quotes:
Relevancy factors:
Cre8asite forums. Google - Kudos to Jill Whalen and Wed Advisor. [ Search Engine Optimization, Usability and Web Design. ]: "Google certainly work constantly to improve their relevancy algos, however relevancy, as far as Google is concerned, is not defined soely in seo terms. Relevancy includes other variables such as timeliness, cultural bias, semantics, inter-relationships etc etc. They have certainly improved timeliness of late. It's obviously a pretty important factor.
It all comes back to Googles user centric model. If the user is happy, Google is happy. I'm a user, I always find what I want with Google and I couldn't care less how those top ten sites got there, so long as they are relevant to me."
Adwords:
AdWords are often more relevant, and more varied, than the serps and they provide a revenue stream. Something to think about
Cre8asite Forums
"The other more more important point Jill made is that she thought attempts to catch devious SEO tricks was something Google was diligent about catching. She's finding this may not be true. From an SEO perspective, why in the heck should ANY SEO bother to follow Google's own guidelines for SEO's when Google itself isn't monitoring what's going on?"
Choice quotes:
Relevancy factors:
Cre8asite forums. Google - Kudos to Jill Whalen and Wed Advisor. [ Search Engine Optimization, Usability and Web Design. ]: "Google certainly work constantly to improve their relevancy algos, however relevancy, as far as Google is concerned, is not defined soely in seo terms. Relevancy includes other variables such as timeliness, cultural bias, semantics, inter-relationships etc etc. They have certainly improved timeliness of late. It's obviously a pretty important factor.
It all comes back to Googles user centric model. If the user is happy, Google is happy. I'm a user, I always find what I want with Google and I couldn't care less how those top ten sites got there, so long as they are relevant to me."
Adwords:
AdWords are often more relevant, and more varied, than the serps and they provide a revenue stream. Something to think about
Economist.com | The next hot internet stock: "How good is Google?
Most of the article follows as it is an excellent analysis of crucial issues.
Oct 30th 2003 | SAN FRANCISCO
From The Economist print edition"
kaluta asks: "The [0]Economist has a typically clear and concise [1]story about bringing Google to the stockmarket. Basically, is it going to be the next eBay or Amazon, or will it 'simply be the next overhyped share sale to make its founders rich only to wither away miserably, either for lack of a sustainably profitable business model, or, like Netscape, because it finds itself [2]in the path of that mighty wrecker,
Microsoft?' Cool picture too."
"customer searches (now 200m a day) ... Google has clearly been a runaway success. Not only is its own site the most popular for search on the web, but it also powers the search engines of major portals, such as Yahoo! and AOL. All told, 75% of referrals to websites now originate from Google's algorithms. That is power. "
Yahoo! which still has about half of the $2 billion-or-so market - bought Overture 2003...
The next step is to take this approach to advertising from the results pages of search engines and on to other web pages. Increasingly, web publishers—from hobby bloggers to small businesses—allow firms such as Google to crawl through the content of their pages and place relevant text advertisements in the right margin. Once page visitors click on the links, the webmasters share the revenues with Google. At a stroke, this so-called “contextual advertising” makes much of web publishing self-financing. This may result in better web content by making hitherto unprofitable online activities economically viable.
Meta Group, a consultancy, reckons that the market for paid search and other contextual advertising will grow to $5 billion by 2006. This is Google's main market opportunity (although it also gets some revenues from licensing its search technology). Currently, Google is thought to make annual profits of about $150m.
... That means matching such internet stars as eBay (market capitalisation $37 billion), but without the natural-monopoly advantages that have made eBay so dominant—the classic network effect of buyers and sellers knowing they do best by all trading in one place. For Google to stay permanently ahead of other search-engine technologies is almost impossible, since it takes so little—only a bright idea by another set of geeks—to lose the lead. In contrast to a portal such as Yahoo!, which also offers customers free e-mail and other services, a pure search engine is always but a click away from losing users....
Yahoo!, in fact, will probably be the first to attack. It now owns rival search technologies including AltaVista, AlltheWeb and Inktomi. With the contextual-advertising technology of Overture, Yahoo! now has under its own roof all the elements of the business model that made Google such a success. It cannot be long before Yahoo! turns from a lucrative customer of Google's into a powerful rival...
Even more frightening (especially to those who remember Netscape's fate in the browser wars), Microsoft smells blood. It is currently working on its own search algorithm, which it hopes to make public early next year, around the probable time of Google's share listing. Historically, Microsoft has been good at letting others (Apple, Netscape, Real) pioneer a technology before taking over, exploiting its dominance in desktop operating systems.
Google the new-age advertising agency makes money, but it is Google the search engine that builds the consumer brand which makes the ad agency powerful. Whenever users click on advertisements on Google's own site, Google gets all the revenues. Whenever users stray to other search engines, even ones where Google has placed sponsored links, Google has to share the revenues with the site owner. As the competition between Google, Overture and others heats up, Google's profit margins will fall.
This may already be happening. Craig Pisaris-Henderson, the chief executive of FindWhat.com, a smaller rival to Overture and Google in contextual advertising, reckons that Google's operating margins on sites other than its own must be much worse than FindWhat.com's (23%) or Overture's (12%) because it has been wooing advertisers away from Overture by being more generous to webmasters.
One thing that might help against Microsoft, says Danny Sullivan, the editor of SearchEngineWatch.com, an online consumer guide to the industry, is Google's image of “niceness”—at least by implicit comparison with the forces of darkness in Redmond. Scott Banister, a pioneer of paid-search technology (and now a founder of IronPort, an e-mail infrastructure firm), thinks that Google has already built sufficiently deep networks with advertisers to mount an effective resistance to Microsoft's impending assault.
Even so, Google is no sure thing—as those who hope to sell its shares are no doubt aware. John Doerr and Michael Moritz, for instance, between them also brought Netscape and Yahoo! to market, and may remember their lessons. With luck, Google's owners will remember to work out a viable strategy for Google beyond the point at which they cash out.
After reading that I reckon a paid listing in Yahoo! has to be a total must... freee regional listings for the UK are no more.
Most of the article follows as it is an excellent analysis of crucial issues.
Oct 30th 2003 | SAN FRANCISCO
From The Economist print edition"
kaluta asks: "The [0]Economist has a typically clear and concise [1]story about bringing Google to the stockmarket. Basically, is it going to be the next eBay or Amazon, or will it 'simply be the next overhyped share sale to make its founders rich only to wither away miserably, either for lack of a sustainably profitable business model, or, like Netscape, because it finds itself [2]in the path of that mighty wrecker,
Microsoft?' Cool picture too."
"customer searches (now 200m a day) ... Google has clearly been a runaway success. Not only is its own site the most popular for search on the web, but it also powers the search engines of major portals, such as Yahoo! and AOL. All told, 75% of referrals to websites now originate from Google's algorithms. That is power. "
Yahoo! which still has about half of the $2 billion-or-so market - bought Overture 2003...
The next step is to take this approach to advertising from the results pages of search engines and on to other web pages. Increasingly, web publishers—from hobby bloggers to small businesses—allow firms such as Google to crawl through the content of their pages and place relevant text advertisements in the right margin. Once page visitors click on the links, the webmasters share the revenues with Google. At a stroke, this so-called “contextual advertising” makes much of web publishing self-financing. This may result in better web content by making hitherto unprofitable online activities economically viable.
Meta Group, a consultancy, reckons that the market for paid search and other contextual advertising will grow to $5 billion by 2006. This is Google's main market opportunity (although it also gets some revenues from licensing its search technology). Currently, Google is thought to make annual profits of about $150m.
... That means matching such internet stars as eBay (market capitalisation $37 billion), but without the natural-monopoly advantages that have made eBay so dominant—the classic network effect of buyers and sellers knowing they do best by all trading in one place. For Google to stay permanently ahead of other search-engine technologies is almost impossible, since it takes so little—only a bright idea by another set of geeks—to lose the lead. In contrast to a portal such as Yahoo!, which also offers customers free e-mail and other services, a pure search engine is always but a click away from losing users....
Yahoo!, in fact, will probably be the first to attack. It now owns rival search technologies including AltaVista, AlltheWeb and Inktomi. With the contextual-advertising technology of Overture, Yahoo! now has under its own roof all the elements of the business model that made Google such a success. It cannot be long before Yahoo! turns from a lucrative customer of Google's into a powerful rival...
Even more frightening (especially to those who remember Netscape's fate in the browser wars), Microsoft smells blood. It is currently working on its own search algorithm, which it hopes to make public early next year, around the probable time of Google's share listing. Historically, Microsoft has been good at letting others (Apple, Netscape, Real) pioneer a technology before taking over, exploiting its dominance in desktop operating systems.
Google the new-age advertising agency makes money, but it is Google the search engine that builds the consumer brand which makes the ad agency powerful. Whenever users click on advertisements on Google's own site, Google gets all the revenues. Whenever users stray to other search engines, even ones where Google has placed sponsored links, Google has to share the revenues with the site owner. As the competition between Google, Overture and others heats up, Google's profit margins will fall.
This may already be happening. Craig Pisaris-Henderson, the chief executive of FindWhat.com, a smaller rival to Overture and Google in contextual advertising, reckons that Google's operating margins on sites other than its own must be much worse than FindWhat.com's (23%) or Overture's (12%) because it has been wooing advertisers away from Overture by being more generous to webmasters.
One thing that might help against Microsoft, says Danny Sullivan, the editor of SearchEngineWatch.com, an online consumer guide to the industry, is Google's image of “niceness”—at least by implicit comparison with the forces of darkness in Redmond. Scott Banister, a pioneer of paid-search technology (and now a founder of IronPort, an e-mail infrastructure firm), thinks that Google has already built sufficiently deep networks with advertisers to mount an effective resistance to Microsoft's impending assault.
Even so, Google is no sure thing—as those who hope to sell its shares are no doubt aware. John Doerr and Michael Moritz, for instance, between them also brought Netscape and Yahoo! to market, and may remember their lessons. With luck, Google's owners will remember to work out a viable strategy for Google beyond the point at which they cash out.
After reading that I reckon a paid listing in Yahoo! has to be a total must... freee regional listings for the UK are no more.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)