Does Google have too much power?

10th August, 2010 by Steven Waldberg

Im a little concerned at the power of this search engine Google.

Today we made a very slight change to our website and it sent the Google index into a tail spin and we were immediately not able to find our homepage on Google. We have spent many many man hours dedicated to the task of what is termed Search Engine Optimisation and feel that we have followed all the rules and acted according to the strict guidelines set down by Google. Lo and behold 1 innocent change and we were penalised heavily. Needless to say four hours later and some heavy stressed out phone calls to our tech guys and the situation has now been remedied.

This leads me to one very important question; how much control does Google have as a search engine over our business? Its actually quite frightening if you think about it for a minute. They have the key to all your online advertising and I for one am totally scared of this. Its a total monopoly and they have the whole search engine market sewn up.

Another also scary fact is that Google tends to buy up any smaller companies that are a threat to it.

View comments

Hi, sorry to state the obvious, but could help myself.

There has simply been a shift of power from Yellow pages and other traditional marketing mediums to a more cost effectve medium being Google.

As for buyouts, big company buys out small company is becoming a norm.

I cant help but find it amusing that a company that markets itself as a web design and seo provider had to speak to its tech guys.
Welcome to the world of web.
Posted by Paul Sideridis on 11th August 2010

Paul - even Doctors need help from specialists sometimes - we would be fools to deny this.
Posted by Steven Waldberg on 17th August 2010

As far a search engines go, I prefer Google than other sites. I certainly do not trust BING as Microsoft send out bots to ensure you continue to use them. But to make an informed opinion on the subject, one needs to look at the history of search engines. You may want to read things here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_search_engine

From my point of view, I prefer to use Google because I like to say:
"we can Google that!"
or
"if it's on Google, you can believe it!"
The word Google has now become a noun and people use it like they use "Hoover" or "Xerox".
Just off track here... ...one might like to read the following article:

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/are-you-guilty-of-genericide/

as Google do not want their trademark to be used as a noun.

Too late I say - Google that.
Xandro.
Posted by Xandro Lombardi on 25th October 2010

Sorry, I assumed that given you push SEO services on your website and the amount of posts on Agda that you were positioning yourself as a specialist :-(
Posted by Paul Sideridis on 17th November 2010