Is Google Too Dominant?

[Dale King]

There's no question Google has changed the internet - though some would argue not necessarily for the better. Critics point to Google's dominance in search and pay-per-click advertising - just to name two areas of dominance and pray that another major player comes along to level the playing field - to challenge Google to provide better service.

What do you think? Would you like to see a serious Google competitor emerge? Or are you totally happy with Google and everything it brings to the table?

What are your thoughts?

Dale King

[fwn122]

I feel that google does have way too much control over the internet. I don't necessarily dislike them but I don't think any company should have that much influence.

Google alone determines the value of every web site on the internet by giving it a page rank based on its method of deciding how important a site is. Unfortunetely most webmasters hlep to give google this power by using google page rank as a basis for determining the value of a web site.

Because of this google can make or break almost any web site by blacklisting it from google which will both remove the site from the internets most popular search engine, and in addition give it a page rank of 0 or n/a which will make the site look as though it is very new or low quality.

If google decides that a site is not valuble than the other webmasters will accept it as a fact. They will not want their sites to link to this page rank 0 site nor will they want it to link to their site.
If a web site that makes its profit by selling ads is blacklisted from google or just given a low page rank, it will no longer be able to make a profit selling ads and the owner of the web site will have to start over again.

I don't think it is fair for one organization to determine the value of every site on the internet.


In Addition, when a webmaster decides to attempt to make a profit with their site, one of the first methods they will turn to is google adsense. I don't really have a problem with adsense, but I can't help but notice that the majority of web sites run adsense ads on their sites, allowing google to profit off every single one of thse sites not to mention the link that it recieves from each one as well.

Also, google often tends to buy out its competitors giving it even more power; for example ask.com and youtube.com.

In addition, Google is extremely secretive about everything that it does. No one knows exactly how google determines page rank. We have a general idea, but no one outside of google knows for sure.
There is also no way to contact google unless you are contacting them regarding one of their products. If you feel that your site is being treated unfairly or you would like to ask a general question, than thats too bad because google does not allow any questions that do not relate to their products.

Google has a ridiculous amount of control and influence on the internet. Unfortunetely there are no promising competitors. Yahoo obviously is not doing very well at the moment and the only other competitor I can think of is Microsoft (msn.com) and they are nowhere near Google.
If another competitor were to emerge I'm sure Google has the ability to make it nearly impossible for them and I have no doubt that they would do exactly that.

[Dale King]

Frank, you make a very interesting and compelling argument. Thanks!

Dale King

[1entrepreneur]

Just like in any other industry, healthy competition is good. A monopoly is never good.

I think a Microsoft merger with Yahoo would be a good thing.

[fwn122]

Just like in any other industry, healthy competition is good. A monopoly is never good.

I think a Microsoft merger with Yahoo would be a good thing.

I agree, but I still wonder if they will give Google any competion. The whole google page rank system is what gives them so much influence and so far neither microsoft nor yahoo has developed a similar system. The only other popular ranking system that I can think of is Alexa but they rank based off traffic alone and are not nearly as influential because alexa rank does not directly relate to search engine rankings and many believe that it is not very accurate since it ranks sites based on how many alexa toolbar users have visited the site. All other visitors are not taken into account. In my opinion google pagerank gives google more power than anything else.

[Aletheides]

God YES!!!!

[SophieM]

They dominate the search market and are applying that to others...I never thought I'd see them develop an operating system!

[fwn122]

They dominate the search market and are applying that to others...I never thought I'd see them develop an operating system!

They developed an operating system?! I didn't know about that. What is it called?

[SophieM]

It is a mobile operating system called Android

[SendBlast]

no one is even close to google in search.

no merger will help. that is because currently google dedicates its core to just search. it will be very hard for someone to take them on.

[vstar]

I'd love to see a serious competitor emerge, I had my adwords account terminated simply because I had an issue with them and I got a little argumentative on the phone, next thing I know is my account is terminated

Google thinks their poop doesn't stink

[fwn122]

no one is even close to google in search.

no merger will help. that is because currently google dedicates its core to just search. it will be very hard for someone to take them on.

Google does a lot more besides just search. They have hundreds of products and tools both free and paid not to mention the other companies/web sites that they own. Some of the most popular products and tools are adwords, adsense, page rank, toolbar, gmail, ect.

[Dale King]

no one is even close to google in search.

Has anyone tried Yahoo search lately? Personally, I like their search results better than Google's.

Dale King

[SendBlast]

Google does a lot more besides just search. They have hundreds of products and tools both free and paid not to mention the other companies/web sites that they own. Some of the most popular products and tools are adwords, adsense, page rank, toolbar, gmail, ect.

i said their core is search. that is why they dominate there. additional features/benefits have nothing to do with it.

[MistaDobalina]

Hell yes. But I respect them for how quickly they have dominated and taken over the internet. Good luck to anyone who tries to stop them. I think the next best thing will be community user-generated search engines that use the intelligence of the community to answer inquires and searches. It won't be as fast but it'd be more accurate.

Edit: What websites does Google own?