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Is Google a Monopoly? Google Antitrust Problems in Texas and with the European Antitrust Commission
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Is Google a monopoly? Does Google alter search results to benefit its own services over those of competitors? Should you, as a small businessperson or marketer, worry about Google and its quasi-monopoly power? The answer: yes. Emphatically yes. Search engine optimization, for all intents and purposes, is optimization for Google search results.
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By Jason McDonald
Senior SEO Instructor - JM Internet Group.
Posted: February 21, 2011
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Contents:
Google is a Defacto Monopoly
As successful today as Microsoft was its own heyday, Google now faces broad legal challenges from the European Union Commission on Competition and from Gregg Abbott, of the Texas Attorney General's Office. Both at home and abroad, Google is facing serious allegations that it manipulates search results to -
- Favor its own websites (e.g., Google Shopping, Google Places) over competitors; and
- Manually 'punish' competitors websites by pushing them out of the algorithm or severely deprecating them in search results.
Google, of course, denies that it abuses its monopoly power and even claims that search is so competitive that it can't be considered a monopoly. But everyone knows that Bing is a very very distant second in search. In addition, with products like Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools, Google Places, and Google Shopping Google has the sort of 'lock in' for consumers and webmasters that is comparable only to the 'lock in' that Microsoft enjoys with its Windows operating system. Microsoft leveraged Windows to nurture Office, and Google is certainly leveraging its search engine to try to cultivate its own products, especially Google Shopping and Google Places.
Is Google a monopoly? Yes.. No question about that. As small businesspeople, we can't change this - but we must be cautious in dealing with the Google juggernaut!
Implications for Small Business
What are the implications of the Google search monopoly for small business? First and foremost, you must focus your SEO efforts on Google, especially Google natural / organic search but also Google Places or Google Shopping depending on your business profile. Bing may have great commercials, but for all intents and purposes if you succeed at Google you will succeed at Bing. Bing is a rounding error in search.
Second, because Google is a monopoly, do not expect good customer service. For SEO, there is little if any real effort by Google to reach out clearly and honestly to the community. There are some new initiatives, to be sure, but these are really focused on having SEOers help sell AdWords. AdWords is where the money is, for Google. And, in terms of AdWords, Google customer service (again) is as terrible as the customer service of any monopoly. So don't expect good customer service from Google!
Finally, don't piss Google off. As we learned recently with the Dirty Little Secrets of Search phenomenon, participating in paid links can be catastrophic to your results. Google is judge, juror, and executioner; so piss Google off at your own peril!
Local Search and Google Places
For most small businesses, the Google monopoly is most apparent in Google Places. Google is going head-to-head with Yelp and other local search, vying for the billions of dollars spent on advertising. If any of your searches involve a local angle (i.e., you are a watch repair store in New York City, a hypnotherapist in Dallas, a roofer in Tulsa...), then you must pay great attention to the Google Places SEO game.
Places rewards you for having lots of reviews on the Web about your business, and Google has given its own places results pride of place on local searches. Clearly the Google goal is to position Google Places as the dominant way to search, local. Once it achieves that dominant position, you can expect it to attempt to crush services like Yelp just as Microsoft once crushed Word Perfect and Lotus. Such is the logical of business and of monopolies like Google and Microsoft. Don't let Don't be evil fool you - Google is as ruthless a competitor as Microsoft once was.
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