WebProNews

Great articles, I have really enjoyed reading them and I dont think retailers should panic just yet.

Google's allure has always been that it levels the playing field on the internet - small companies have ben able to complete with big ones by virtue of their creativity and energy. This sort of undemocratic behaviour on Google's part may signal the end of democracy on the internet and perhaps the end of google if they continue to degrade the very allure that has made them so successful.

Tanzanite

Despite the "democratic" approach to search Google, by its nature will always favor wealthier site owners over the little guy.  It's reliance on link popularity assures only people with the money to throw at a SEO company to constantly place links have a chance. 

Where this fails is that there may be millions of sites with very reliable and useful information that no one links to because no one knows about them.  Google has created a "chicken and egg" situation for site owners.

To rank high you need people to link to you ( votes ) but for those people to want to link to you they have to know you are there.  For them to find you, you need a good rank in Google...which you can't get without the links.

Enter expensive SEO companies.  If you can't afford them, even a great site full of valuable information won't rank well because no one knows about it.

As in all things businessess...only those with the cash move up while the rest of the sites, good though they may be, are lost in Google.

The other problem is in Googles playing around with the "system".  If I pay thousands of dollars to an SEO for a good position then Google decides to tweak something and I drop off the radar, my money is gone along with my customers.

In some ways I think I prefer a directry to search. At least things are organized by content, not by who likes you, which is really what Google is all about.

In regards to the second search box and asking for peoples opinion, It really doesnt matter what we think. Google has a Global Monopoly when it comes to net searching. So if someone doesnt like it? too bad. Adapt, you have no choice.

I didn't read all of the comments, but I have my opinion anyway.

I first read that in NY Times and I was kind of shocked. My first thought is Google again is trying to monopolise the market. I'm not interested in advertising with Google or anyway and never would be.

But for me, this is a move of Google to ensure it gets the full control over advertising. Because, eliminating all the aditional clicks that a user makes, it prevents the user of noticing or clicking on ads provided by other sources. It actually decrease the choice, although it looks like it's acting in favor of the consummers. It could really be of some help, if you're looking for something in particular, but let's face it, when one look for something, he/she won't need Google. Or maybe he/she will. Who knows. Oh, whatever, I'm so sick of all this Google mania. It's high time to see someone entering the competition.

It does'nt sound very fair would have been good too see an example

It's my site.  It's there for me to advertise MY wares and not anyone else's wares. SIMPLE AS THAT. 

If GARGOYLE.com wants to come in and claim they can slam my competitors' ads on my site, well I have little choice but to take down my site! I mean why should I pay good money for billboard-realestate for my competition?

This is exactly how big monopolies bleed the last drop out of a market they once served thereby killing their own golden goose. 

Geesshhh. 

The big goog trumpets that they only have the end user in mind yet the vast majority of what they do is find new and innovative ways of generating revenue. They are a for profit company period. Because of this they will ultimately err on the side of bigger profits, website owners be damned.

Matt cutts fairly recent questioning of should google display results from a site even if they have the nofollow or noindex flags flying only proves they don't care what the site owners have to say. If it's on the web they think they have the duty to display it. They view it as thier decision not the site owners.

As a retail website owner I don't want competitors ads showing up right along side my products that's why I don't have adsense or any other advertising there. Does google care - NO. They feel like they're loosing revenue from sites, like mine, that don't display ads so they came up with a way to solve that. From a business point of view it's absolutely brilliant. It cuts out paying the site owner for the clicks while they still get paid. Truely brilliant. The end result of this type of search will be the death of individual sites displaying adsense. Again improving the bottom line for google.

Google cares about 2 things keeping users coming back and improving it's bottom line. Unfortunately #1 only matters anymore because it leads to #2. 

The moral of the story is if you really dislike what google is doing quit using them. Delete your gmail account, blogger blog, orkut profile, get rid of the adsense on your site, delete your google base feed, remove the analytics code, don't use google - checkout, maps, docs, earth, sketch up, calender or alerts, stay off of youtube and quit doing searches with them. (surprising how much they've infiltrated your life huh?)

They don't care what you & I as site owners want; get used to it cuz it's only gonna get worse.

Well google are trying to keep the customer on their search engine. Yes you may lose customers to another ad ot site but if theu have made up their mind to leave you'v lost them already.

Maybe you should link the articles to an example.

Just an idea.

Dear readers,

I don't know if this is already active or possible at this moment, but there should be a code that Google wold provide to retailers to place on their sites. If placed, this code would disable the search feature.

Just like there are codes to prevent robots from crawling a website.

Kind regards,

José

Obviously no retailer wants to lose traiffic and if that traffic is being lost to a competitor that would be doubly troubling. 

It is important to note that Google is in the search business and, from their point of view anything that gives a client a better search result is a benefit to Google.  By that same token, if they don't respect the business needs of their adsense clients, while also relying on those clients to generate income they are clearly using two differnet sets of rules - one for Google, the other for everyone else.

It would be foolish of Google not to understand that, while that are king of the hill today there are other companies who would gladly ursurp that position given the opportunity to do so.  In mistreating or misunderstanding their client base Google could open the door for competitors to sweep in and quickly knock them off the peak. 

If I am worried that a potential customer will go to an ad right next to my site, then I would need to change/edit/market my brand/message better/stronger/quicker/smarter - this is an evolution that sooner or later will happen

See, if I am Best Buy and I will loose a customer because they might click on an ad to the right, then the question is what Best Buy need to do to retain people's attention?

Come on! this is what internet marketing is all about! Afraid? Bring it on!

If companies like Amazon paid to be listed on Google in the first place then I would agree with them but Google is in essence providing them a free service so if they dont like the adds appearing then Google should remove the sites totally then see how they complain. Google does need to pay for the service it is offering Amazon and co. By the way I hate Google but here I must agree with them.

Competition is an INTEGRAL part of FREE ENTERPRISE...retailers "get a life." Take some of your disgusting embarrassingly high profits and purchase more and bigger advert space and YOUR add will "outshine" them all......

I think it's great! For all too long, the web barons with deep pockets have been able to manipulate the rankings. It's about time someone else was given the chance to market their products as well!!

They are doing nothing illegial here, in fact they are doing you a favor by allowing people to find what they are looking for and then buy it from you.  If you don't like it, ask for your site to be removed from Google and see how well your business survives then.

I pay for my advertising with google but I don't think that its fair that when a new customer or returning customer visits my site that my competitors are listed for them to see... especially if they had never heard of them before. Why should my advertising dollars be spent on helping my competitors advertise within my own site?