Will Google join the dinosaurs?
March 24th, 2009 by Republican By DefaultAdvertisingAge magazine (online) reports that Google is discussing it’s ranking algorithm with members of the mainstream media. They seem to think that with Google on their side they’ll recover from the lost advertising revenue that resulted from decreased circulation. But I think that rather than bring up the mainstream media it will bring Google down. (h/t MichelleMalkin.com)
Background on Google’s ranking
Google’s primary goal has always been to provide the best search results so that Internet visitors will continue to use their free service. Once those visitors use the free service Google mixes ads into the search results so that they can make money. It’s an excellent business model for the Internet, giving both visitors and advertisers what they want.
The ranking algorithm is the series of programs that Google runs to determine which pages on the Internet get reported first when someone searches for a particular word. This applies to Google and every other search engine on the Internet, some of which get a lot of their information from Google.
For the most part the way Google’s algorithm works now is that the pages that get linked to the most (from other pages) will show up at the top of the list of results that Google provides. There are other factors such as relevance and probably some unspoken preferential treatment given to Google’s own advertisers.
Relevance is the determination of whether a word used on your page is really what your page is about. This stems from the practice of dumping popular words into the background of a page to get search engines to point to a page that nobody really wants to see, a practice used extensively by adult content sites in the early days of search engines.
All of these things, and more, are weighed by Google’s algorithm to determine how good of a match a page is for the words someone uses in a search.
Mainstream Media’s downward spiral
Newspapers and television news sources have been in steady decline for years with few exceptions. Recently the Seattle PI (Post-Intelligencer) stopped it’s print edition and has gone to an all electronic format. I doubt that will save them because it was just the overhead that was killing their profits, it was mostly their circulation. In other words it wasn’t the paper that was dragging them down, it was the ink.
Mainstream media outlets are failing because nobody wants to hear what they have to say. Maybe they’ve heard it before. Maybe they’re not interested. Or maybe they just don’t agree with the slanted view that these media outlets provide. I think that in the case of the PI it was the latter. With too many other sources of the same slant, there just weren’t enough readers interested in paying to get the same slant they were getting from the Seattle Time, several TV news outlets, PBS, NPS and a few local rags of lesser note.
So the PI’s attempt to adapt to the electronic age is probably going to be too little, too late. But the PI is just one example of the problems that exist throughout the entire print news industry and in the other mainstream media outlets. It’s not a flawed delivery medium, it’s flawed content that is dragging the industry down.
When the mainstream media joined themselves with the Barack Obama (and to some extent Hillary Clinton) campaign(s) for president, they showed their true colors as never before. Now that Barry’s presidency is failing in the few short months of its existance, the media will be paying the price for selling the American people a proverbial bill of goods.
By attaching themselves to the Obama campaign they also attached themselves to his presidency. With that they have attached their success or failure to the success or failure of his presidency. If Barry fails the reputation of the mainstream media outlets who blindly supported him will be lost. The people who relied on them will see them as failures for not bringing his shortcoming to their attention.
Another example of the failures of mainstream media outlets was the bailouts of businesses in the last few months along with the stimulus package. Media outlets failed to discover and disclose the problems in those bills. The AIG bonuses is just one example of what’s in them and the media has yet to really disclose the political ties that AIG enjoyed (including Barry’s presidential campaign). Another failure was actually disclosed by several governors who are refusing help from the stimulus package because of strings attached to the money. There are numerous other problems in those bills that have yet to surface.
Mainstream media outlets are continually being scooped by both Internet and talk radio sources. It’s not the medium (print vs. electronic) that they didn’t keep up with, it’s the content presented on those mediums. There was a time when news couldn’t get around the mainstream outlets, so they could say whatever they wanted and nobody new the difference. Now the whole story is getting out and people want to know the facts (all of the facts, not just the ones that they choose to print.) In other words they were delivering manure using a tractor and trailer. Using a train isn’t going to change the fact that it’s still manure.
Google isn’t the only game in town
There are numerous search engines on the Internet. Yahoo and MSN being the biggest competitors means that Google maintains a lead in the industry, but the lead is relatively small.
When I see something on the local news or in a newspaper that interests me, I always go to the Internet to get the rest of the story. Invariably there is more to the story than was reported and in a majority of cases some very important details were left out of the original story.
The only thing that sets Google apart is that they provide the interesting links on the first page of their search results. They’re not the only search engine I use, but they’re just the most convenient because of what appears on the first page. That is determined by their algorithm. Their place of prominence isn’t assured. It is constantly being challenged and just like any product in any industry (except government) the competition is capable of surpassing the leader. It’s what makes capitalism such a good thing for consumers.
It should be noted here that Google has been criticized for slanting their content to a particular political and social ideology. This makes them vulnerable. Their efforts in that regard have been small enough that the criticism didn’t gain much momentum. However, this partnership could be just the thing that tips the scales in that regard.
Google considers preferring mainstream media content
Mainstream media outlets seem to think that if they can get Google to join them that they can ride Google’s coattails back to the top. But what they don’t realize is that Google is on top only because they go around the mainstream outlets. Google is a source of references to content that won’t appear in newspapers and on TV.
If Google begins preferring content from mainstream (usually slanted) outlets they could quickly tip the scales on their critics’ complaints. If those complaints get traction then Internet visitors will quickly switch to the competition and Google will lose it’s competitive lead.
In short, an agreement between Google and the mainstream media would not help either party and would probably be damaging to Google’s reputation. Leaders come and go in every industry. Google could become the next WordStar. ‘Who are they’, you ask? Exactly.
Update: More from NewsBusters.Org.