Comments for BuzzIT: Buzz in Technology

Comment on Google Fails Again; This Time With Google Currents Launch by Alex

Alex — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 04:26:15 +0000

Just installed today, set it all up, clicked on an interesting story, took me to a topic page with no reference to the story i clicked on. If I was a user who wasn’t doing this for the sake of product comparison I wouldn’t be coming back.

Comment on Is Google Waging a War Against Small Businesses? A Closer Look at ZDNet’s Allegation by Josh P

Josh P — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 12:37:56 +0000

Tom why is that wrong? Yes, the two middle charts show that Google is trying to make sites pay to rank higher, but so freaking what? Their search engine, their rules!

If they want sites to become brands by spending money on Adwords and Doubleclick so be it. Google is not biased, they just want to make some money from the sites they send traffic to. Update Pandora is a late but decent step towards it.

The free food, haircuts, vacations, health care (including sex-change operations,) political donations, lawyer fees, lobbying and stock options for employees cost money to Google. Even the smallest of businesses can find a bit of money to advertise with Adwords, those that can’t probably should not exists. Google, from I can tell, is reasonable: you want traffic? Pay.
You want to compete with our products? Pay, (if we let you advertise.) That’s not evil, it’s smart because Google has the market cornered.

Comment on Is Google Waging a War Against Small Businesses? A Closer Look at ZDNet’s Allegation by buzzintech

buzzintech — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 01:18:55 +0000

Thanks for sharing your opinion. You may be right in your claim. However, a larger time window of data suggests other possibilities. We think data on clicks and CTR between two groups of sites might throw more light on the issue.

Comment on Is Google Waging a War Against Small Businesses? A Closer Look at ZDNet’s Allegation by Tom Foremski

Tom Foremski — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 22:54:56 +0000

Interesting charts but it seems you’ve missed my point: Google sites revenue and partner sites have been linked historically, rate of growth in one mirrors the other. Now, there is large disconnect, what’s happened? Why is this the case now but not historically? There has been a change in Google’s strategy, what is that change?

It appears that it’s because of Google targeting key verticals, pushing out small affiliate, cutting tens of thousands of AdWords advertisers, etc. ALso, the Pandora algorithm was a very big change, which affected the rankings of more than 15% of the Google index, shifting traffic away from many large sites.

You can see how effective all of this this has been in the 2011 financials. I stand by my position that this has been achieved by moving traffic to Google sites, whether they are AdSense partners or simply trying to gain organic traffic through SEO.

Google’s war on SEO has been siimplified: focus on brands — everyone else is essentially a marketer, therefore a spammer. Easy anti-SEO…and it works — look at the gains Google has had versus partner sites.

Comment on Is Google Waging a War Against Small Businesses? A Closer Look at ZDNet’s Allegation by buzzintech

buzzintech — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 03:48:19 +0000

we did not chart that. I believe at our quick glance at the data we did not find it. Longer time frame data for sure tell more complete story

Comment on Is Google Waging a War Against Small Businesses? A Closer Look at ZDNet’s Allegation by CFA

CFA — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 03:16:41 +0000

BuzzIT did you do a chart on click growth from google’s own properties? IIRC it was 28% up from quarter to quarter (2011-2010) and 13% more clicks from third 2011 quarter to second 2011 quarter.

Comment on Is Google Waging a War Against Small Businesses? A Closer Look at ZDNet’s Allegation by CFA

CFA — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 03:13:28 +0000

“This again suggests that Google is not really gaming against small publishers now….If at all, this has been the plan for a while and Google is doing that from the beginning.”

I agree 100% with you! Google has been doing this since 2007 when organic growth stopped but intensified last quarter.

Comment on Is Google Waging a War Against Small Businesses? A Closer Look at ZDNet’s Allegation by Rick

Rick — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 00:03:37 +0000

Too bad that article by Tom was poorly researched, full of errors and wrong assumptions, not the quality I’d expect from a journalist of his stature. Only saying so because quoting such a flawed article doesn’t add credibility to yours.

Comment on Google Fails Again; This Time With Google Currents Launch by buzzintech

buzzintech — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 17:18:56 +0000

Thanks for fixing it and letting us know. Any word on the problems in using Google Currents?

Comment on Google Fails Again; This Time With Google Currents Launch by Cassie

Cassie — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 15:37:43 +0000

Thanks for the heads up about the broken link. It should have been: http://support.google.com/currents

Fixed!