Comments

• Yfrwlf

  2009-01-17 14:14:22

  All companies do this of course, it's called advertising. The position involves making sure your company comes up in hopefully *relevant* searches, but also includes paying that extra bit to come up first or be more highly ranked. I know, because I've seen it done. What do you think Google's revenue stream is from? I think it's mostly from things like this, but of course it's not the only source.
  
  Any way, so I don't see anything spectacular about this being news worthy, other than the fact that it's coming from two companies that can go **** themselves.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-01-17 14:17:50

  This post was mostly a set of observations rather than a critique, but one part which I dislike is the gaming of search engines, which is paid for.

• Yfrwlf

  2009-01-17 15:29:53

  Fair enough, and you do make lots of observations here, and it's always wise to watch what others are doing especially your enemies, but I just was not at all surprised.
  
  Of course, if you know about Microsoft and Novell and the types of businesses they are, you won't EVER be "surprised", it's more like...in awe that someone could be such a-holes. A train wreck that it's hard not to look at because you feel bad for them. Or at least, bad for what they've done to themselves and others.
  
  I agree about search engines, they should be the best at what they can be which is in providing the most relevant data they can as quickly and easily as possible. It's very tempting for other interests to want to manipulate that data and I agree it shouldn't be done. Quite simply, it's selling out, and not something that businesses want broadcast around, yet anyone who knows anything already knows they do it.
  
  At the same time, Google's software and other services are pretty nice, and definitely their contributions to open source. I think they could really have something if they tried to help push desktop Linux with their name for brand recognition, but maybe they feel it's too early to associate Google with Linux, especially since so many of what is essentially their user base is still on Windows. Still, I think they could push for it in more ways, and they are, and it will increase with time as Linux slowly makes itself more known.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-01-17 15:37:54

  Google promotes Linux from the top and from the bottom at the moment, moving towards the 'middle' (desktop for example). The world's biggest 'networked' computers are probably Google's (about 1 million GNU/Linux servers) and they now have Android, which scaled 'upwards' (Netbooks, navigation devices likely soon).
  
  The 'middle' is hard to conquer because it's the bread and butter of Microsoft and Apple (which expanded to portables and phones too).

• twitter

  2009-01-17 21:00:57

  Yfrwlf, not all companies do SEO and it is bad for Google's bottom line. Google makes money from impartial search. They lose trust and revenue when that trust is broken. SEO is only practiced by insecure and unethical companies. Good product does not need that kind of gaming.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-01-17 21:06:34

  They often use the "everyone's doin' it" lie/excuse.

• Yfrwlf

  2009-01-20 03:10:54

  Right, it's labeled marketing, that's all it's seen as. Lying, exaggerating, bending the truth, they try to say it's OK because it's just someone's opinion, but it's not, and even if it were the opinion of some imbecile, it's not someone who should be listened to or relied upon. It turns into con art or quite simply lies.