Google Gets A Raw Deal From Blogosphere?

By Joe Lewis

A firestorm of negativity has surrounded Google in recent weeks
concerning the company's practice of advertising its own services
as "tips" in SERP pages queried by users. At least for today, the
company has put that practice on hold.

It seems that when the blogosphere speaks, Google listens (for
the most part).

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch was the first to spot the news
this afternoon. After a public outcry and allegations that Google
had embraced the Dark Side of the Force (who would have ever made
that outlandish statement?) the company seems to have responded
to the cries of the people and removed its "tips" from search
result pages.

Is Google getting a raw deal in this? This is the criticism from
Mozilla developer Blake Ross:

"First, two notes. One, Yahoo and Ask already do this, but they
didn't build their businesses on the promise of being
unconventionally trustworthy."

So, does Google get held to a higher standard than other companies?
The PPC Blog puts it this way:

"I think Google does get a bit of a rough deal in comparison to
the other search engines. Why? Simply because there is that much
more expectation for Google to do no evil, so to speak. We expect
it elsewhere, so it's like a complement in many ways to Google."

Like it or not, this is an issue of fairness here. Microsoft and
Yahoo both employ similar tactics, yet bloggers and writers
(myself included) have been quick to jump on the "let's slam
Google" bandwagon for basically employing what you could call
standard marketing procedures in terms of peer comparison.

Matt Cutts, resident Googler extraordinaire and rock star to geeky
fanboys everywhere, weighs in on the fairness debate:

Whether it's fair or not, it's a fact that people expect more from
Google than other companies. People compare other search engines to
Google, but people compare Google to perfection. We have such
passionate users that they'll complain loudly if they think Google
is ever straying from the right path. If you're a Googler, it
may feel frustrating. Instead, I'd choose to be grateful, because
that passionate feedback keeps our heads on straight.


When our users yell at Google, they care and want us to do the
right thing (for their idea of what the right thing is). What other
company gets that kind of feedback? Besides, if Yahoo or Microsoft
jumped off a building, would you jump off too? :) So yes, if the
decision were up to me, I'd remove these tips or scale them way
back by making sure that they are very relevant and targeted.

Apparently, the top brass at the Googleplex actually read Matt's
blog. The tips are gone for now, but a deeper question remains in
how Google is judged in comparison to its peers.




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