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Search Engines Leech Value from Web Sites
bigenchilada writes "Jakob Nielsen, former Sun Distinguished Engineer and now usability guru, proposes "that search engines are sucking out too much of the Web's value, acting as leeches on companies that create the very source materials the search engines index."
He says that the value provided by search engines may be tilting too much in favor of the search engines. The web sites that create content are now simply fodder for the search engines' revenue stream."
This is likely why Google and Yahoo are offering monetization options for content publishers (and creators). Plus, if you don't like search engines "leeching" from you, just set up robots.txt and say no to everything -- they'll go away.
I find that search engines account for nearly 70% of my visitors overall, and account for nearly 60% of my return visitors. I don't believe I can rely on my websites to generate income for me (even if I start selling more products on some sites). As I don't copyright any of my text (I am anti-copyright and put all my creations into the public domain immediately), I use my writings to try to increase my income in my regular life -- speaking engagements, one-on-one consulting, and professional advice to companies and individuals in the markets that I'm valuable in.
Nielsen is nuts if he thinks that the web should scoff at search engines. Search engines are (to me) the biggest reason for the web's overall explosion. Bookmarks help, links from other sites are great, but Google, MSN and Yahoo are the big reasons people can find what we want when we want. If they can't index our sites, how can they send us traffic? Sure, he acknowledges this in his article, but he says that web sites are going from information stores to answer engines. This is completely true, and we all fall victim to our own stupidity when it comes to creating content in an "answer" fashion. I've been working over the past few months to try to create extended interest in my most popular pages (found via search engines) by offering crosslinks to other articles. The longer I can keep the people interested, the more likely I am to see them come back again and again. If you make old "answer" pages, offer links out of those pages that give people MORE information, or give them more questions to find answers to.
Content is worthless without distribution. I prefer face-to-face distribution for profit by using more generic information to "catch" the customer who will hire me. Yet without the search engines, how will I get the word out? Hire a publicist?
Slightly off-topic here:
I think its crazy to put quality profitable information on a website (or even in a book, on a CD or in a movie) that you don't want used by others. Copyright may "protect" you from someone knocking it off in high quantity, but that isn't always where information is the most valuable. Using information in an expert situation is how you can turn quality profitable information into that quality profit -- by selling your advice on a person-to-person level (I call it a performance).
I read this article when it went high on the del.icio.us/popular list. Long story short: this guy is complaining about *advertising* links in a search engine. Then he goes and compares a bunch of apples to oranges and concludes the sky is falling (yes, I meant to mix metaphors, as this is what this guy does in his complaint).
If you look at his analysis, he is coming from this from a perspective that most of the Internet can't really related to: a business to business commerce site that uses no advertising revenue and pays a high "click-through" cost for each visitor from a search engine.
After all of those constraints are in place, he further comes up with the idea that by making $4 per visitor (after COGS and conversion rates) "the site can pay $3.99 per click". Well, I guess if you really are hellbent on giving your profits away you could...
He tries to justify this by saying that "if you don't pay this, other sites can outbid you". He justifies this by saying that others will use his sites methods to improve conversion rates and therefore they will outbid you with the increased revenue. Well, maybe, or maybe they will keep some of the profit.
This commentary is not applicable to those with advertising supported models, nor those who are willing to differentiate themselves by more than hyper-competition in search engine optimization. Which means pretty much most web sites are *not* going to see the results that are predicted here. The ones that *will* see this are those that don't have a differentiator and live and die by the converted sale. I think I will cry now... [sniff]... poor toner refill sites.
His solution: #1, spam the user. #2, notification spam. #4, multi level marketing.
Sig under construction since 1998.
The problem is that copying stuff from my website is too easy. We need stronger copyright laws.
No, wait -- we need *weaker* copyright laws because then I can use anything I find on my site.
Er, no, wait -- we need *stronger* copyright laws because big-money search engines are destroying the value of the little guys.
No, no, no, wait -- we need *weaker* copyright laws because then I can download movies legally.
Ah. I've got it. We need *weak* or *zero* copyright laws for me, and *strong* copyright laws for everybody besides me.