Google Anti Trust Cases - Search Impartiallity in Question

ImpulsePowerOnly

Shoppers using Google to search for bargains need to be aware that they are currently under investigation in the US and Europe over Anti Trust claims. Many major news websites have been reporting this.

During 2011, Google have been running what is known as the Panda update, which allegedly evaluates websites based upon their quality and then uses this as part of the ranking factor in the search results.

What seems at odds with the claim about improving search quality, is that Google will rank an entire website very low if it has just a small number of pages which it considers poor quality, thereby effectively denying us access to the other useful pages.

It now emerges that quality may have just been a smokescreen to eliminate businesses from their search results which were in vertical markets that compete with Google's own money making activities.

Several companies have lodged complaints and Google's chairman was recently summoned to meet with Europe's competition commissioner, Joaqu!n Almunia, to answer questions over their abuse of their dominant market position.

Millions of websites have been adversely affected by these updates, and many companies have had to lay off staff or close completely. I have witnessed, first hand, the severity of this situation, and webmaster forums are full of people running large and small businesses that are struggling.

In the middle of a downturn in the global economy, it is very disappointing to see this global brand display such social irresponsibility simply to increase, their already, quite frankly, obscene profits.

Next time you search on Google, ask yourself if the results are what you really want to see. Would you really expect to see 3 results from Amazon on every consumer product search followed by price comparison sites? Where are the individual stores?

Each time you use an alternative search engine you will be making the internet a better place by distributing your traffic more widely, and helping to keep more internet businesses alive, which ultimately results in more choice - not Google's choice!

I'd be interested to hear if your business has been adversely and unfairly effected by the Panda updates.

fluffnutter

Which rival search engine do you work for then?

whatmichaelsays

Google has always said that it values quality, unique content - this has been the case since well before Panda was rolled out. Panda merely made it, along with a host of social signals, a bigger factor in search results. The sites that tumbled in Panda were sites that were littered with poor quality, duplicate content or no content at all - aggregators were heavily hit because they rely on other people's content, not their own.

Any webmaster that doesn't base their SEO strategy in knowledge that algorithms change either needs to sack off their SEO agency or sack their marketing team. Panda is harder to manipulate through 'blackhat' methods, it has made search results much more current and it is bringing more relevant searches to users.

I work in an SEO agency and, by monitoring ranking factors worldwide, we pre-empted the roll-out of Panda in the UK. We informed our clients, we put forward remedies and we implemented them - all of that combined to minimise the adverse impact of Panda - all of our clients are back to their average ranking or higher.

Oh, and at what point does a company's profits become "obscene"?

squeaky

HI,

I think this post is best suited to our Warnings board, so I'll move it across.

Forum_Team wrote:

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Scarpacci

In my experience, the only people who have trouble with Google and their frequent updates to their algorithms are people running junk sites. I work in affiliate marketing and have noticed the people who talk most about Panda and other updates are the ones who create dozens of sites with no original content and nothing but commission generating links. I have never noticed any effects (ill or otherwise) from Google's reported changes and I don't worry myself over them.

Just because a few companies, in my view rightly, lose out does not make Google anti-competitive or anything of the sort. They have no duty to ensure certain businesses, often of a dubious nature, continue to make money. Google would lose out in the long run if the sites people were looking for disappeared from Google listings or were hived off to the back pages, but I think we can safely say most of the sites suffering will not have loyal visitor bases or be missed by searchers.

fluffnutter

ImpulsePowerOnly wrote: »

It now emerges that quality may have just been a smokescreen to eliminate businesses from their search results which were in vertical markets that compete with Google's own money making activities.

Hmmm, really? If you're as big as Google, conspiracy theories like the above will inevitably abound. Doesn't mean people should take any notice of them.

Sounds like someone's got an axe to grind, and seeing as the OP's posted only once and then buggered off...