How Google destroyed a popular website for profit

[Malikbhai]

Testimony by the creator of CelebrityNetWorth.com

https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/J...0716-SD015.pdf

Excerpt of the document taken from WebMasterWorld

On April 23, 2014, I received an email from a Data Researcher at Google. In subsequent calls and emails theData Researcher explainedthat net worthqueries were one of Google’smostconsistently popularcategories of search. As such, she was tasked with finding an API or dataset from our site that would help “enhance user experience at Google Search”. If we granted Google access to an API, any user who searchedfor a celebrity’s net worth would be shown a large box with ouranswer at the top of the search resultpage.

Iasked the Data Researcher why we would ever allow this.What benefit couldgiving away our most valuable asset possibly create for CNW? Clearly this would cause a catastrophic drop in traffic since users would no longer need to visit our siteand therefore would no longer generate ad revenue.When pressed, the Google team said it would be good exposure for our brand. What they left unsaid was that the implementation of such a scheme would have accelerated our demise. Google’s diminutive (and sometimes non-existent) attribution to original content creators means fewer clicks and eyeballs to the web.

The nebulous suggestion that “exposure” would make up for this somehow demonstrates how starkly different Google’s motives are today.On this same call I asked if we could be paid a flat fee or a royalty for providing anAPI. I was told they would not pay a fee and if we did not agree to givethem an API they would either make one on their own or scrape one together from other sources.

I declined Google’s request to provide an API to our data.


-- Wait, I thought Google organic was all automated algorithms. There was no manual manipulation by staff. Seems it's NOT the case.

-- This proves that Google CAN and will give privilege to sites that they seem important for their business. So all SEO concepts should go down the drain.

-- And that Google is nothing more than a blackmailer.

https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/5001046-10-30.htm


Now this is very interesting...

[nfint12]

I have little hope it will happen, but Google needs to be broken up. No one company should have the kind of market share they do for search, it only works for the company themselves and does suit the general public or other businesses.

[casionmark]

More here -

https://themarkup.org/google-the-gia...er-competitors

[TheGooner]

I think that we all know that Google appropriates valuable traffic and places it's own links to searchers ...

As small affiliates we know that the "money term" phrases are impossible to reach and we live off smaller earnings from niche queries that Google can't be bothered monopolising ...yet.

Still - Google is a commercial website - not a "not for profit" independent directory.

The questions are ...
1/ is that deceiving searchers?
2/ Are searchers getting a raw deal?
3/ Or are searchers getting better answers and with less clicks?

If the Google approach wasn't delivering for searchers then surely they'd change search engines?