Google just updated their policy blog to answer some of the claims leveled about them about unfair results, punishing competitors and pimping their own products.
This is my favorite line from the whole thing –
And if users don’t like our results, they can try Bing,Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, or even Google Minus Google.
It sums everything that need be said right up.
There is competition out there. Bing/Yahoo (Bing powers Yahoo search) had 33.3% of the U.S. market last month, and if users didn’t like Google’s results or felt they were unfair, then they would vote with their fingers and use another provider. I know people, like my mate Steven Hodson, who have switched to Bing exclusively (although that might have something to do with him being a Microsoft fanboy 😉 ) and I’m sure many others do the same.
Also of note is this point that they keep drilling home, and many of us who make our living online by posting or publishing material (and have our paychecks dictated by Google’s algorithim) tend to forget –
As we’ve said many times before, we built search to help users, not websites.
The bottom line is that Google doesn’t care about your website or it’s rank, they care about the the end user getting what they want quickly. Which raises an important question:
If we put our readers and users first and delivered what they want, instead of quibbling over money lost because our SEO scams no-longer work, wouldn’t we rank higher and do better? Proper allocation of focus and attention instead of whining?
Just a thought. 😉
Paul O'Flaherty 