Remember that kid in grade school that just seemed to get bigger and bigger while everyone else remained the same size? If the kid was nice, you really didn’t think anything of it, and maybe even revered or envied that person. But if that freak of nature was a bully, it only made you think that the world was more and more unfair with every passing day. Such is the nature of Google. Well past its pinnacle of control on the search engine world and still growing, the Internet giant is edging towards being the locker-stuffing bully, and creeping away from the large, but nice kid on the jungle gym. But what’s stopping the giant from not playing by the rules? Who’s to tell the bully to stop bullying for good?
As a member of the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) community, over the past few years I have followed Google, Bing, and all of the other search engines religiously, looking for changes in the ranking structure, general news and otherwise. In my opinion, most of this time period has been played fairly by all search engines and social networks alike, no matter how large they have become. However, over the past few months, I have noticed a very gradual, yet definite pattern with Google and how it tends to deal with the social networks and search engines outside of itself. And to me, it’s fair to say that lately, Google has been making moves that some, including Twitter and Facebook, would call unfair. As a part of the Search Plus Your World launch, people logged into their Google+ profiles now see their Google+ circles appear within Google’s normal search results. After about three seconds of seeing this within a search result, the lack of any other social mediums other than Google+ becomes distressingly apparent. However, this is not without reasoning on Google’s part, as a little while ago, Twitter decided not to renew its relationship with Google. No matter who is right, the debate turns to whether Google is self-promoting itself by only showing its Google+ related material, which is in direct violation of its own “Don’t Be Evil” policy. In a nutshell, this policy emphasizes the betterment of the world even if it hurts Google in the short run.
This is only one example of how Google seems to be skirting around controversy. But for every issue it seems to encounter, there is a pro-Google event that covers it up. For example, developers from Facebook and Twitter have created a software application passive-aggressively entitled, “Don’t Be Evil”. When installed, you receive real-time updates from Twitter and Facebook within Google’s search results. This software is meant to help both Facebook and Twitter appear in search results, but is also meant as a slight towards Google itself. However, the same day this application was announced, President Barack Obama told the world that he will be taking questions from everyday people via YouTube (a Google-owned entity) and starting a Google+ Hangout video chat. While this event was not engineered by Google, it’s fairly obvious which piece of news gathered more attention from the media.
Google has become much more than just a search engine. It has become an all-out Internet machine that continues to grow and grow. Right now, Google+ users just hit the 100 million mark, which is way higher than what most people expected. This report can be found here. But when bullies taste that hint of blood, they keep picking on easy targets, which is exactly what Google has been doing. Another example of fraudulent behavior was with the Mocality business directory scandal in Kenya. In short, Google was illegally sifting through Mocality’s directory and calling up those people, telling them to switch to a Google service. The bully picked on a weak victim, and exploited it. Moreover, merely ten days before the Mocality scandal, Google was caught sponsoring posts for its own Chrome browser product, which was in direct violation of its own spam laws. Necessarily, Google penalized itself according to its rule book, yet these instances don’t seem to stop it from doing whatever it wants to do.
Continually getting caught for doing something illegal would completely corrupt and devastate smaller companies, but not Google. At the same time, it’s tough to understand why an entity that controls 65.5% of the search engine traffic (Bing and Yahoo combine for 30% of the remaining 34.5%) continues to partake in illegal activity. The previous statistical information can be found here. If Google can naturally get bigger without these “banned substances”, it should. That being said, it is in serious need of a wake-up call. It’s all well and good that Google+ is rapidly expanding as a social network, but is it too self-serving to not include Twitter and Facebook results (which would often times be more relevant for people)?
This does not mean that I believe Twitter and Facebook are right just because Google might be wrong. For if it’s true that Twitter told Google not to renew their relationship, then by all accounts, Google is not technically doing anything wrong. However, it’s about time for the bully, and to some extent Facebook and Twitter, to grow up. I echo Danny Sullivan’s (Search Engine Land) sentiment when he said that,
“Search and social have been colliding, but we don’t need a collision. We need a collusion, and not in the negative sense but a collusion where the users really are being served best by the services they depend on.” -Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land
Social media exists for the betterment of Internet users everywhere, and Google isn’t really that strapped for cash to not try to work things out with its counterparts. Whether one of them will eventually swallow its pride and begins the conversation, no one really knows. But it’s certain that Google, Facebook and Twitter need to sit down and truly begin honoring Google’s golden rule: Don’t be evil.