Search Engine Optimization

Scott Cleland is the authors of articles titled “Googlepololy“, which claim that Google is a monopoly is and is putting up competitive barriers for other companies. The papers offer much research and insight into Google’s behavior, however I found that much of the content is filled resentment. The instantaneous question was why? Digging a little deeper I found out that Scott is on the pay role of cellular giants who are threatened by Google, and in fact hired Cleland to put up barriers for Google, the very thing he is accusing Google of doing.

Let’s look at few examples from Googleopoly’s 2 (there’s a total of 3 papers).

• Proactively preventing a stronger competitor from emerging in Microsoft-Yahoo by undermining Microsoft-Yahoo talks and ultimately making Yahoo financially dependent on Google.This seems like a valid reaction. If my company’s market share can be undermined by a serious competitor, the logical thing to do is prevent this competitor from entering the battle. This is what in fact cell giants hired Cleland to do.
• Supra-competitive “limit” pricing of traffic acquisition costs with websites, Mozilla, Adobe, and others to prevent competitors from gaining search share. It makes sense to strike distribution deals with market leaders, as all search companies do it. For instance Microsoft and Facebook, Yahoo and T-Mobile, etc. If my company can get larger audience and I can make more money, why not? If I hesitate competitors will jump in.
• Structuring ‘auctions’ to maximize revenue for Google, not awarding keywords to highest bidder – the definition of an auction. Award the winning bid not the highest bidder, but to bidder who has more clicks and makes more money in total. If you browse forums you’ll stumble into a term known as the “Google Slap”. This occurs when Google spots competitive, popular terms at extremely low minimum bids ($0.5, $0.10, etc) and fixes the price to a new high price with the excuse of “quality score”. The tactic is used to deliver consistent growth.

There is much insight into Google strategies in papers, but they are saturated with weak arguments all over. Continue reading the article to part 2.