A New Tool From Google Worries Brand-Name Sites

Google has quietly introduced a new feature, called search-within-search, that is alarming some big-name Web publishers and retailers. They worry that users will be siphoned away through ad sales to competitors. What Google is doing is offering a secondary search option if the user initially searches explicitly for one of the brand-name destinations that Google has identified, such as "Best Buy." This secondary search lets users refine their query entirely within the pages of the desired site — but using Google's search, not the site's, and showing Google ads on the result pages, quite possibly ads from competitors. "Analysts generally praise the feature as helping users save steps, but for Web publishers and retailers, there are trade-offs... 'Google is showing a level of aggressiveness with this that's just not needed,' said [one Internet consultant]... Take, for instance, a [test where] users of Google searched The Washington Post and were given a secondary search box. Those who typed 'jobs' into that second box saw related results for The Post's employment pages, but the results were bordered by ads for competing employment sites like CareerBuilder or Monster.com. So even though users began the process by stating their intention to reach The Post, Google's ads steered at least some of them to competitors. Similar situations arose when users relied on Google to search nytimes.com."

Comments

They don't complain

[sleeponthemic]

When google sends them traffic (for free). Besides, I think that it is unlikely many people will use google to search individual inventories. Maybe I'm naive, but I routinely choose not to search a site with google (if there is an option).

Re:They don't complain

[p0tat03]

I would use this feature. I generally check for stock on a particular item before I head out to the store to pick it up - stores like Future Shop and Best Buy here in Canada are notorious for running out of stock on moderately popular items. These two stores, coincidentally, also have some of the hardest to navigate sites I've ever had to use. Finding a particular product, or even a category of products, is an exercise in randomness and futility.

If someone suffers from Google's new feature, they have only themselves to blame. Why wouldn't I use the site's own search tool if it was any good at all? The fact that I'm clamoring for an alternative is only evidence that they are sucking.

Re:They don't complain

[eebra82]

They don't complain when google sends them traffic (for free). Many businesses are depending entirely on ads and search results. Ultimately, however, Google depends on quality web sites, because without it, a search engine would be pointless. So it's a beautiful equilibrium where one can only exist if the other does as well.

My point is that if you are topping Google results, there is a lot of hard work behind it, which is also why people find your page interesting. Ultimately, (again) this is why a search engine is interesting - because it finds interesting pages.

Re:They don't complain

[evilviper]

Ultimately, however, Google depends on quality web sites, because without it, a search engine would be pointless

Search engines were around before there were many (any?) ad-supported web sites.

Google has taken steps to build content libraries, like book search, news, e-mail, earth/maps, YouTube, etc. Caching everything ensures they'll be useful even if there's nothing else but google.

Shopping sites are more than happy to stay online without ads. Maybe instead of a lot of content (already designed to drive ads views) with a few ads on the page, we'll just have lots of product info on a site, with a few pages of a little content. No doubt if you want to make a "Coca Cola is the greatest drink ever" site, Coke would be happy to host it, even in a post-ad-apocalyptic internet.

With sites like Wikipedia, citeseer, Archive.org, government sites, universities, etc., the internet will continue to be quite useful to a great many people, even if all profit on the internet dies a horrible death (which is ludicrous).

Frankly, I think this is all bullshit. If you can't turn a profit if you're forced to fairly compete with competitors and their advertising, you're doing something wrong. Luckily, it'll only take a quick web search on Google (and a peek at the ads) to find another company that will be HAPPY to fill-in when you go away.

Re:They don't complain

[Kadin2048]

> Ultimately, however, Google depends on quality web sites, because without it, a search engine would be pointless. So it's a beautiful equilibrium where one can only exist if the other does as well.

This seems to be assuming that "quality web sites" are all or even mostly ad-driven. I'm just not sure that this is the case.

The Internet had a lot of content on it before advertising took off as a business model, and even if advertising revenue collapsed tomorrow (as it's predicted to do every so often by various people, not that I put any credence in it), there would still be a lot of content left. Sure, you'd lose the for-profit "blogosphere", and probably quite a bit of news would retreat behind paywalls, and community sites like Slashdot would have to pass the hat to users more aggressively to stay in business. But there's an awful lot of the WWW that's put up and paid for without ads. Lots of corporate sites, political sites, personal pages, quasi-philanthropic efforts like Wikipedia ... still more than enough to require a good search engine.

The Internet created and gave birth to search engines because there was a demand for search. After starting with search, Google then got into advertising, and a whole lot of sites got spawned as a result. Google-as-search preceded Google-as-advertising; those sites who depend on Google for advertising revenue would be good to remember that. They need Google far more than Google needs them.

Re:They don't complain

[HUADPE]

Those two store are in fact the same store. That might explain the similar problems. Future shop was originally independent, but is now wholly owned by Best Buy.

Re:They don't complain

[Spliffster]

"Maybe I'm naive, but I routinely choose not to search a site with google (if there is an option)."

I do it the other way 'round. whenever i want to search a site by keywords I go to google and enter:

site:. [[[keyword] keyword] ...]

As long as searching for keywords, most sites' searches suck big hairy monkeballs[TM]! why not use what works well ?

If you have privacy concerns you are free to create as many firefox profiles as you wish. I use one for gmail (better yet imaps), one for googlepages and one for my daily browsing (with all google cookies blocked). I am blocking google cookies because they started to customize my results in a way that i got different results on every computer i am using (that's annoying).

Cheers,
-S

Re:They don't complain

[aplusjimages]

I think you've hit the nail on the head. Companies shouldn't be concerned, but enlightened to the fact that the search functions they have on their site is not functional. These companies should also talk to their web site coder and see why their search engine doesn't work as well as googles. I hate using search features on sites and forums, because the results come back with thousands of options, which none of them are the results I'm looking for. Maybe with Googles help the results will pull up exactly what the potential customer is looking for and connect them to the product sooner.

Re:They don't complain

[sm62704]

Many businesses are depending entirely on ads and search results

That's THEIR problem, isn't it? I'm really getting sick of these corporations getting bent out of shape because I don't use the internet like they want me to. "Oh noes they is using Google instead of my own shitty internal search!" "Oh noes they be using google instead of clicking on my blinkey shiney ads!" "Ohe noes they uses adblock to avoid my annoying blinkey shiney ads!"

I've gotten to the point that if I see any advertising for a particular company I avoid its wares entirely if possible, and the more annoying and full of lies it is the more I avoid it.

Every day I think I couln't possible be more disgusted with the corporations, and every day they still manage to top the previous day. Their contempt for their customers seems to have no bounds.

Re:They don't complain

[twistedsymphony]

How is this "new tool" any different than the "site:" command that google has always had to search within a particular domain?

I bring this up because Google lets you integrate their search engine int your site for free and all it does is add "site:yourdomain.com" to the end of the query. I've replaced the normal search on one of my sites with google's search because it works much much better, there's no reason other sites couldn't do the same.

Re:They don't complain

[The Redster!]

Far as I can tell, there's no difference. In fact, when you use this thing, that's exactly what you get -- the search results page even shows that it's the result of a site: search in the text box.

All they've done is put a little GUI front on it. You're still clearly within the realm of google search results. Really, I don't think I'd ever use this feature much. If I'm searching a particular domain it's still easier (to me) to just type site:url and do one query.

Opt-out

[Rinisari]

If they don't want Google to index their publicly available pages, they can use robots.txt. End of story.

Re:Opt-out

[tedivm]

If they don't want Google to index their publicly available pages, they can use robots.txt. End of story.
Thats ridiculous. Why does this issue need to be so black and white? I see no reason why people shouldn't be able to complain- hell, if I was Google, I would appreciate the complaints. How the hell is a company supposed to improve if everyone just up and leaves before mentioning they have an issue?
In this case, I certainly don't think Google did anything wrong. If someone wanted to search WSJ or NYTimes specifically, they would go to those respective websites. If they go to Google, they're probably looking for options. That doesn't mean it can't be fixed or improved- for instance, Google already has a custom search engine option, and I think it would be really interesting if (using something like Google's webmaster tools) that could be tied into this. It even allows you to plug it into an adsense account to make some money, or prevent direct competitors' ads from showing up.
I obviously got a little off track there, so I'll get back to my main point- the idea that people should just shut up and take whats handed to them, or they should shut themselves off from a large part of the internet (which is basically what they'd be doing), is appallingly naive and just plain useless.

Re:Opt-out

[v(*_*)vvvv]

Ya. And if your son is being bullied at school, just home school him.

Google is huge. Removing your site from google is like shooting yourself in the foot.

Re:Opt-out

[Wiseman1024]

Okay. Then don't remove it. It's this simple. Take it or leave it. Of course, you don't expect to benefit from something without letting this something benefit from you, and you don't expect Google in particular to lick your ass, right? Google, for one, is a corporation that knows who its customers are and who they have to serve. They don't lick other corporations' assholes much like, say, Microsoft and Apple do by backstabbing their customers - the people that give them money - with defective by design products that work at media corporations' service.

Re:Opt-out

[Wiseman1024]

Lol, flamebait? I'm on users/customers' side. I don't see how this would be flamebait, unless you're Microsoft or Appl OH SHI- ...fanboys!

Re:Opt-out

[smallfries]

You've missed some of the puzzle. It is not entirely about what a webmaster wants. It is about what Google wants, and also what the websurfer wants. In this case the "new feature" being touted is simply the old site: keyword with a new interface. When the surfer decides to hunt for information on one particular domain - it is not about what the webmaster wants, it is about what all three parties want.

The reason that it seems so black and white is that the complaints here are from greedy bastards trying to increase their slice of the pie. If a user a clicks on the ad from a competitor within a site search then guess what - the competitor looked more interesting. By censoring these ads the customer would lose out, and Google would lose out on revenue. Allowing the webmaster to restrict the set of ads shown on searches of their site would make it less black and white, but even doing this "a little" would damage the interests of the other two parties.

These claims are from the "luddite" segment of the web - who thought that deep linking somehow breached their copyright. If you want to compete on the web then provide good content and watch the traffic come to you. If these people think that they have trouble no then just wait for the first generation of decent semantic web tools (current rates of progress, what 10yrs?). Walled gardens won't work anymore. Trying to drown the competition won't work anymore. Trying to support pisspoor content on 15pages with one hundred ads per page wont work, and crying that free access to the information breaks your business model won't make it change.

So...

[QMalcolm]

I can see why some would be upset over this "new" feature (really just a nice automatic way of site:www.example.com) but Google's search is so often better than the actual site's that I find it hard to get mad. Try searching for a wikipedia article using the internal search, then try google's. Especially for stuff like typos and broad subjects, google's search is much better.

Re:So...

[Smordnys s'regrepsA]

This is just another example of a story who's only substance is that the general public are now aware of something commonplace to the average /.er

The story seems to be the general reaction, not the feature.

Re:So...

[CopaceticOpus]

What difference does it make if some companies don't like Google's results? They may be the biggest site on the web but they're also just a search engine. They can show whatever the heck they want when someone searches for Best Buy. They could show only Circuit City results, or pictures of iguanas, or whatever. Google doesn't complain about what Best Buy puts on their website.

If companies are unhappy about the results, they can always pay to place ads. If the end users aren't happy, they can always use another search engine. However, this new feature does seem like it will make users happy, which is what ultimately helps Google to succeed.

Re:So...

[TheThiefMaster]

If you had the google toolbar (like I do, it's the only toolbar I ever install) then you already had a nice easy way to search the current site with google. Just type some keywords in the google search box, and pick "current site" off the search dropdown. It also has a nice handy button to highlight the words you searched for in the page so you can find them if the site has a lot of text (not likely) as well as one button for each word you searched for that performs a find in the page for that word.

!new

[Jeff321]

The "site:" search has been around nearly as long as Google itself. All Google did was make it easier to use, and now companies are complaining about this "new" tool?

Re:!new

[martin-boundary]

They would have complained earlier but the feature was too hard to find :)

this is a new feature?

[itsdave]

I could do a search with "site:www.bestbuy.com" for years now. wtf you talking about new feature?

Re:this is a new feature?

[Adambomb]

Really the only big difference is the fact that the second search bar shows up for anyone...the whole market...as opposed to being a select percentage that happen to know site:etc.

The percentage of people that didn't know and/or didn't care is the exact demographic that these sites' marketing are targeting for the most part. I can't imagine a single marketing deparment anywhere where people are going "hey, isn't it neat that google is allowing for (at least slightly more) informed consumers?".

Companies hate having to adapt to change until they really really have to. Sadly this kind of bluster is cheaper and easier than actually trying to ensure ones product or service markets itself by the spec rather than cheap psychology, and sometime actually works (ie: if the company backs down on its own, or if they turn public sentiment against them).

Calling this aggression is an admission of a lack of alternative marketing strategies that do NOT require a first-call-sale type doctrine. Suckers.

I very loudly call BULLSHIT

[zappepcs]

Data is data. If you are like me, you won't be seeing the ads anyway. When I'm searching data, complex searches reveal the best results in most cases. Being able to search within results is a form of complex search and can be specified by the searcher to start with, Google has simply made this easier. If Google is doing something bad, people are welcome to not have their data indexed by Google. Anyone can search your site via Google and present their own ads next to it. Yes Google is the 800 lb search gorilla, but get real here.

No, I do not think Google is beyond doing evil. I just haven't seen them do any yet.

No matter how technology changes what data we see and how we see it someone is going to be inconvenienced. I am sincerely hoping the US government is the next to be inconvenienced by large amounts of publicly available data. If a few website owners get caught in the mix... meh.

Talk to the buggy makers and shoe cobblers, I'm certain that they will have great sympathy for you.

Hmm.

[Adambomb]

Presenting users with choices amongst related businesses.

Oh the aggression. How dare an indexing company make it easier for consumers to view multiple sources for related queries to increase the revenue of their longstanding business model. Removing means of retaining "captive audience" style market research and manipulation is definitely not needed by anyone!

I believe the response for this as a current common colloquialism is "cry more, noobs".

Company's fear competition, news at 11

[timmarhy]

If the brand name is offering a better deal, why be concerned....

did the news papers have issue with google

[teknosapien]

indexing their content in the first place. As I see it turn around it fair play. How many law suites has google had to defend against from print media. If you ask me it fair play

Re:exclusions?

[Adambomb]

Monopoly where?

Online advertising?

search?

Definitely not webmail.

Theres a difference between having a monopoly, and being the best at what you do in a market by a significant margin.

This is new?

[AsmordeanX]

I've been using site:www.example.com for years.

Negativity about GOOG -5

[heroine]

Since they were negative about GOOG, they'll have to be modded down to -5.

Re:exclusions?

[mysidia]

They may use robots.txt exclusion to exclude their site from site search. All they need do is exclude / to remove themselves from the google index.

Or exclude everything except the front page from being crawled.

Of course they won't want to do this, because the resulting drop in pagerank and traffic from search results are much more costly than a few visitors finding ads for a competitor listed in search results.

By the way, if they buy the keywords, _they_ can put up ads that may appear on search-within-site of _their_ competitors too.

I fail to see any duty of a search engine being to protect you against your competition. Search engines may even offer contrary opinions..

Search for "Xyz Shop" -> "Xyz Shop, INC. is only rated 1 out of 5 by visitors. 5 out of 5 visitors like 'ABC Shop, INC. Better', do you want to search for that, instead?"

Until they click the link to choose a search result for _your_ site, they are not your customer, they're not even your prospective customer, their only relationship is with the search engine (as a user), and the pages they are viewing are dynamically generated, sponsored by the search provider, making them completely within the search provider's discretion.

Real purpose exposed

[noidentity]

So, a tool allows customers to more quickly find information on a company's website. That's bad. The customer should instead get frustrated and have to wade through lots of crap to find the information. No wonder I hate more and more modern websites. I love Google's site: feature and use it all the time to cut through the crap. Also, Google often shows top-level pages under a search result, for example searching for slashdot gives several news sections as sub links under the first result. Of course a company is always free to put up a robots.txt that tells all search engines not to index their site, if they are worried about customers finding useful information there via a search.

Re:Agressiveness

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you've just increased my knowledgeness!

Re:problem

[timmarhy]

or do you mean they are using googles service without googles permission? oh right, by leaving robot.txt in they are inviting search engines to index their information and search it, the permission to do so is implied.

these company's are just cry babies that fell over each other trying to get top placed google ratings, and now they don't like the tiny bit of competition.

I think it's already fixed...

[Peeet]

Unless I am missing something, it would appear that the "Sponsored Links" section that everyone is complaining about along the right side of the page disappears when the "site:" keyword is used. It would appear that this mountain is now not even a mole hill.

Exactly.

[v(*_*)vvvv]

This feature is old. Some more free pr for google.

Neither is the problem new. If you place google ads on your site google can put links to competitors in their ad space.

This is an interesting case study for UI though. Google basically enhanced their UI to be more user friendly, and got a reaction from it. Goes to show how naive google is about UI. Keep It Simple Stupid has gotten them here, but with all the new features available, they haven't done much to make any of them that accessible or easier to use.

Turning the knob

[Donny Smith]

>How dare an indexing company make it easier for consumers to view multiple sources for related queries to increase the revenue of their longstanding business model.

I would care if I paid the fuckers a fee to bring those customers to my web site.

Sure, the site: option has been around for a while but it's not been very prominent and/or easy to use.

A Google Ads customer now has to pay more more time to keep the competition off the site one more time.

A smart person can tell by now how this is going to work (see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/18/when_google_does_evil/). A comments which quotes an insider:
"We know for a fact - because we know what happened at Overture - that when a quarter runs short, you turn the knob and more money comes in," Herring says. "That happens all the time at Overture, and I'm sure it happens at Google. Why wouldn't it? Like you said, it's a publicly traded company."

Yes, not a Google insider, but theirs being a very closed system do you actually believe that they already don't turn (or tune) the knob?

I'm fine with the feature since I don't advertise with Goo, I don't use Google at all (I use Scroogle.org and other sites) and I don't care what they do, but if I were a Google Ads customer I certainly wouldn't be happy about this and would be looking at other options.

The originating article

[houghi]

Always nice to see some people panicking over something that happens and then not show where the actual panick originated.
The original article is most likely this one with a link to some sample.

You can try out comapnies yourselves. bwm does nothing. Nasa gives a result. wikipedia as well.

This is all on the Google site. I have not yet found a company site that uses Google (payed, not free) and get the seconday search.

What they do on their own site is their business. If they would do it on a site of one of their customers without asking, that might indeed upset them.

As far as I can see the secondary popup happens only to companies who are already customer and do have such a searchengine on their site anyway.

So instead of doing a search on google, find the site, click on that site and then do the 'search site with google' you do the search, then do the search and then get the results from that specific site. Good for Google as it can server more adds. Bad for Googles customers, as they do get lesser visitors.

This is ridiculous

[nevali]

1. This is just a nice UI to sticking "site:example.com"in the search terms (something many consumers don't know how to do)

2. Most sites' internal search engines suck balls, don't work at all, or even don't exist.

3. The consumer is already using Google, and these companies go out of their way to get the pages and products listed and ranked well in the SERPs; suddenly they complain when Google makes it even easier for people to find things on their sites?

I smell a red herring.

Yeah, I also want to have my cake and eat it.

[jotaeleemeese]

Want Goggle to search my site!

But only the parts I really, really want.

Never ascribe to idiocy what you can to malice ...

[pbhj]

Having a good search facility is not a benefit to a store provided they have a reasonable assumption that you will keep looking. I think this works well for high-street branded stores.

Just like the way the supermarkets move the stock, the on-line retailer wants you to: a) stick around and b) see more of what they have on offer in the hope something else will peak your interest so they can c) ... and d) profit.

So a search facility that doesn't show you what you need straight away is actually probably one designed that way.

[Yeah, I know I got the quote ass-about-tail.]