This is a part of the Internet chat between me and my friend. I thought it would be helpful for many that are unfamiliar with what’s going on around the Web of late.
Google and You….Until Penguin Wrecked Havoc
People use Google for info. Webmasters use Google for business. Google wants businesses to make their website relevant and use best practices so the users could benefit from their search results. Got the drift? However, that’s not how it works in real life……as you know businesses would always manipulate and game Google’s algorithms to get better visibility and rankings to make money?
Google was built in 1998 and became a hit with the Internet demography. It made enough money and dominated the market until 2008 when Social Marketing ate its pie. Google has been pretty much worried about its dwindling marketing share of late, esp in the past couple of years. Ever since Facebook and other startups in Silicon Valley gave Google a run for its money. Try to understand what Google is scared of
Google Until Facebook
In the pre-facebook era, you and I would Google it. Why? Becuz we want info but Facebook and the likes changed our perception altogether rendering Google nearly clueless as to how it should remain commercially sustainable going forward. But look whats happened in the last couple of years, how people get info. sharing, right? It wasn’t like this in the pre-facebook era, was it?
Until yesterday, we would Google everything. Today, we wouldn’t Google as much. The difference is? Facebook, Twitter, Quora and a whole lot of other startups that help us get what we need – relevant info. And we are just talking about a year or two now; imagine a decade of inventions on the Web. So the Search is definitely not the same as it once was back in the heydays of Google.
But Google is smart enough, it’s adapting to the changing times. Google has tried to introduce some products like Google Buzz and Google Plus to fight the likes of Facebook, Twitter but they fell flat. So Google realized the only way it could survive is by focusing on strengthening its core product, which is Google Search – the biggest product it has till date
The Penguin
On the 24th of Apri, 2012, Google changed its search algorithms in a way that many people in the US went broke, they are crying now, can’t support their families.
How does a change in Google’s algorithm affect people’s income? Let’s say you have 50 different websites with loads of info with tons of traffic on a daily basis. You rank well, people visit your site; you rank badly, and people won’t find you. So your income sorta depends on Google rankings right?
Google has become stricter and more aggressive with its search algo of late, it has changed its algo twice already this year alone. But, you know, a lot of spammy websites out there on the Web trying to make money. But there is something more to it, there are good websites and there are bad ones, right?
But there is no way Google can ensure that the good guys remain unaffected when it’s after the bad guys. So as a matter of fact, a few good guys suffered while Google was busy killing spammy websites. They called it Collateral Damage.
Why would the blogs suffer more?
I run a blog, in fact, a couple of them. But I would just name two- takeyourtips.com and appsdude.net. My writers write articles, informative, both of them are affiliated to Google Adsense and Amazon, which means when people Google, for ex, about Amazon Kindle, they land on my website, read the info and then click on my aff link to buy products. We get commissions. While this accounts for only 5% of my revenue model, out there, for many people, it’s 100%. People make money, earn a living off fulltime blogging. Just imagine their blogs not appearing on Google
But any reason why they wouldn’t appear on google now? Any particular change to the algorithm?
OK, here is why: there are many bloggers out there on the Internet, everybody makes money, but in a varying degree because they get more or less traffic depending on their visibility on Google. If I get 10K visits per day, I make 1000 USD per day. Since it’s inception back in `98 Google has always wanted to offer the best and more relevant search results to its visitors. Google has various data center across the web, for example, Google.com, Google.co.in, etc and Google has also an information retrieval system.
When you and I search with a keyword or key phrase (they are SEO terms). Google search for those keywords within its database and returns the most relevant results what we know as links. Therefore, Google usually uses keywords and other factors to rank a specific website.
However, many websites/blogs have gamed these factors to rank ahead of each other without giving a damn about what searchers want. So the web searchers end up with bad results, irrelevant info which left Google angry, upset and determined to punish the bad guys on the Web.
There’s More to The Updates Than What Meets Our Eyes
Google wants its users to believe it’s doing everything to deliver the most relevant results to achieve better user experience. However, many experts in the search industry believe otherwise. It’s not that Google is making changes to serve users. Its that Google is making these changes to remain alive, afloat. Do u know how? The mainstay of Google’s business is Paid Search (PPC), this is how it works for them,
How Google Makes Money from PPC
Google.com is where people go. So Google tells businesses to promote their websites on Google’s Paid Search (you see them on the right-hand side of your Google result pages), if I subscribed to Google’s Paid Search service, I would pay to, say, 50,000 USD to google. Let’s say I sell notebooks. So when people search for notebooks on Google, Google displays its clients’ names/websites on the right-hand side of their search results, people click on their ads, visit their website, buy things.
However, when people click on those ads, each click is worth some dollars determined by Google during their negotiations. So if each click is worth 10 USD, and I get traffic to the tunes of 10000 to my sites daily. So, how much am I paying Google daily? 🙂
So Will Facebook Eat Up Google?
So I mean Google is making 80% of revenues via Google Paid Search product. The reason why businesses are spending so much on Google’s Paid Search campaign is this: it’s still the best search engines people use for info. Search engines are built around people, their interest and their behaviors. In short, Facebook and many other companies have users data to the potential of building another search engine.
