Controversy Surrounds Post Over Google Results

September 19, 2012

A controversial blog post has been debated heavily online this month concerning the organic search results provided by Google in comparison to its emphasis on advertising. Alex Yumashev of Jitbit posted that truly relevant results only take up about 18.5% of a Google search results page. In “Debate: Google’s Search Pages Prioritize Ads and Services Over Results” on TechSpot, we hear from Matt Cutts, Google’s Webspam team head. Cutts states that Yumashev’s analysis has numerous flaws, such as the search box being included as non-search as well as the left-hand column which allows users to refine results.

Cutts expands on his counterargument in the article:

“We actually think our ads can be as helpful as the search results in some cases. And no, that’s not a new attitude. Of course there are tons of searches where we don’t show ads. A lot of people like to take a query that shows ads and say ‘Aha!’ but they’re forgetting all the queries that don’t show ads. Not to mention that our ads aren’t just a straight auction.”

We are not sure we buy into that argument. We wonder: would Google emphasize revenue and its own interests over objective search results such as the type of hits returned from Lexis Nexis?

Andrea Hayden, September 19, 2012

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Advertising, Google, News

Comments

Comments are closed.

Search the site
Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive

Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.