The Inorganic Growth of Google Goose That Still Lays Golden Eggs!

We at our young age must have heard of a story about a goose that laid golden eggs! The man finally killed the goose to repent of his folly. Today, men are not fool though they are greedy yet!

Let me tell you a similar modern story of two guys – Larry Page and Surgery Brin who’ve nurtured a goose (search engine called Google). Little did they know that the goose they nurtured would produce golden eggs. They saw their first golden eggs hatched by the goose way back in October 2000 when Google AdWords was launched with 350 customers. The self-service ad program promised online activation with a credit card, keyword targeting and performance feedback. Within a decade, the goose is grown so big that has started laying multiple golden eggs to envy others. This is a 100% organic story!

Lots of efforts have been made so far for the organic birth of such a goose. Many have tried; some of them have failed while a few are still struggling. We all know how Bill Gates has been trying for such a goose to break the monopoly of Google.

Google knows the art of ‘Gamification’ and allure fat businesses with favorable approach by breaking the 'rules'. After all, rules are for smaller people not for big daddies! Not only on sponsored search but Google, apparently, shows a favoritism to big brands on organic search results as well. Agreed with Andrew Johnson who in his comment posted on SEObook says “Google will not disrupt a site or advertiser that will negatively impact their own quarterly earnings. When Google does disrupt one, it is because they have a backup in place. That backup may be their own internal project or a competitor of yours who sends 95% of their advertising through Google's ad platforms.”

Golden Eggs

Truly said, greed is the disordered love of riches. In recent times, Google’s greediness to have goose laying more golden eggs is increased to a limit! Started with organic goose way back in 1998, gradually they have lured the advertisers and have them feeding their goose with large cash to produce more golden eggs for them!

And the buck does not stop here! Another attempt to have goose producing more ‘golden eggs’ is the recent announcement by the search engine to make search more secure via SSL. This means if a user is logged into a Google account, any search performed thereafter shall now be done on a secure socket layer (SSL) and will no longer pass the search term referrer data. However, Google has already confirmed that search term referrer data shall be passed to advertisers who use their pay-per-click service. This indirectly exposes the secret agenda of the ‘men’ for inorganic production of a larger quantity of golden eggs by selling more to advertisers and by selling the premium edition of Google Analytics. That’s why there are TWO rules - one for security (SEO) and another rule for advertisers.

In my opinion, The ‘bidding price’ based on GSP is just a theory! In any monopolistic competition, the proprietor has the sole authority to discriminate the price. The pricing model of keywords that advertisers pay is discriminatory in nature, and we many a time fall in debate and discussion for analysis to solve X for Y dollar! How come, Google claims that keyword price is determined by supply and demand? In Economics, we’ve been taught that demand-supply determines the price under prefect competition and thus equilibrium price is achieved. In a monopolistic competition, the market price is determined solely by a monopoly firm. And we all know Google has a monopoly in search market and even Eric Schmidt admits "We're In That Area." Unfortunately, the one-upmasnhip of the goose is hard to kill!

Vultures on Google's Roof!

There are many 'vultures' (the most vulnerable one is SEO community) sitting on the roof of Google to know the secret of the goose, and every time a watchdog of the search engine– Matt Cutts throws a loaf of news (feed) for them. One such fresh loaf of news for vultures thrown by Matt Cutts is the disclosure of change in Google algorithm. The vultures pounce upon the 'thrown loaf' and create a mess around the digital space! Another such example can be seen in the recent Panda updates. No any 'vulture' actually knew the secret behind Panda but they created a messy buzz across the web.

Very recently, I tweeted to Matt Cutts mentioning 'eHow is like eWaste that Google dumped in the garbage with Panda update. The next day I got the following reply from Matt Cutts.

This proves that Matt Cutts considers SEO professionals as the most 'vulnerable vultures' who are hungry for news about the goose and any news thrown by him becomes so messy to discuss on the web.

What is Panda? Is it a quality vs quantity campaign that the search engine has undertaken to cleanse their indexation? If yes, there are still many search results Google throws which are irrelevant and nuisances.

The million dollar question is – Is Panda a well disguised Google favoritism update? I’ll not address this question, for the question is already addressed by Andy Jenkins. If I have to answer this, I’d have to wear a different spectacle to see through the walled garden fenced by Google but I guess the vultures gullibly eat what is thrown at them, they digest and finally they poop to create a mess around!

In recent times, the goose has eyes on India. It started expanding its wings across the country. Google believes Internet users in India would be triple. It would possibly reach at least 300 million Internet users by 2014, up from about 100 million now. To have more golden eggs to produce, Google is preparing its goose with a set of initiatives.

The most recent one is to run a bus across West Bengal to make Indians familiarize with internet usage. The objective is clear – use internet to use the goose for larger quantity of golden eggs.

Wish for a semantic and organic goose sans 'greedy algorithm' to produce golden eggs!