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How To Save Google From Bankruptcy
The second piece of bad news about Google hit the newspapers today. Yes, I meant physical newspaper. Sometimes you have to get your “facts” from places other than online. The news story said that Google would be laying off 300 employees. Imagine that, the darling of Wall Street plans to layoff people. This news followed a story a few weeks ago about Google earning less money on advertising because less people were clicking on their ads. I guess nobody is immune from this recession.
Maybe this is the start of Big G becoming little g. Maybe online advertising doesn’t work after all. Maybe the Internet is just a passing fad. Maybe the only good jobs will be at Walmart. Maybe… Whoa! Not so fast down this slippery slope. To the untrained eye, it may appear that Google is heading towards their demise. Let me assure you, though, that this is furthest from the “truth.” Here is my story from the trenches of online advertising.
Google spent time last year cleaning up the Internet. I have seen website after website being erased from the digital library that is Google’s index. Sadly, some of these websites included a couple that I own. They weren’t junk sites, mind you, but they were caught up in the sweep. As far as I can tell, they were getting rid of the junk out there — directory sites, made for Adsense sites, framed sites, redirected sites — anything that did not add value to the Internet according to Google. That was part one.
Part two began about six months ago. Google made it difficult for their Adwords advertisers to put up junk ads that led to junk destinations. I don’t claim to be an Adwords guru but I do know that when Google raised my bids to $5-$10 minimums, they don’t want me to advertise on their system. Why did they do this? Why did they bite off the hands of the advertisers who fed them? In their “Infinet” wisdom, Google wanted the same user experience on their advertised side as their organic side of search. This may cost them short-term revenue from lost Adsense and Adwords fees, as we have seen via their latest financial report, but in the long run, they stand to benefit. They are taking one step back to surge three steps forward. This will happen because the Internet will become a better place to search and surf again with less junk websites. If Google serves up less junk results, people will trust them more than say, Yahoo Search. With more people using their search engine, Google can eventually charge even more than they do today. More people and higher fees equals a bigger and fatter Google.
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