The Google-Slayer: There’s One in Every Crowd

I was giving a tutorial on Search Engine Optimization to a dozen employees at a multinational corporation, when a lone cowboy spoke up:

“Why is Google so powerful, anyway?” he asked me suspiciously. “It just doesn’t smell right that they should have so much say over what we find and read online!”

Don’t many of us, secretly or otherwise, have a problem with (quasi) monopolies? (Think Microsoft, which regularly gets slapped down by authorities for market dominance.)

Even SEO experts feel the “Google-creep”

Even professionals in the search engine marketing business get wary of the Giant G. Debra Mastaler at The Link Spiel confesses:

… I don’t like the idea of one entity having so much power and right now, Google has a lot. Don’t tread on me, and power to the people comes to mind when I think of Google. (Which is pretty funny if you consider their motto.) And while Google doesn’t tread, right now I feel like they are creeping along into everything and that kinda worries me.

(By the way, Google’s motto is “Don’t be evil.”)

Google knows best… or does it?

The presumption is - a fairly big one - is that Google Knows Best. Ann Smarty at Search Engine Journal puts it well:

There is one SEO Golden rule: what Google likes, we should too - i.e. if Google regularly crawls the page, it must like it; so that must be a good page.

You have other search engine choices

But here’s where it gets interesting; not everyone stops at Google, especially if you’re a business looking for product or services. A growing number of people are moving off-shore from the mighty Google to:

• Vertical search engines for B2B as well as B2C.
• Blog search engines that allow advanced searches based on topic. (Google has one, too!)
• Directories, such as Yahoo! and dmoz
  

SEO is your machete in the thickening jungle of online info

To give Google its due, a colleague and I were talking the other day about how much Google search results have improved over just a couple of years ago. It’s even becoming old-school to get just text web pages delivered up; now Google is integrating videos and images into its search results, in what’s known as “blended search.”

Great news for searchers - more challenges for companies seeking to get found online. All the more reason to employ Search Engine Optimization on all your web pages!