September 14, 2009

White Knight SEO Checks Google Cash Scam Artists

Back on September 2, 2009, I posted a story entitled, "Google Cash Scam Artists vs. White Knight SEO Campaign."

On September 3, Matt McGee of Search Engine Land posted "Google Cash Scams Targeted By 'White Knight' SEOs" and Chris Crum of WebProNews posted "'White Knights' Take on Fraudulent Results."

And on September 11, Kaila Krayewski of Inernet Search Engine Database posted "SEOs Try to Push Google Cash Scams Out of Rankings."

It appears that all the attention to this issue may have prompted Google to block advertising on the term, "Google cash," as well as another term, "Google money tree." On September 11, Jonah Stein of It's the ROI posted "White Knight Checks Google Cash."

Stein said, "For advertisers playing the Google cash game, this is at best check, not mate. We have not induced a moral decision by Google to protect naive users. This appears to be the narrowest possible compromise, a strategic retreat by Google to avoid the obvious embarrassment of having the organic results overtly exposing the scams advertised on the right. Google is still allowing advertisers to bid on variations like google cash detective and google cash system."

So, the chess game continues. Still, it's interesting to note that a handful of White Knight SEO blogs seems to have promoted Google to suspend bidding on a couple of exact match terms. Can the end game be near?

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 2, 2009

Google Cash Scam Artists vs. White Knight SEO Campaign

During SES San Jose 2009, I heard about plans to launch a White Knight SEO campaign to fight the legion of Google Cash Scam artists. If you want some background on the effort, read Jonah Stein's post "Using SEO for Good - Introducting White Knight SEO."

As Stein explains, the group aims to protect users from spam blogs (splogs), Made for AdSense (MFA) sites, and other Google Cash Scam artists by "dominating organic search results with consumer protection information. We hope that we can place advisory content to take over the top 10 results in Google for searches related to common scams and online fraud with a particular focus on areas which are using adwords & adsense to snare victims."

The White Knight SEO campaign's first target is "Google Cash" and related terms. And it has already started generating posts.

One of the earliest that I've found is "Alert - Google Cash Scam," which was posted August 19, 2009, by David Rodnitsky of PPC Associates. Rodnitsky says, "Move over flogs, now there's something meatier! Introducing, um, fnews - fake news! I got a full-screen pop up today from the 'Los Angeles Tribunes' with the headline 'Breaking: Google is Hiring at Home Workers. Pay $373 Dollars a Day (or more).'"

On August 21, Jonathan Hochman, the founder of Hochman Consultants, joined the White Knight SEO campaign when he posted, "Google Turns Blind Eye to Scam Ads." According to Hochman, "Unless you live under a rock, you've no doubt seen those 'Google Cash business opportunity' ads from entities like Google Money Tree and Google Treasure Chest. They seem to be everywhere."

And earlier today, Stein re-doubled his efforts by posting "Google's Cash Cow - Scam Advertising & Profits." Stein writes, "By now, you have gotten at least one email inviting you to make easy money by placing links on Google. These scams go by names like 'The Google Cash System' or 'Easy Google Cash'. The bottom line is pretty simple, these offers are scams and they are designed to take advantage of the most vulnerable people in our society, the unemployed, the opportunity seekers and the naive."

It's still early days, but it will be worth watching the White Knight SEO campaign against the Google Cash Scam artists. If you search for "Google cash" in Google, the #1 organic listing is the question in Google's Web Search Help, "Is Google Cash a legitimate service?"

But the eye goes to the #4 organic listing, which is a YouTube video entitled "Google Cash Scam." You can also watch the 4-minute, 12-second video by Sean Kells of the ReviewAroo.com blog below.

Who knows, maybe there are already enough warning signs around for even the most naive searcher. On the other hand, it never hurts to ensure that the warnings are even more explicit. Stay tuned. This story has legs.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 5:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)

July 13, 2009

Is TechCrunch Calling For Search Regulations or Running Test of Social Media, Link Building?

Okay, TechCrunch publishes an anonymous article calling for the regulation of SEO and SEM aimed squarely at the monopoly that is Google.

The hue and cry is being heard around the world, mainly through comments being posted on Twitter. But is the article really just a way for TechCrunch to do a test of Twitter traffic and its impact on link building, and ultimately on Google's search algorithm?

Our industry has weighed in on this article as if it were another installment of Dave Pasternak's annual controversial traffic generators. But what is it saying and what will this article achieve?

As many of the comments on the article have stated, an anonymous post about transparency is an oxymoron -- you can't tell the search engines to be open when writing without accrediting the author. This is not some revolutionary tract aimed at overthrowing the British, written anonymously for fear of being shot. Even Google does not retaliate against those that criticize them -- I have not been shot, and I give them grief all the time.

There are two paths to look at involving this article: the information it contains, and the motivation behind TechCrunch publishing it.

Let's look at the information first. Using anecdotes of countries and companies controlling access is really distracting -- at first I did not know if this was discussing Google's different country based search or the company as a whole. Google is a multinational conglomerate -- a huge corporation that operates in every country on the planet because of its internet existence.

Google is not the only search engine -- but they are the big dog when it comes to being a gatekeeper of where and how people find information online. We recommended them, we helped make them the most popular source of information on the web. And now we are bitching about it because they were smart enough to monetize it and we are now at the mercy of any change they decide to make.

Yes, we really can't go anywhere else -- they have the searchers we're trying to reach. But you can't complain when a company does its job too well. Asking for someone to come in and regulate it now is like wanting to take your ball back because you are not getting everyone to pass it to you during a game.

Funny how I do not see the industry shouting from the roof tops that Bing or Wolfram/Alpha is a great search engine that makes searching easier or more accurate. The only way the market share will shift is if people evangelize other search engines -- and that means a lot of people.

I have suffered through the changes just like everyone else, and could add several to the list in the article. But sadly, yet realistically, we have to adapt to these changes.

Countries can stop you from entering based on any rules they want. Companies have the right to refuse service, change their prices, the layout of their stores, what products they offer and promote etc. etc. etc. At least that is the case in democratic, free countries.

Getting the government to force Google to show everything will -- as the comments to the article express in the majority -- allow the people with deep pockets to just grab even more of the prime positions.

Do the big spenders at AdWords get preferential treatment? Yes -- and I know that from personal experience. When I was spending over a million dollars a month with AdWords, I got all kinds of help -- including advice on SEO.

Mr. Anonymous, you really lost me at this statement. "It's now conventional wisdom that search engine optimization, representing the organic result sets on any search query, is more voodoo than science."

Sounds exactly like Dave Pasternak. And when it was bandied about two years ago there were some great replies. Barry Schwartz's counter was good, as was Aaron Shear's reply about C execs thinking SEO was voodoo.

So beyond the basic complaint that many of us have about Google's position as gatekeeper of information, let's look at the second point.

What has motivated this article's publication at TechCrunch?

Apart from the huge amount of traffic it is now getting through Twitter and everywhere else, could it be a test of social media traffic? Or is it a clever way to grab links?

TechCrunch has lost a lot of its traffic from search engines, if you can believe Alexa numbers.

Since 2008, it appears TechCrunch has lost almost 50% of its search traffic numbers. Have the algorithm changes finally impacted them, and this is a case of sour grapes? (I am sure that will get some reaction).

Interestingly, TechCrunch does not seem to have been impacted if you look at pageviews. Quite the contrary: they have increased even while getting less search traffic.

So where is all this new traffic coming from? I wonder why this was not added to the post? How to grow numbers despite dropping search traffic would be a much more interesting piece. But that one may not get the huge spike in traffic this one is getting right now.

Michael Arrington is a sharp guy. Like Guy Kawasaki and Jason Calacanis, he recognizes the power of Twitter and has jumped on it as a new source of large amounts of traffic.

So what are we to infer from all this? I don't have a definitive answer, but I'm hoping TechCrunch is running a test of social media, and Twitter in particular. I hope that I will soon see the definitive article on the power of retweets and the global wave of viral social marketing.

I really am hoping this was not a ploy to garner a huge number of links. Either way, you are getting them Michael, and I will watch closely how those search numbers over at Alexa are influenced. Could there be a huge jump in the next few months and get you back where you were a year ago?

Now that would be a clever play. Increased traffic from Twitter -- no doubt getting huge followers today -- and a return to the larger numbers from search would be one hell of a trick. Almost worthy of a Voodoo priest!

Posted by Frank Watson at 12:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

February 4, 2009

SEW Experts: Google and the Obama Administration

Google and its employees seem to be getting awfully cozy with the new President. In today's Searching for Meaning column, "Google and the Obama Administration," Kevin Ryan writes an open letter to President Obama, cautioning him to keep his promises of change.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 30, 2008

SEW Experts: Tin Foil Hat? I Have Mine On

Google's intentions are good, but we must also remember that they aren't in the business of helping your Web site rank highly in Google. So when Google advises against URL rewriting in their Webmaster Central blog, is there an ulterior motive? In today's organic SEO column, "Tin Foil Hat? I Have Mine On," Mark Jackson weighs the pros and cons of URL rewriting, and explores some possible reasons why Google would rather webmasters didn't do it.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 17, 2008

SEW Experts: Launch Google Freedom Now

How much power should Google have? How much is too much? Why should you care? In today's Searching for Meaning column, "Launch Google Freedom Now," Kevin Ryan asks if we would really be better off in a Google-free world.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 29, 2008

Is Google's Price Drop A Reflection Of Recent Media Coverage

The value of Google's stock has taken a bit of a beating recently from their high of $747 last year to yesterday's close at $438. After doing my weekly news review, I saw a lot of articles questioning many actions Google has been doing lately.

Is this pervasive critiquing of Google having an impact of investors' confidence?

The articles I read this week came from a wide range of sources - not just limited to the search industry specific ones we all know within the industry. (I was at a offline/online media event on Thursday where the majority had not heard of SEW, AussieWebmaster or for that matter Danny Sullivan!)

The firing of people from DoubleClick supposedly slated for April 1, according to ValleyWag, should show investors that they are lowering expenses and thus increasing profits for them. But the general public usually sees the company laying people off after an acquisition as Gordon Gekkoish. The eventual impact should be seen in the coming week as this actually happens.

I was having dinner one night during SES NYC last week, I noticed a friend there who does angel investing and asked him what Google closed at that day to determine who in my party was paying. He knew to the penny as he told me he was shorting Google (now I know where he gets his seed capital).

Then I see an article this morning from the UK Guardian stating Google's PPC numbers were slowing. Given January had shown zero growth and February's growth was low single digits compared to previous growth being as high as 30-40%, this spending and growth wall could be a major hurdle for the company's valuation.

"Google maintains that the deceleration is a consequence of its strategy of focusing on quality. The Silicon Valley firm has been trying to eliminate accidental clicks and has been working with advertisers to make sure that links relate closely to users' search queries.

But the slowdown has contributed to a 36% slump in Google's shares since the beginning of the year and analysts are divided on whether the company's confidence is justified," the Guardian stated.

This is also challenged a little by recent complaints by advertisers over some of these methods of improving the quality. The $10 Minimum Bid push has lost Google advertisers. The arbitragers squeezing a few pennies from a click have had to drop away (leaving the really good ones at it a cheaper range), but so have the companies that provide legitimate inexpensive products or services very relevant to the people searching from that perspective.

The impact Google is having on other online industries may also be impacting their brand and through that their value. The analytics industry was impacted by Google's purchase of Urchin and the development of the free services of Google Analytics - so even a popular free service gets flak, and their mistakes are made public quickly as was the case with GA information being displayed in the Google organic results..

There will be an additional backlash from the DoubleClick acquisition. It is going to be hard for the soon to be unemployed to find jobs in the industry as Google launched Ad Manager which offers ad serving for free and thus will hurt the job market in the industry as the competitors lose market share.

The words of Larry Page's recent Annual Report letter reflect the perspective the founder sees his realm of "users, customers, Googlers (our employees), and investors who help bring everything that is Google to life".

Part of Google's success has been in its ability to maintain the "church and state" separation of organic listings and paid search ads. While that is to be commended, isolating customers from the users pool is a little naive - people advertise on Google because they have used Google and want to advertise to similar users.

Google would not still be in business if they had not been able to monetize the popular search engine. When they first started the company was nearly sold to Excite.com for a million dollars, because they could not monetize what they were doing.

With revenues of more than $10 billion last year - 90% of which came from paid search advertising - you would think the customers would take top billing, but the behemoth of search still sees search through the eyes of its users. " We continue our effort to extract more and more real meaning from the web in order to help people find the right answers. We recently improved universal search, integrating different types of relevant information, such as video, maps, news, books, images, and more, right into your search results.

Sometimes you don't get a good answer to a search because the information simply isn't available on the web. So we are working hard to encourage ecosystems that can generate more content from more authors and creators. For example, we recently announced an early version of a tool called "knol" to help people generate and organize more high-quality authored content."

Watch out Wikipedia your space is soon to be seriously invaded.

And one has to wonder if Google is getting into the conference and hotel business next. Their proposal to develop a parcel of land in the Mountain View industrial park for office space, conference center and a hotel is lodged with the local council.

Wonder if they plan on starting their own search conferences, with attendees staying at the nearby hotel? Are we to see a conference advertising tab soon in our AdWords accounts?

The issues of Google's decisions about censorship seem to contradict their "protector of users" stance. The capitulation to the Chinese government;s demands of censoring information about protest has many activists protesting, including shareholders.

The UK Times recently wrote a piece about "Google and the threat to free speech" and mentioned the company's resistance to activist shareholders "anti-censorship proposal by arguing it would do more harm than good to set the terms of use in countries notorious for their hostility to free speech. In other words, a version of the Google search engine that edits out references to the Tiananmen Square massacre or a Tibet-free YouTube is better for the Chinese people, Google brass could just as well have said. Again, the same argument is expected this year at its annual meeting on May 8."

Guess they would rather be the search engine of record for phishers. Seems more than 75% of all phishing efforts use a customized Google search to help in their efforts, according to InformationToday.

Prosecutors around the world must be awaiting their areas' inclusion in Google Maps now that it can be used to find crack dealers. Guess the police industry could be on the horizon.

Publishers and ecommerce sites see Google's action of adding a search box for more results within Google as opposed to going to the site, giving Google the chance to sell advertising for competitors.

Well that was my fill of Google for one week.... now if only my stocks would bounce back to the $700 range I would be much happier.

Posted by Frank Watson at 2:31 PM | Permalink

December 17, 2007

Is Google The Borg or Big Brother

Google is growing and the question of whether or not it has become too invasive (or persuasive) is one that needs to be answered now. While using pop culture references to attract attention to this situation is fun, it also captures the massive popularity of Google itself.

As any Star Trek fan can tell you, "[t]he Borg have become a symbol in popular culture for any juggernaut against whom "resistance is futile."

Google has shown elements of this with its acquisition of companies and giving away their services leaving others in those industries worried about their futures. Web Analytics (Urchin), Office software, and DoubleClick (the purchase of which has anti-trust examinations both in the US and Europe).

The other part of Google is the control they have on a very powerful industry that impacts people's lives and perceptions. When Google has the lion share of all searches made globally they have the ability to manipulate what people see.

They can hold a company's very existence in their algorithm. They can manipulate PPC rules and cost people a lot of money to maintain their marketing.

But beyond that people are hooked on Google. A recent study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that over 47% of internet users have Googled themselves. A big jump from the 22% of 2002. We want to know what Google thinks of us... well really we want to know how we rate in Google. People see themselves as a reflection of the SERPs.... please tell me that is not true.

Meanwhile Google is rolling out their Google Profiles - a scary Big Brother type of scenario. But everyone loves Google and will be happy to give their information over to the collective.

As Wired magazine online notes people are fast grabbing a G-Identity.

While it is fun to mix the pop culture references, the humor lies in the kernel of truth that makes it funny. I guess we really have to hope they live up to their motto to "Do No Evil".

Posted by Frank Watson at 1:27 PM | Permalink

November 7, 2007

SEW Experts: Should You Join the PageRank Hysteria?

PageRank is the SEO equivalent of a stock ticker. How much time do you want to invest watching the PR ticker? In today's Searching for Meaning column, "Should You Join the PageRank Hysteria?," Kevin Ryan takes a look at the buzz surrounding this nonevent to find some meaning in this mess.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

September 10, 2007

TurnHere announces new video distribution partnerships and products

Today TurnHere, the online video enterprise, announced their expansion in the video search space new distribution partnerships with book-centric sites and an enhanced video gadget for improving on the book search experience.

My new blog features an interview with TurnHere's CEO Bradley Inman, along with in in-depth review of TurnHere's claims of "deep partnerships" with the major search portals, along with a review of their new book widget technology.

Posted by Grant Crowell at 4:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 30, 2007

The Economist Examines Google

Google is hated and feared by many, as The Economist outlines, but it seems it is their moto of "Do No Evil" that gets people annoyed.

The Economist outlines the rapid growth and numerous products Google has bought or developed and suggests much of the fear and hate comes from competitors in the new spaces the search giant is getting involved in.

"Google is often compared to Microsoft (another enemy, incidentally); but its evolution is actually closer to that of the banking industry. Just as financial institutions grew to become repositories of people's money, and thus guardians of private information about their finances, Google is now turning into a custodian of a far wider and more intimate range of information about individuals. Yes, this applies also to rivals such as Yahoo! and Microsoft. But Google, through the sheer speed with which it accumulates the treasure of information, will be the one to test the limits of what society can tolerate," The Economist opines.

In another article, The Economist notes "[i]t is rare for a company to dominate its industry while claiming not to be motivated by money. Google does. But it has yet to face a crisis."

Google's Chief Financial Officer Hal Varian is either shown to be glib or shows he is a little out of touch on average PPC costs when he says “[a]ll that money comes 50 cents at a time.”

But at least the brand has taken hold to the point that even Marge Simpson ultimately says: "And all this time I thought ‘googling yourself' meant the other thing.”

Posted by Frank Watson at 3:06 PM | Permalink

December 27, 2006

Top 10 Google Myths Debunked

I came across this in one of the blogs today. Google Myths impact everyone - they are becoming urban legends.

So Ionut Alex. Chitu, a student from Romania, gave us replies to the top ten myths.

The one that is given the most attention is the conspiracy theory of Google and their use of your information (3 of the 10). The most interesting and self-revealing:

8. Google is the best search engine that will ever be built.

Google is far from a search engine that "understands exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you want". But its goal is to reach that state.

The tenth myth was about Google's control of the world, the answer was: Those who control information, control the world. Hopefully Google will be a benevolent dictator.

An entertaining read.

Posted by Frank Watson at 2:33 PM | Permalink

December 12, 2006

Is click fraud via Google “a fraction of one percent”?

Donna Bogatin has an interesting post on ZDNet entitled, Google and click fraud: As wholesome as milk?

While giving Google left-handed praise for “playing a good PR game in the blogosphere,” she questions “the double speak nature of Google's click fraud stance”. According to Google, its advertisers are charged for “valid clicks,” but not for “invalid clicks.” And what is Google's definition of an “invalid click”? “Any click Google doesn't charge for.”

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 10:24 AM | Permalink

November 28, 2006

Exalead CEO Warns Of "Google Monster" & Closed Yahoo & Microsoft

The Multilingual Search Blog covers Exalead CEO Francois Bourdoncle taking a big stick and swinging at Google in a keynote talk at SES Paris. He positions his own service as potentially the savior for those in Europe worried about the "Google monster." Beyond Google, he also criticizes Yahoo and Microsoft for collaborating on a "closed" sitemaps protocol. I'd say the Cold War against American-based search engines is going up a notch.

Let's deal with the Google Monster idea first:

The press in particular should be worried about becoming sub-contractors of Google, he said. Whilst at present Google News brings plenty of traffic to sites under the brand names of the press outlets, this would change to Google's brand in the future.

Actually, Google News has always operated under the Google brand. So much for that secret Google master plan, I guess. In fact, despite using the Google brand, I just covered some stats yesterday showing how Google sends upwards of 22 percent of traffic to newspapers sites.

Of course, Bourdoncle may have meant that in the future, Google will actually host content on Google itself, saving people from making a click through to news sites. Possible. And if so, ironically the newspapers may have themselves to blame. Go back to my write-up about the AP deal with Google. How exactly Google will make more use of AP content remains to be seen. But I explained that there's good reason that Google might host AP content on Google itself, similar to what Topix does.

Google's largely seen to have cut the AP deal in part because the AP may have been threatening legal action. Do a deal, the issue over spidering goes away -- and Google can host news content on its own site. As more companies clamor for deals (such as in Belgium this week), Google might transform into a content hosting service rather than pointing to content elsewhere.

By the way, Yahoo News already operates this way, hosting plenty of news content of its own. So even if Google goes that route, why haven't news organizations been complaining about the Yahoo monster? My guess would be that once you cut deals to host content, you seem less monstrous. And that works again against what Bourdoncle warns. If Google does host content, the news organization should be happy given they will have done the partnering to make that happen.

Bourdoncle isn't the only search engine to swing a torch around to rally the villagers against the Frankenstein's monster of Google. Microsoft just did this last month. CEO Steve Ballmer positioned Google as "transferring the wealth out of the hands of rights holders." Microsoft, of course, does much of the crawling and content gathering that Google does. It's hard to see how it is somehow more altruistic.

Such statements make good headlines, and I'd say they're going to play even better in Europe, which has watched the search industry rise into generating billions of dollars for America, rather than euros for Europe. There are also some serious cultural and political issues to consider. Many people may simply be more comfortable using a service that grew natively from their own country. I don't discount these worries and have great respect for them. I just dislike much of the scare mongering I also see that often feels like politicians and private companies hoping to position their own agendas, rather than a common good.

Such worries are one reason the Quaero project emerged, a planned multimedia search engine that will get government funds. I've likened this to being a Boeing versus Airbus challenge in the search world -- and also covered how Europe has had no lack of native technology already that grew without government subsidies.

Exalead is part of the Quaero project, though I remain confused about how to find more about it and what exactly it is doing. There used to be a site here that brings up nothing but a logon page. I've also seen the Quaero.org site referred to as the home of the project. That's entirely in French and German, and my German remains pretty bad. But I'm pretty sure I don't even see the word Quaero mentioned there.

Anyway, it's long been on my list to catch-up on the project. Chris Sherman's out in France today, and I think he's actually planning to talk with Exalead about Quaero more. So stay tuned.

Finally, Google wasn't alone for criticism:

He also criticised the new sitemaps collaboration announced by Google, Yahoo and MSN at Pubcon in Las Vegas. He said, “The sitemaps specification is not nice and open and it not nice and closed”. He believes the initiative aims to close the door to new entrants to the market place.

Frankly, I disagree. Google's had a sitemaps system out for over a year. In that time, I heard not one word out of Exalead that it thought it made sense that this should be expanded to be supported by other search engines. Now Google, Yahoo and Microsoft agreed to a common specification. Exalead could jump into supporting that now, if they wanted. They could also produce a rival format, if they wanted (and what joy that would be). But instead, what they support is a single page-by-page submission feature. Criticizing a bulk submission feature of your rivals when you offer none of your own doesn't win points in my book.

Instead, I'd say the real issue is that Exalead didn't get to sit at the big table in working out the agreement along with the other three. That is unfortunate, just as I felt Ask should have been included as well. Exalead is an excellent search engine that deserves the attention of both searchers and the search engine industry alike -- as is Ask.

Not being included from the start was unfortunate, but forgivable, as long as we see a working group expand going forward. I'm all for that, though I don't want expansion to slow things down. It also makes sense that the market leaders -- the services with the most queries and thus the most attention from site owners -- are going to take the lead in these things.

Postscript: Quest for a Euro-Google from the BBC earlier this year provides a longer look at Quaero and Exalead's involvement.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:23 AM | Permalink

November 13, 2006

Google Ranks Google Video Questioning Iran's Authority Over Tabriz

Via Valleywag and The Guardian, Iran is upset with Google over ranking a Google Video too high in the Google results. The video titled Tabriz - Azerbaijan describes that the ancient city Tabriz is located in Southern Azerbaijan, suggestion it shouldn't be part of Iran. A Google search on [tabriz azerbaijan] shows the Google Video as (currently) number one with a snippet that reads; "This video shows Tabriz, a city in Southern Azerbaijan, currently in the territory of Iran." A search for [tabriz] shows this result at the bottom of the first page or top of second page. Iran is upset with Google over this and feels that it is a US centric method of undermining Iran.

Postscript From Danny: To be really clear about how absurd this is, it's not Google directly suggesting that Tabriz is not somehow part of Iran. It's a description in a video that someone uploaded to Google Video. Where does Google itself think Tabriz is located at? According to Google Maps -- which Google runs directly -- firmly within the boundaries of the country of Iran.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:25 AM | Permalink

November 8, 2006

Eric Schmidt At Web 2.0 On YouTube & Other Issues

John Battelle spoke with Eric Schmidt at Web 2.0 yesterday. What have we got? YouTube's growth made it a necessary purchase. No, money's not set aside to cover YouTube legal claims. Yes, you can have your date if you want it, users. No, Google's not trying to take out Microsoft Office. Plus some more below.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt: We would never trap user data from ZDNet has coverage that has Schmidt saying:

• Google bought YouTube because it was growing faster than Google Video, and video was a "fundamental data type" to Google.
• Google's still figuring out ways to compensate content owners with video, a complex area.
• Google would support exporting personal data (search history, email, etc) to other providers, if it can be authenticated.
• Google's office products are "casual" and not aimed at Microsoft.

Google CEO denies rumor of YouTube legal reserve from Reuters quotes Schmidt as saying "not true" to a rumor that $500 million of the YouTube sales prices was set aside for legal claims.

@ Web 2.0: Day One Highlights: Ad 2.0; Google CEO; Skype Content from PaidContent covers Schmidt but also touches on IAC's Barry Diller saying in a separate interview that he doesn't expect Google will become a media monopoly or dominant player.

Web 2.0 Con: Liveblogging the "Conversation with Eric Schmidt" from Valleywag has a nice minute-by-minute rundown of the interview, for those that want more -- and covers that if Schmidt or one of the cofounders Larry Page or Sergey Brin don't agree on something, the cofounder wins. "I'm the one with the experience who's late. Left to their own devices they'd be early and right, but too early."

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 5:34 AM | Permalink

November 6, 2006

Google Owns AdSense.com Now

Nathan Weinberg reports that Google is now the owner of the domain adsense.com. The story goes a bit back when a company named the AdSense Consulting Group became Fed Up With Google AdSense, after receiving tons of unwanted traffic and inquiries on AdSense consulting services. They did not disclose the amount AdSense.com was sold for, but you can still visit the AdSense Consulting Group at www.adsense2.com. I wonder if Google will do the same with UTube.com, kinda similar to News.com's story that YouTube.com sued by UTube.com.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:16 AM | Permalink

November 3, 2006

Google Loading Cookie When Using Firefox RSS Display

Nathan Weinberg covers a report from LegRoom.net that shows Google is loading a cookie on your browser that won't expire until 2038 when you access RSS feeds via the Firefox 2.0 RSS display. The real issue here, as I understand it and as LegRoom suggests, is that Google's favorite icon is loading a cookie on your browser. Since Firefox 2.0 is using the favorite icon in the RSS display, the cookie is automatically being added to your computer. Firefox is also calling the other RSS readers for their favorite icon, but I believe those favorite icons do not set a cookie on the computer. So why is Google setting a cookie for their favorite icon?

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:08 AM | Permalink

October 30, 2006

Google "In Bed" With The CIA?

Threadwatch spots a disgrunt article named Former Intelligence Agent Says Google In Bed With CIA. Robert David Steele, a former CIA agent, "confirmed from his contacts within the CIA and Google that Google was working in tandem with “the agency." Steele said, “I think that Google has made a very important strategic mistake in dealing with the secret elements of the U.S. government - that is a huge mistake and I'm hoping they'll work their way out of it and basically cut that relationship off." Scary, very scary.

Postscript: Statement from Google on this, "The statements related to Google are completely untrue."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:36 AM | Permalink

October 16, 2006

Forget Elvis, Google Is Everywhere, Says The New York Times

Planet Google Wants You from the New York Times looks at Google being everywhere, as "ubiquitous as brushing your teeth." Actually, the Times didn't say that -- it's what slipped out in notes earlier this year on how Google was pitching itself to investment analysts. In this article, tons of Google love of the type we used to hear back in 2002 and 2003 on Google providing solutions that seemingly nobody else can (often not true, just people who don't know better). Plus, a look at how some Google "disciples" are in denial that Google is a big megacorp these days (very true). Now if Michael J. Fox is the evil anti-Elvis (who like Google, is everywhere), I just want to know who's the evil anti-Google. It sure ain't Microsoft.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:02 AM | Permalink

October 12, 2006

Ballmer: YouTube Overvalued & Google Transferring Wealth From Content Owners

The Web According to Ballmer from BusinessWeek has Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer questioning the value of the Google-YouTube deal and oddly warning that Google is transferring wealth away from rights holders. It's an odd statement, since that's what Microsoft wants to do as well.

First the questioning of the YouTube value:

[You've got to ask] could Google do whatever it is they're hoping to buy without paying $1.6 billion? Is YouTube really some permanent, long-term thing, or is it a fashion?....Right now, there's no business model for YouTube that would justify $1.6 billion.

Though strangely, when BusinessWeek tries to pindown what seems a clear statement that Google overpaid, Ballmer says:

I'm not saying it is overvalued. I'm not trying to say that. It depends on a set of factors. I'm not saying I wouldn't write a check for that amount of money. I might.

And back to the controversial statement about Google's relations with content:

And what about the rights holders? At the end of the day, a lot of the content that's up there is owned by somebody else.

The truth is what Google is doing now is transferring the wealth out of the hands of rights holders into Google. So media companies around the world are all threatened by Google. Why? Because basically Google is telling you how much of your ad revenue you get to keep. They better get some competition. Us. Yahoo! (YHOO). Somebody better break through or you can short all media stocks right now. As long as there are two, you can hold onto media stocks. Google understands that. And that's one reason why they're willing to lose money up front.

Microsoft has its own video sharing service up, Soapbox. It has a question answering service, Q&A. It has an entire search engine that crawls the web like Google, Windows Live. Microsoft has plans for contextual placement of ads on pages, similar to AdSense. It's specific to MSN content now, but that will inevitably change. All of these things leverage the content of others in order to make money from Microsoft. So if these actions leverage wealth away from content owners, Microsoft is just as guilty of it as Google.

Frankly, all Ballmer seems to be saying is content owners would be better off if Microsoft was a strong third participant in ad game. Sure -- but let's not kid ourselves. Microsoft gets a lot better off by that as well, and it didn't jump into the game out of some desire to counter-balance the power of Google. It's in it to make as much money as it can, as well.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:42 AM | Permalink

August 23, 2006

Google's Dominance Of Big & Small Companies

Fortune has a nice write up they named "How Google can make - or break - your company." Not only does this article go over how Google can break a small online retailer who depends on organic results, but also how they can break large firms like travel agencies, newspapers, realtors, advertising firms and software makers (even Microsoft). The article makes a good read if you have the time. If you have more time, also read Google Sees Content Deals As Key to Long-Term Growth at the Wall Street Journal, which explores more of Google's future and how you may be a part of it.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:27 AM | Permalink

July 13, 2006

AdSense Consulting Group Fed Up With Google AdSense

Wired has a story on AdSense, not Google AdSense, but AdSense Consulting, the company who registered AdSense.com back in 1996.

If you visit adsense.com, you will notice Google does not own the site, and they do not provide Google AdSense services.

In fact, they have a message on the site that reads, "If you think you can get rich quick placing other people's ads on your site or blog, please contact Google who has taken and used our business name without permission or compensation."

I find it funny that Google AdSense, which is a contextual ad program, developed to provide relevant sales leads, has done the exact opposite for AdSense Consulting.

AdSense Consulting apparently gets hundreds of irrelevant phone calls and emails to answer Google AdSense customer support related questions, something nothing to do with their business. Sounds incredibly frustrating to me.

The article notes the company has now sold the domain to another company, which has not yet been named. Google declined to purchase it from her, apparently. Google also decided her site didn't qualify to carry AdSense ads, either.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:32 AM | Permalink

July 3, 2006

New York Times Looks At Google's Hardware & Infrastructure

A New York Times article has a detailed analysis of Google's infrastructure and discussion with Urs Hölzle, senior vice president for operations at Google. Here are some of the key points I pulled from that article.

+ Google tends builds from ground up versus buying. + Google's computing costs are half those of other large Internet companies and a tenth those of traditional corporate technology users. + Critics call Google's philosophy "unnecessary and inefficient." + "Google is reducing cost while maintaining performance by shifting the burden of reliability from hardware to software — individual hardware components can fail, but software automatically shifts the local task and the data to other machines." + Google is among Advanced Micro's five largest clients.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:51 AM | Permalink

June 23, 2006

Child Porn Suit Dropped Against Google

The Associated Press reports that the suit brought against Google for profiting on child pornography has been dropped. Jeffrey Toback, of the Nassau County Legislature, filed the suit in early May. Toback said he dropped the suit because "Google has offered to sit down and discuss the issues. They didn't want to do that while litigation was pending, so we're taking them up on their offer."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:35 AM | Permalink

June 16, 2006

Schmidt Talks On Staying In China, GBuy & More

Conde Nast Portfolio, a new business magazine out next year, landed a nice coup of having Eric Schmidt speak yesterday at its launch party (Schmidt's also apparently set to be one of the first profiles in the new magazine). The video of the interview is online here, covering mostly stuff you've already heard Schmidt say before in other interviews (the LA Times had one last week) over the past years. But here are some things worth highlighting to me.

What would be the one do over for him? He says if Google had done any one particular thing three months earlier, it would have been better.

China was an example of this. In hindsight, he wishes Google had gotten a Chinese government approved version going sooner. "I don't think we would have changed the decision, but I think earlier, the better." He didn't say exactly why. My assumption would be that Google would be stronger in China compared to Baidu, but also that he would say they would have been serving people in China better for a longer period.

Was Google cofounder really suggesting last week that Google was having second thoughts when he said:

"Perhaps now the principled approach makes more sense," Brin said.

No -- it was either a nuanced comment, a misquoted one and there was also a whole part of what he said missing, Schmidt said. The missing part Sergey had said was, he explained, was that Google had decided to go ahead with what it considered the lesser of two evils, serving people even though it had to do censorship.

There's more of the how Google operates stuff, the 20 percent time (for engineers -- still not others, apparently), the 70-20-10 time allocation of work time, and the idea of not trying to tell people what to do, for fear of stifling creativity. Instead, Google suggests what are company priorities and hopes employees agree because they, too, want to work on what's important for the company.

He talks about Google doing ads on cell phones in Japan and says they'll come to Europe this summer and to the US within the next 12 months.

GBuy? That's the press name, not Google's name, and "It's not like PayPal at all." He says its designed to help advertisers have their customers buy things more quickly than through other mechanisms. We'll see. If PayPal means sending money between two people, it probably won't be. If PayPal means an alternative to buying with a credit card (or having a credit card account as a merchant), then I think GBuy will be very much like PayPal. And it operates this way already on Google Base. For more, see Google GBuy Launch Later This Month To Challenge PayPal?. And hang in there. Schmidt said it's coming soon.

Will Google do its own hardware? "It's much better to have a partner," and "It's much better to be in the software business," he said. The economics are better, he explained.

Biggest competition? Yahoo and Microsoft are both strong and good competitors, but Yahoo is the "primary competitor."

Is Google too powerful, especially given statements he made years ago relating to Microsoft that could be applied to Google today. There are a number of other choices consumers could go to, he said -- "and we know this."

In other words, Google knows that it could potentially lose customers at any time, so it will self-police itself. Same thing he told me back in 2002 in my Google: Can The Marcia Brady Of Search Stay Sweet? article:

"We have very poor lock in. Microsoft has very high lock in," said Google CEO Eric Schmidt, when we spoke at Google's offices last month. "The switchover cost for you to move to one of our competitors is none. As long as the switchover costs are so low, we run scared. Everyday I wonder if there are very smart people at Berkeley coming up with a new algorithm," Schmidt adds -- but in a way that clearly suggests that he wants Google to run scared, in order to keep the company smart and honest.

Although to update things, Google has much better lock-in these days, given Google's many portal features. People are storing email, web analytics data, photos and spreadsheets to name only few things they may not wish to abandon, not to mention kicking the Google Habit can be hard and people aren't likely to do it unless Google gets really bad, as I've written.

As for having knocked Microsoft when he was at Sun for releasing weak products and using customers as guinea pigs, how does he respond to accusations that Google does the same? He says they have a two to three month product cycle now. To be fair, the endless betas Google used to do have gotten better.

During Q&A, Chris Anderson of Wired asks about the impact AdSense has on fueling spam across the web -- search spam, comment spam, trackback spam and so on. Schmidt responds to say Google looks had at preventing click fraud, not really answering the question.

ClickZ also has coverage of his talk in Google's Schmidt at Conde Nast Lunch Today and Reuters looks at the GBuy comments in Google tests Web buying system, says unlike PayPal.

Need more on Schmidt talking Google? See our Google , Google: Employees and Google: Revenues categories of Search Topics for archived articles going back for years, if you are a Search Engine Watch member.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:57 AM | Permalink

June 12, 2006

The Downside Of Google?

I'm all for keeping a close and critical eye on search engines, but the Observer article "The readers editor on ... the downside of Google" does perhaps go too far. An Observer commissioning editor ran a search on Google for an MRSA expert and the 'expert' was approached to write an article. It turns out he wasn't really an expert at all. This doesn't seem to me to be a downside of Google (particularly since other results pointed out that the self proclaimed expert was anything but); but more a downside of journalists being too quick off the mark and not taking time to consult an information professional perhaps?

Posted by Phil Bradley at 10:38 AM | Permalink

How Google Is Killing The Internet

Seth Jayson has written an interesting piece "How Google is killing the internet" over at The Motley Fool. It's a lengthy analysis which takes in part its premise that web authors are so desperate to get visitors to click on their Adsense links that they're creating pages of junk without any useful content. As a result the content that is returned as the result of a search (not just on Google but on its competitors websites as well) is valueless. I'm rather ambivalent about this but the implications for search are interesting to say the least.

In common with Jayson I've run searches that return very little useful content, or almost as irritatingly, have visited a page with good data, but that which has been spread over 4 or 5 pages to maximise the number of adverts I have to look at. Despite SEO claims that the best way to get a good ranking in Google is to have really good content, some pages that rank highly in the results have got there due to dubious methods such as cloaking or link farms. The argument runs that although Google should stamp down on activities such as this there is little incentive for them to do so because Adsense brings in so much of their revenue.

Well, yes and no. Obviously Google wants to make money, but equally the only way that they will achieve this is if people continue to use their resources. If the average searcher becomes disenchanted with Google, they do have other options available to them, with Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask already trying to get rather more than a foot into the door. Although Google is constantly releasing new utilities in order to get people to use their entire raft of products, their key focus is, according to Marissa Mayer still all about search.

As a searcher what I (and everyone else) wants from a search is an authoritative answer from a trustworthy source. What any search engine needs to do is give me a good reason to visit any particular website that is returned in the results. While I trust Google to do that, the key is not to trust it too much. If the searcher can retain a skeptical viewpoint with respect to the information that is returned to them they're not going to go too far wrong. Searchers need a blended approach, combining robot powered solutions but also resources created by human beings; indexes, virtual libraries, gateways and swickis for example.

So I don't think that Google is killing the internet; that really is a statement too far. If Jayson is correct and that search results are getting clogged up at Google, it is going to have the opposite effect - the more that people are disatisfied with the results they get, the more likely they are to explore other alternative methods of getting the information that they need. Indeed, as Jayson does actually point out towards the end of his article, other search engines are constantly striving to surpass Google and there are plenty of examples where this is already happening. The limitations of Google as reflected in poor results gives greater scope for other search engines and other search solutions, which has to be a healthy situation.

Posted by Phil Bradley at 9:23 AM | Permalink

June 7, 2006

Brin Suggests Google Might Reverse Chinese Censorship In The Short Term; Meanwhile, China Ramps Up Google.com Blocks

"Brin says Google compromised principles" from the Associated Press covers Google cofounder Sergey Brin telling reporters yesterday that it's possible Google might reverse its policy of censoring on behalf of the Chinese government. That's the real news from his talk -- a possible reversal, perhaps soon -- not the admission of compromise which Google's made before. The news comes on the heels of China apparently ramping up blocks on the uncensored Google.com site.

Back in January, Brin already said the move wasn't "to the 100 percent that we ideally would like." That same month, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that Google had created an "evil scale" to determine just how much a compromise of the company's "Don't Be Evil" mantra the China move would be. In February, Google communications chief Elliot Schrage explained to a US Congressional committee how in 2002, Google refused to compromise its principles:

We faced a choice at that point: hold fast to our commitment to free speech (and risk a long-term cut-off from our Chinese users), or compromise our principles by entering the Chinese market directly and subjecting ourselves to Chinese laws and regulations. We stood by our principles, which turned out to be a good choice, as access to Google.com was largely restored within about two weeks.

But then he also explained that compromise in 2006 was deemed necessary:

Our hope is that our mix of measures, though far from our ideal, would accomplish more for Chinese citizens? access to information than the alternative. We don?t pretend that this is the single ?right? answer to the dilemma faced by information companies in China, but rather a reasonable approach that seems likely to bring our users greater access to more information than any other search engine in China. And by serving our users better, we hope it will be good for our business, too, over the long run.

So fast forward to yesterday and Brin's statement:

"We felt that perhaps we could compromise our principles but provide ultimately more information for the Chinese and be a more effective service and perhaps make more of a difference," Brin said.

Frankly, it's really nothing they haven't said before, albeit more directly to have "compromise" and "principles" coming up so directly and so close together. Far more interesting was this statement:

"Perhaps now the principled approach makes more sense," Brin said.

Change directions? That itself isn't necessarily news. Google's already said before they might reverse course. Going back to Schrage's statement from February:

Looking ahead, we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives I?ve outlined above, we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.

That statement sounds pretty long-term -- watch and see over time. Brin's statement sounds more immediate, as if suddenly things have changed that might make Google rethink its approach in the near term. What could those things be?

For one, the China issue isn't going away. Google continues to take flak for it, both outside China by those opposed to the move and even those inside China by those upset with the disclosure route they've followed.

More recently, just this week, journalists in the UK started organizing to boycott Yahoo over its actions in China. Google, which has done far less egregious things than Yahoo is accused of, could still come under fire for a similar move.

Also this week, reports have started coming in that Google.com is being more heavily blocked from China. China 'blocks' main Google site from the BBC (and see also Reuters) has more on this.

Google.com has never worked perfectly within China. That, after all, is the reason why Google caved to create an approved Chinese edition. But Google.com has remained held out by the company as a way for those in China to still get an uncensored look at search results (at least uncensored according to Chinese laws; US laws still get a far more limited amount of material removed).

If Google.com is now being more aggressively blocked -- not just occasionally for particular sensitive queries but in a heavy-handed fashion -- Google loses another relief valve for those upset with its actions.

It's also important to note that one of the ways Google decides what to censor is to look at the differences between Google.com and Google China from within China, as the New York Times explained in an excellent story back in April. If Google.com is being blocked more heavily, then it's harder for Google to maintain its censored version.

Then again, perhaps a reversal isn't really likely to happen soon. Later in his talk with reporters, Brin said:

"It's perfectly reasonable to do something different, to say, 'Look, we're going to stand by the principle against censorship and we won't actually operate there.' That's an alternate path," Brin said. "It's not where we chose to go right now, but I can sort of see how people came to different conclusions about doing the right thing."

The "not where we chose to go right now" sort of defused the idea that dropping censorship might be a short term thing.

It's also interesting that only two months ago, Google CEO Eric Schmidt talked about the Chinese action as "absolutely the right move." I didn't agree with that, and now we've got one of the cofounders clarifying it wasn't absolutely the right choice but rather simply one of at least two directions Google decided to go.

If you're interested in more about these issues and past developments, be sure to check out the Legal: Censorship category we maintain for Search Engine Watch members.

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our Search Engine Watch Forums thread, Brin says Google compromised principles.

Postscript: Google.cn: more 'Google Speak' at ZDNet from Donna Bogatin notes that only last week, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said he doesn't "see a need to change what we have done." So a split among the Google leadership? Or a recent change in China making them all rethink things?

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