Google - the new Microsoft?
October 28, 2007The big downside to a Free Market Economy is the rise of a single company that can monopolise and dominate everyone else. Some obvious examples are Microsoft in the US, and Telstra in Australia. One other example that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention is, surprisngly enough, Google.
This recent article highlights the problem: Google has changed its Search algorithms so that some searched-for websites have a reduced page ranking. So they turn up less often in Google searches, resulting in reduced revenue. Considering that many websites rely heavily on AdSense and Google for their revenue, this is a serious development for web-based businesses.
Swarms of bloggers and webmasters of major sites like Washingtonpost.com, Forbes.com, Engadget.com and SFGate.com noticed a downgrading in their PageRank, Google’s measure of a web page’s value.
A site’s PageRank impacts not only its ranking in Google search results but also the price it can charge advertisers. A drop in ranking can have serious financial consequences, especially for smaller operators.
The search giant, through its dominant search engine and AdWords/AdSense network, is relied on by millions of websites not only for traffic referrals but for monetisation as well.
Google has long been the Media-darling of the internet, so it hasn’t received as much attention as Microsoft. But it does have the potential to become an even bigger monopoly than Microsoft when it comes to the future of the web.
