The US Federal Trade Commission is trying to corner all of the good properties on the Monopoly board before Google can buy them up, metaphorically speaking.
Google’s latest expansion of its search algorithms to modify search results in favor of Google Plus tags is seen by many to be just one more step in guaranteeing that those who master Google’s own toolsets will be able to benefit most from Google search.
In a nutshell, the recent changes to Google rules with result in SERPS (search engine result pages) showing content based upon a combination of the searcher’s criteria and the activities of the social network (within Google’s world) of that searcher. If I have many friends and business associates related to me through Google+, and those social connections have preferences for particular entities or businesses relative to a search I am conducting on Google, those preferences will be a factor in my SERPS. You like funnypets.com (via a Google+ like), and you are in my Plus network, then funnypets.com becomes a more likely result for me in searches related to pets and fun.
This is all great in a world where the only type of searching you do is as part of a community. But how many of us really want to be influenced by others in what should be simple research? I mean, if my Google+ friend likes some really stupid websites, should those preferences play any role at all in my online search for related content? My friends on Google+ have their own preferences for many things that are part of my world; however, I can contact them directly if I want their input.
These Google+ influences on search bring us into a party-line mode of Internet search. For those of you who don’t know that reference, a party line used to be a situation whereby multiple people would have access to the same general circuit on the phone, thereby making it all too possible that someone else could accidentally or purposely listen in our your calls. I think most of us would agree that this is not a situation we would like to return as part of our phone networking, so why would we want to make it part of our online search?
As an Internet Marketer I have both this personal stake in what Google is doing and a very important business stake. How do I control the external influencers, the social networks, of my clients’ potential connections? Making yourself visible in a top position in Google search is hard enough. Trying to get a first page listing when you have this vast unknown of Google+ connections that are influencing the search results of people looking for your services or products will be many times harder.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not afraid of hard work. Don’t necessarily like it, but not afraid of it. Hard work will not overcome something over which I have no possible control. If Google decided that all SERPS would be presented in Russian by default, I could learn Russian and I could help my clients learn Russian no matter how difficult that might be (Это нет обвинительного акта русского языка!). Yet if Google decided that every time someone uses their search tool, Google would no longer pick the best public resources available for that search result but instead selected something only they could find, there is little I could do to control the results.
By the way, that is what they are doing.
No big conspiracy theories here. I hope the FTC can “guide” Google back to open search with a little prodding. Whether Google’s move is malicious or not, the end result is a more self-centered, niche world of search. People spend enough time now narrowing their filters on things they do, read, watch, listen to, or research; taking away the last opportunity for people to accidentally stumble upon someone else’s world view on the Internet may make us more comfortable in our own little cubicles, but it does nothing for expansiveness of thought.
The promise of the Internet has always been the free and unfettered access to information. If I want someone else’s opinion about what I want, I’ll ask them for it. Right now it’s more like that old saying: If I wanted your opinion, I’d give it to you.
