Brad Fallon

Who owns "Google"? (It may not be Google)
Many Google watchers have commented on Google's apology (see Saturday 12/20), but for the most part, Google doesn't want to talk about Florida. At the recent search engine conference in Chicago, eyewitnesses noted that all Google wants to talk about publicly are AdWords and AdSense.

Who can blame them? It's pretty well-settled in many SEO circles that the Florida update was a disaster and delivered less -- not more -- relevant search results.

And only the wildest conspiracy theorists really think Google would mess with their search-side algorithm just to force web site owners to buy more ads from the ad-side revenue team. Pretty much anyone raising this issue is kind of like Howard Dean floating the theory that George W had prior knowledge of 9/11. It just gives him something, albeit dumb, to talk about.

Now, though, comes a very interesting theory that I think was first raised in a jimworld forum. In a nutshell, the theory is simple:

1. Google does not own the patent on their core PageRank algorithm. Stanford University does.

2. Google wants to go public (IPO) and not have to pay a fortune to Stanford.

3. Google is trying to "design around" the patent so they can go public and put the maximum number of billions in the shareholders' pockets.

See "In the Crosshairs" for the entire discussion.

Out of the Frying Pan Into the Fire

Today, I left my computer for a few hours to get behind the wheel of some serious computing power -- a Boeing 777. I got my pilot's license over a year ago, but flying this $19 million simulator was the coolest thing ever. I got to take off and land a 777, and it's hard to describe how realistic it is. I actually made a pretty smooth landing in Hawaii. Here's me in the co-pilot seat:

A Christmas Quote

"How many observe Christ's birthday! How few, his precepts! O! 'tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments."

                                                                                                  -- Benjamin Franklin

Do you accept Google's apology?

The biggest news of late that cracked me up was a de facto spokersperson for Google actually apologizing for google crushing so many small business owners before the holidays. Apparently, Craig Nevill-Manning, Google’s Senior Research Scientist, said, “I apologize for the roller coaster. We’re aware that changes in the algorithm affect people’s livelihoods. We don’t make changes lightly.”

It is sad. Right before Christmas, Google decided(?) it would be a good time to swap an average of 54% of the Top 100 listings by one account. More than one commentator noted that a significant number of previously highly-ranked site owners were forced to buy Google AdWords if they wanted any online sales at all. The spike in revenue is sure to help the valuation of the forthcoming IPO -- but most of us thought connecting those dots was a stretch.

The best part, though, was watching the SEO forums. I don't think there was as much chatter about the last hurricane as there was about the "Florida update." It even made the local papers. The highly-amusing chatter seemed to divide into two camps. Not surprisingly, there was much whining and gnashing of teeth. At the same time, there has been some excellent analysis that Google's changes have actually hurt rankings more than helped in the sense of delivering relevant results. Leslie Rohde wrote one of the better-researched analyses I've read here, noting that if "eliminating spam" was the goal, it's had to imagine that 54% of the previous search results in the world's best search engine were spam.

On the other side is a whole group that says, "Way to go Google! Get rid of all SEO's." One recent post said, "I am glad Google is rocking the world of the search engine manipulators. Spam has no place on the internet."

Well, ok. But unfortunately, that's not the case in many instances. What's happening is that many small business owners are getting killed amid some very dubious new search results. Even today, the listings are bouncing around. At least the "calgary web design" example has been partly fixed. (For awhile, no calgary web designers came up. They were all replaced by, among other things, a book about web design on amazon with a review written by someone from Calgary.)

Unfortunately the industry dialogue often fails to delineate between SE "spam" and legitimate optimization. Indeed, there is little agreement on the definitions of all these terms. While most everyone agrees that optimizing a porn site to come up for the keywords "cheap wedding favors" is "spam." Indeed, a couple weeks ago, my roommate from lawschool was ego surfing and was dismayed to discover that a search for "Kurt A. Raulin" came up in the title of a Top 10 listing on Google for a cloaked porn site redirect. (After he first tried calling Google with no luck, I followed the case with interest to see what would happen. Interestingly, a stern email to the general counsel's office resulted in the offending page disappearing from the rankings within a week.)

Other techniques, for example, are not so hard and fast. For example if a web site optimizer adds keywords, clearly pertaining to the site, to every alt tage on every page -- even for images and pages that are not directly related to that search term -- is that "spam"? Is every affiliate site by definition only as good as "spam," to be completely de-listed along with the off-topic porn pages? As usual, Google's not talking. And much of what they say formally continues to contradict what we're seeing on Google.com.

In my opinion, the disparaging term "spam" is rarely applicable to sites that are trying to rank high on Google for the actual products they sell. After all, spam is illegal because it wastes resoucess of spamees with wholly irrelevant messages. In short, it costs the recipients money. For a web site, on the other hand, all expenses are borne by the site owner. As site owners battle the Google algorithm to improve their site rankings -- again, for products they actually sell -- one is hard-pressed to argue that their site is not relevant to one of their key products. Indeed, one could make an argument that larger (more reputable, stable) sellers of a given product are better able to afford the professional SEO assistance virtually required given today's world of search. As such, sites that are "more optimized" would tend to be the better (more relevant) sites.

At the end of the day, only Google (or whatever search engine can define spam). But to me, the term is mostly a misnomer. As Google and many SEO professionals like to point out, Google does not have to include any particular web site in their listings if they don't want to. Fair enough. It's their index. But when 54% of all Internet searches by some accounts are done on Google, it seems to me that there are some public policy issues that ought to at least be considered.

How many millions of dollars have been lost by individial small businesses as a result in the massive turnover in Google's ranking last week? One can only wonder, but on an anecdotal basis, the bloodletting has been serious. My phone has been ringing off the hook with business owners who've taken a hard hit, right at the time of year they should be selling the most. One guy today even told me that he was living in fear of such an occurrence for the last three years and now it finally happened. Despite the fact that his small business site was wholly relevant for the search terms from which he got booted, his sales leads have dropped off 90%.

So while it's good to see someone from Google acknowledge the havok their playing with people's livlihoods, the longer-term effects, if any, remain to be seen. And the question remains, "Should Google's apology be accepted?"