Posted by: internetmarketing14 on: September 16, 2008
Aaron Wall is one of the most knowledgeable SEO experts in the business. His Seobook, websites with SEO tools and SEO blog consistently rank in the top 10 of Google. He obviously makes a lot of money talking about Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing. What I like about him is that he is not afraid to take on Google. Here is an excerpt of a recent article, enjoy, do visit http://seobook.com/blog to see the whole thing. Of course, our marketing book focus on Blogs and the power of free blogs to create a poweful web presence and promote your business online. Our marketing book is also only $19.95 at Amazon, the SEO book by Aaron is amazing in detail and certainly recommended for SEO experts. In face, I bought his marketing book, the Seobook as late as 2006.
They are a world-leading enterprise, employing over 22,000 people. Fortune named them “America’s Most Innovative Company”. They also run various online marketplace services, through which a vast amount of money flows. They are a trusted name in households across the country. It is the year 2000, and that company is Enron.
Less than a year later, Enron would collapse under the weight of institutionalized fraud. And hubris.
The lessons learned from the Enron collapse were the dangers of monopolistic power and lack of transparency.
Google is the darling of the tech world. In fact, they’re pretty much the darling of every world, given their massive market reach and the usefulness of their services. Google occupy a position of enormous power. It is fair to say Google has nothing in common with Enron, other than the fact they are a big company, and for the most part, Google has done a good job in terms of gaining and maintaining trust with a wide range of stakeholders.
But for any company the size of Google, especially one that has grown in such a short period of time, questions of trust – and anti-trust – will eventually surface.
Take for example the recent case of United Airlines stock. An old story about the airline’s bankruptcy was published online, resulting in $1B being wiped off the value off the value of the stocks within minutes. The finger pointing started soon after, with Google blaming the originator of the piece, The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, whilst the Tribune Company, who publishes The Sun-Sentinel, pointed the finger right back.
To be fair, the mistake was largely due to a chain of human errors, and most of the mistakes made were outside of the control of Google. Questions of blame aside, this issue comes down to a matter of trust. Clearly, people trusted the information they saw on an automated news service, and acted accordingly. The lesson learned is that we should not be so quick to place trust in the machine.
There is another trust – actually, anti-trust – issue of late, and this issue goes to the heart of Google’s business model – online advertising.
Google’s proposed Yahoo partnership is raising fresh antitrust woes. Regulators are starting to look more closely at Google’s role in the world of online advertising. Will this deal give Google too much control of the online advertising space? Yahoo claims this partnership will create more market access, and provide better ROI, to advertisers. Advertisers fear that Google could use market dominance to set higher prices for search ads.
Forward-thinking SEOs may be licking their lips at that prospect, but I doubt many small website owners who rely on PPC will be too happy.
In a related example, Aaron reported on a feature in The New York Times about how Google refused to tell the owner of a directory why his bid prices had skyrocketed.
“When I pressed Mr. Fox about Sourcetool, he refused to tell me why the algorithm had problems with the site. When I asked him why the business.com site was in the algorithm’s good graces but Sourcetool’s wasn’t, he wouldn’t tell me that, either. All I got were platitudes about the user experience. It wasn’t long before I was almost as exasperated as Mr. Savage. How can you adapt your business model to Google’s specs if Google won’t tell you what the specs are?”
