Google Contains the Seeds of Its Own Destruction!

Courtesy Image:  uncyclopedia.wikia.com   

Google’s love for brand is not a new thing to cover in my blog. Much has been written and talked about it but what is not talked about is the declining share of Wikipedia on Google search results. There was a time when Google would display Wikipedia on the top of the search result but now the top organic slot is replaced with big brands like ebay and Amazon. 

There are many SEO experts who always write their opinion on the best practices of optimizing a website. Does a site like eBay or Amazon follow the so-called SEO advice? I cease to believe this and one citation would be adequate to prove my belief. Example: how many of you think -‘http://www.ebay.com/sch/Furniture-/20091/i.html’ is SEO friendly ULR? And how many of you think this particular ‘web page’ has followed basic On-Page? Search for ‘antique furniture’ in Google for US location.

Do you also think that ebay on top of Google has very good title? In webmaster, Google always shows ‘short title’. What about eBay’s title? Is it so enticing? Also, see the description and I’ll let you judge the quality of such a dynamic page from SEO perspective.  

The logic for top SERP for such a store is ‘reputation’ more than following the so-called Google’s guidelines. Many experts favor this biased approach of Google that causes a sprawling growth of such ‘mash up’ ecosystem. I don’t deny the merits of ‘mash up economy’ but I also see the danger of such economy that tends to produce a monopolistic competition. Undoubtedly, Google encourages such development for being in ‘that area’.  

Another reason to favor ‘mash up’ by Google is that the search engine is not capable of developing its own developer community nor does it have the resources to build all these. Another objective is also very clear that such mash up has huge MONEY.  Most mash ups cash in with Google's advertising engine on their sites. I and many others too including Aaron Wall must agree with James Whittaker, who said 'The Google I was passionate about was a technology company. The Google I left was an advertising company.'  Google made $37.9 billion in 2011. Out of which 96% came from advertising.  These ads are typically a few words on the side of a page of search results or text, and fetch Google anywhere from pennies to huge bucks.

In an attempt to bring in smaller business towards the commercial product, Google in the name of ‘mash up’ economy seems messing up the growth of smaller businesses that once depend on organic search. As long as Google was a technology focused company, smaller business had a safe canopy to grow but now a shift in Google’s commercialized objective is taking a toll to their business, which seems so unfortunate. Truly said by Karl Marx, capitalism contains the seed of its own destruction’ and I see its relevance in a company like Google!