OK, so I’m officially shifting off to Bing. Why? you ask. Is it because Google is some huge awful corporate behemoth whose hydra like strangle hold on search is invading all aspects of our lives and privacy? Well that’s true, but no, that’s not the reason. The reason I’m dropping Google is because their search results are garbage. And the reason they are garbage is not due to the nefarious efforts of millions of third world internet spammers seated on uncomfortable little wooden chairs, in dank smoke filled, dirt floored internet cafes, furtively typing on their outdated laptops. No, the reason Google sucks is because of that’s the stated search policy of Eric Schmidt issued for the company from the very comfortable and well padded chair on stage of all things Digital Conference three years ago where he said that the company was basically no longer interested in internet search results and was much more interested in becoming an “answer” company. Click here for link to the video.
“But the other thing that we’re doing that’s more strategic is we’re trying to move from answers that are link-based to answers that are algorithmically based, where we can actually compute the right answer. And we now have enough artificial intelligence technology and enough scale and so forth that we can, for example, give you — literally compute the right answer.”
-Eric Schmidt CEO Google Inc.
Isn’t that nice? Who needs to get the domain of a site when you can get the answer the search engines ‘think’ you want. So much more useful… Of course, this means that if you happen to have the site upon which that answer is gleaned well you sir are shit out of luck. And by luck I mean page ranking. Web sites owners and content developers that spend enormous amounts of time and money creating real content, can pretty much forget about getting ranked now. Content is king is a joke in the new reality because no matter how much good information your site may have, nobody is going to find it. They ‘may’ find your business but, they won’t find your web site and this is very big distinction because it means that content providers have just been cut off from the very people who are most interested in what they have to say.
In example, let’s consider the following search for Best Western Encinitas. They have had an established web site for over 10 years at the www.bwencinitas.com address and have until the beginning of this year ranked consistently on the first page of Google. That is because one would naturally assume that someone searching for “Best Western Encinitas” would expect to get the web site for the Best Western in Encinitas, right? They used to, but in Google’s new world order that is effectively the last thing they are ever going to find.
Not on the first page.
Not on the second.
And not on the third.
Even if you type in BWENCINITAS.COM as a search term. Pretty harsh huh?
Yep, it’s that bad folks…
Now, I’m sure some of you are thinking, wait a minute there is a link in the upper right corner. Well, sorry to disabuse you but that ain’t a link folks. It looks like it has one in there somewhere, what with the phone number, and reviews, and the map, and everything; but there is no link to BWEncinitas.com in either the map image or the photograph (which by the was taken from the bwencinitas.com web site without attribution and goes to a completely unrelated spanish language site www.hotelclub.es)
So what does this mean for you? Well, if you’re currently working hard to create content with the expectation that Google is going to rank you. You can as they say in the Mafia “Fugget About It”. What Google is doing to commerce today with a sledgehammer is exactly what they will do to informational/opinion sites in the near future. Especially, if they think you have a monitizable amount of traffic. The only defense you have is to stop using Google and shift to Bing. Laughable, I know, but at least when you search on Bing for Best Western Encinitas the very first organic link on the first page is in fact bwencinitas.com
This is a link.
Why Google is ditching search
Eric Schmidt: Google wants to get so smart it can answer your questions without having to link you elsewhere