Are Google Too Powerful?
January 23rd, 2008 by
Mark
Over the last few years the emergence of Google as THE power on the internet has been nothing short of remarkable. Their shares have gone up by over 500% since they started trading on the US stock market, they have over powered the likes and MSN and Yahoo! and now they are looking to re-write the whole internet links industry. When they were growing it was fun to piggy-back the whole proactive stance of Google, but now they are pulling the strings and dictating to webmasters many are now starting to ask whether they are just too powerful?
The recent page ranking exercise was the last straw for many webmasters with some sites receiving massive downgrades, potentially costing the industry millions of dollars in lost income, because of so called “paid linksâ€. Some are questioning the reasoning behind these recent downgrades, with suggestions that Google are frustrated that they are not receiving a slice of the paid links pie with webmasters forced to try and disguise these from Googlebots. So what next?
While there is no doubt that the page rank system is still very important to rankings and income from the internet, many webmasters are placing less emphasis on their site rankings than they once did. There is a feeling that Google have caused themselves a major problem by manipulating their algorithms to suit their own ends, rather than taking into account the views of webmasters around the world.Â
The problem going forward is the fact that the likes of MSN and Yahoo! are not in a position to compete with Google on a worldwide basis, leaving the field open for Google to manipulate the situation yet further. However, if rumours about a marriage of MSN and Yahoo! are correct (we have heard these rumours on many occasions in the past) then there may actually be someone who can even try to compete with Google. As it stands Google have the market to themselves with little likelihood of a short term change in this position.
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January 25th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Interesting write up yo!
Though I would title this article as
"Is Google Too Powerful?" instead of
"Are Google Too Powerful?" :p
I agree that Big-G is way too powerful as the Cyberspace is at its mercy! Even Yahoo! Search is powered by Google! -_-
Even though it is rumored that MSN and Yahoo! would team up, I doubt that would be enough to take up Big-G alone. T_T
Sad but true, Big-G owns the Cyberspace. O_O
January 26th, 2008 at 11:49 am
You are correct. Many are now asking if Google is to powerful. Although, Google is weilding it's power no differently than any other big company. That doesn't make it right, but it's the nature of big business.
With 'page rank' Google supplies the market with a very critical factor, and when competing businesses use that factor to their advantage, it's more than understandable to me that Google changes it's strategy.
The problem with all of this is that the consumer, as usual, is the one caught in a catch 22 as they try to use the products/services of Google and its competitors.
At this moment Google just may be weilding it's power a bit unmercifully, unfortunately there is not one single thing that can be done about it.
Not to worry though, you can bet your bottom dollar that if Google continues this little tirade, some college kid sitting at his/her dorm computer will come up with a solution.
February 2nd, 2008 at 12:34 pm
[...] when Are Google too powerful? was written it's no longer just a rumor, it's a fact that Microsoft want to take over [...]