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Google: McDonalds of the web?

roshaoar

9:27 pm on Feb 6, 2014 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

I was just thinking to myself about how I'm finding it harder and harder to find detailed information about subjects in Google, which made me wonder how Google has changed over the years. So ok back in the day it was always a bit of a popularity contest with sites ranked by backlinks, but I always found obscured detail URLs in the top 10. But I can't help but think nowadays there's something else at play. And I wonder if it's something like this:

If you're Google then you want your users to be happy with Google's results. Which means you don't necessarily want to give them an academic or detail-orientated set of results but you almost want to guess what they're looking for. ie a 'populist' result. Because if you add populist results into your top 10 search engine results you'll get your biggest clickthroughs into Google results, which surely represents the best 'success rate' for Google as an information resource.

And maybe this is why there are so many buy page links in the top 10 results nowadays, because most people just want to buy widget xyz, not know the details about it.

So in a sense I now personally think about Google in a whole different way than I used to. Rather than thinking 'it gets me the best information result' I think 'it gets me what I'd want to see if I'm Mr Joe Average'

Just me... or?

goodroi

10:55 am on Feb 7, 2014 (gmt 0)

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I think you might be overlooking some issues.

Delivering the most popular results for Mr. Joe Average can actually satisfy fewer people. For example according to Wikipedia, the average woman has 2.3 children. No one in the world has 2.3 children so creating a search engine to serve families with 2.3 children is going to not be a smart idea.

Google is trying to make the most money their business can. They are trying to do this by satisfying users faster & better than the competition. One specific way that they are trying to do this is by personalizing search results. They personalize search results based on your location, previous searches and other factors.

I think we can agree that in theory, personalized search results have a better chance of keeping users happy and thus keeping the profits flowing instead of results for Mr. Joe Average because when you focus on averages you risk missing everyone.

superclown2

11:30 am on Feb 7, 2014 (gmt 0)

Forgive my tinfoil hat but I'm wondering if Google is only seeing search as a temporary business to screw as much money as possible out of in the shortest possible time so that they can get on with their main business of personal data collection and any other blue sky ventures that come along. The current SERPs are so bad as to damage their search business in the long run but they don't seem to care.

superclown2

3:54 pm on Feb 7, 2014 (gmt 0)

I think we can agree that in theory, personalized search results have a better chance of keeping users happy and thus keeping the profits flowing instead of results for Mr. Joe Average because when you focus on averages you risk missing everyone.

I'm not convinced. If I type in red square widgets it means I want red square widgets and not the brown oval ones that Google thinks I really want. Google seem to think that people are so simple that they can think for them now.

Apart from that there is one major flaw in Google's MO; they way they collect data to base these personalised results on is illegal here in Europe without the express permission of those whose data is being collected. As Montessori kids they may believe that they are beyond the law but that may not be so and in the meanwhile their entire business is becoming based on methods which at this moment have been declared illegal by a number of European courts (subject to the inevitable appeals by Google of course).

mrengine

4:19 pm on Feb 7, 2014 (gmt 0)

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If I type in red square widgets it means I want red square widgets and not the brown oval ones that Google thinks I really want.

superclown2, keep your tin foil hat on for a minute. Maybe Google does not care that you want red square widgets, but instead they are trying to alter/shape your behavior by providing you with brown oval widgets instead. Google is heavily involved in artificial intelligence, and we might all be wearing tin foil hats soon!