The Need For Search Neutrality

wilsone8 writes "The New York Times includes an op-ed today arguing for Search Neutrality: 'Today, search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's new Bing have become the Internet's gatekeepers, and the crucial role they play in directing users to Web sites means they are now as essential a component of its infrastructure as the physical network itself. The F.C.C. needs to look beyond network neutrality and include search neutrality: the principle that search engines should have no editorial policies other than that their results be comprehensive, impartial and based solely on relevance.'"

Comments

MALNOURISHED MONKEYS!

[headkase]

As Techdirt stated, this story was: Vetted By Malnourished Monkeys. Apparently the same this happened here. Yay.

Re:MALNOURISHED MONKEYS!

[linhares]

As Techdirt stated, this story was: Vetted By Malnourished Monkeys. Apparently the same this happened here. Yay.

That's the link I was looking for. Mods take notice of parent's post please? Here is a tidbit:

NYT Runs Quack, Self-Serving Anti-Google OpEd By Paul Kedrosky Monday, December 28, 2009 ShareThis There is a quack, self-serving, and silly search-related OpEd in Monday's NY Times that would be amusing, if it weren't so indelibly dumb. In it the founder of a company, Foundem, in the search business alleges that search company Google should be investigated and forced to do a better job of highlighting firms like his. Gosh, what a shocker. Someone in search with minimal web traffic -- Compete says Foundem gets a little less web traffic than The Fortune Cookie Chronicles does, which is to say around 1,700 a month -- wants someone in search with a lot of web traffic, Google, to send his company buckets of visitors. Amazing. The OpEd goes downhill from there. We get a litany of silly complaints, like the idea that Google doesn't innovate, that it just buys stuff from others, and that Google's Maps and other products have hurt other companies. Yeesh. I'll say this really slowly: Consumers want products that work together, simplify our lives, and solve problems. For this nitwit to want to throw us back to a world where we need point products -- maps here, directions there, product search there, email over there, etc. -- as some sort of full-employment act for me-too companies that can't get web traffic on their own merits is batshit nuts. Of course, there is a second level of stupid to this piece, and that goes to the NYT itself. It took until the fourth paragraph of the piece until we find out that the OpEd author is, you know, conflicted in that he himself runs a search company (albeit one with negligible traffic). Not only that, he has an axe to grind, as he goes on in paragraph four to arm-wavingly allege that Google "disappeared" his site from its results...

It goes on from there. Excellent piece overall.

Why??

[johnlcallaway]

First .. the person writing the op-ed had been penalized by Google and is biased. They don't mention why, but probably from breaking some of the search engine rules regarding gateway pages or meta tags or something else. Anyone with any web skills could have contacted Google, found out why, and corrected the problem.

Secondly .. Google got where they are because the majority of people probably like they way their search engine works, and how it is integrated with other tools. Just like Microsoft .. it didn't get to be the largest software by having the best software, just the one that most people used. If google was biased politically, I doubt that would have been the case. This guy is upset because his business was impacted because he didn't follow Google's rules and didn't bother to contact them.

Lastly, there is NOTHING wrong with a biased search engine as long as the people using it understand the bias. Business, environmental, left wing, right wing, socialist, communist, capitalist and what-ever-ists might like to have a search engine that gives them results according to their political views. WHY does a search engine have to be non-biased?? Because this guy didn't follow the rules, was too lazy to fix it, and got hurt??? That's one of the reasons I think the Fairness doctrine is .. well .. unfair. Why can't I find a media source that has the same bias as I do so I don't have to read all the tripe from those that disagree with me. Free speech doesn't mean I have to listen to it. Free choice in search engines means I don't have to use those that don't return the results I want to see.

Foundem is a SEARCH ENGINE. So I typed in 'price search engine'. Interestingly enough, Google was fourth on the list.....I couldn't find Foundem in the first 4 pages. Here are the meta tags on Foundem's home page ---

vertical search, price comparison, compare prices, flight search, hotel search, shop, buy, online, compare, best deals, best buy, prices, electronics, reviews, computers, job search, property search.

Wow ... no wonder they don't show up. They don't do anything UNIQUE. There are hundreds of companies doing the same thing. I guess they still haven't figured out how to get placement on a search engine.

Personally, I will discount this op-ed piece as little more than whining by some company too lazy to figure out what their market is, create a unique product, and spend the time and effort to get it to show up on Goggle's search engine. Lots of other companies do that just fine.....they must have skilled web staff working for them.

Or they figured if Google can't drive traffic to their web site, maybe the Times will. Seems the only advertising they want is 'free'.

The money quote:

[whoever57]

The last word on this goes to Ciaran Norris, who says: "I have to wonder whether the fact that Foundem apparently continues to rank well in Bing and Yahoo isn't in fact a perfect example of why those sites currently struggle to manage 10% market share between them."

Re:Google maps and preferential search treatment?

[Anonymous Coward]

At first though there is no piratical use of other than that's kind of neat

I've actually found a good use for it: since nobody bothers to put instructions on where the fuck to park, I can virtually drive through downtown until I figure out the nearest garage or lot that doesn't look like it's going to cost me more than whatever I was going downtown for in the first place.

His site was probably marked down for linkspam.

[Animats]

If you look at the HTML source of Foundem, you find a set of meta keywords usually associated with webspam sites. Then there's a big block of ad-like links - Ipods, plasma TVs,"cheap flights", "fitness equipment online", etc. It looks like your typical junk link site.

The Register reported their troubles with Google back in 2006. What they were bitching about was not that "Foundem" disappeared from Google, but that all the pages of "price comparisons" they put up were pushed way down in search results. They were also hit with an AdWords penalty. This was written up as a case study in SEO fail.

However, at least they have a business address on the site.

Re:Look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls

[TheRaven64]

As we have seen in recent years, Google's search results are getting worse and worse, being flooded by spammers and expertsexchange links that include a couple of search terms but either have nothing to do with the search or require registration to access.

Add this to your user CSS:

li h3 a[HREF*="http://www.experts-exchange.com/"] {display : none ! important }
A[HREF*="http://www.experts-exchange.com/"]:after { content: " [IDIOT WARNING]"!important ; color: red }

First line hides expertsexchange links in Google search results. Second adds a red idiot warning after any that you might come across elsewhere.