Italian Newspapers Get Gov't To Investigate Google For Not Sharing Ranking Secret Sauce

from the seriously-delusional dept

A bunch of folks have been sending in the news that Italian regulators have begun an investigation into Google, at the request of some Italian newspapers. The complaint is a typical one from newspapers who seem slightly clueless about how Google works. They say that Google News is unfair -- even though they can opt-out, but don't. The newspapers falsely claim that if they opt-out of Google News, they also have to opt-out of Google Search. That's simply untrue. But even if it were true, I'm not sure what the point would be. Getting traffic is a good thing. It's unclear why Italian newspapers (or any newspapers) don't like it.

In fact, the whole idea that Google News is unfair for sending traffic is undermined by the other complaint from the newspapers: that Google doesn't reveal how it ranks stories:

Because Google does not disclose the criteria for ranking news articles or search results, he said, newspapers are unable to hone their content to try to earn more revenue from online advertising.

Of course, that's silly. First, plenty of people have figured out how to optimize for Google -- there's a whole industry called SEO that does that. That doesn't mean that Google needs to reveal the secret sauce. But the best response to the demand for Google to reveal how it ranks stories comes from Danny Sullivan, who turns the story around, and wonders how newspaper would feel in the other direction:

No newspaper editor of any quality would allow an external interest to walk into their newsroom and demand to know exactly how to guarantee a front page article about whatever they want. But that's what the Italian papers seem to desire. Google has an editorial process for producing rankings, one that's done using automation -- but the papers seem to want to bypass those editorial decisions.

Exactly. The newspapers are basically demanding that their stories get ranked higher, but how would newspaper editors feel about the subjects of stories in the paper demanding that their stories be on the front page. After all, being on the front page would get the subject of a story more attention, and the newspaper isn't paying those subjects -- so the newspaper is "getting all the value." -- at least according to newspaper logic.

Sullivan also does a good job highlighting how useless it would be if the newspapers did get the details on how Google ranks stuff, because then everyone would just start writing stories to get to the top of the list, and any "advantage" would be lost. Separate from that, shouldn't we be just a bit troubled to find out that the newspapers are interested in figuring out how to write stories that top Google, rather than writing stories to better inform the populace?

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AP Almost Gets Something Right... But Then Gets It Wrong

from the so-close... dept

Zachary Seward over at the Nieman Lab is revealing more of the AP's "top secret" plan to figure out this darn web thing. Following the plan to hold back some content from its members, the latest installment is focused on trying to attack Wikipedia's search dominance with its own SEO play: creating "landing pages" designed to be the definitive destinations on certain topics, with the idea of using inbound links from partners newspaper sites to goose the Google juice and shoot them to the top of the list.

Now, as a first pass, this is actually not a bad idea. Creating compelling topic pages that become the main source for people to go to is a good strategy. The problem is that it's just not that easy. A bunch of other sites have tried to do the same thing and have failed miserably. Many of these are startups, obviously, but even Google itself tried to do something similar with its Google Knol offering, and that's been a massive disappointment. And it has the inside scoop on how to get good PageRank.

Even worse, as Felix Salmon points out, the AP seems to think that these pages should be autogenerated! Yes, the AP seems to think the way to take on Wikipedia is with a computer spitting out spam SEO-trap pages. Wow. The biggest asset (and yes, it's a huge asset) that the AP has is the wealth of knowledge in the heads of all of its reporters. They could actually create some very useful definitive content pages... but instead they're going to hand it over to computers to autogenerate? Talk about missing the point...

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Isn't There Something Ironic In An Anonymous Exec Demanding Transparency From Google?

from the entitlement-culture dept

It really is amazing sometimes to see how many people think that Google "owes" them something. For example, we've had a few different stories about companies suing Google because they don't like how Google ranks them. That makes little sense. Google doesn't owe anyone a spot in its index. It determines its index by figuring out what it thinks people will like best, and it's always tweaking it. If it fails to figure that out properly and someone else (like Microsoft) does figure it out, then Google will lose business. So, it seems a bit odd that some anonymous "well known exec at one of the largest sites on the Internet" is suddenly demanding transparency into how Google ranks content, suggesting that it's somehow unfair and arbitrary in its rankings -- and only by opening up the details of its algorithm will "fairness" be restored.

Ryan, who alerted us to this story, has written up a biting, but reasonable, response, where he notes that being ranked highly in Google is no one's right. And demanding that Google be transparent about its algorithm is meaningless (while being especially ironic, given that this "well-known exec" is demanding transparency while wanting to remain anonymous himself). The key point Ryan makes:

You want an algorithm, here it is:
1.) Sites that are useful to visitors will rank high.
2.) Popular sites that are useful to visitors will rank higher.
3.) Sites that don't offer any value to the web or are irrelevant to the query won't rank well.
4.) Sites that are harmful or spammy won't be included in the index.

Seriously, that's Google’s algorithm in plain English. There's your disclosure. The weighting factors and code behind it don't matter -- these principles are all you really need to know.

Indeed. Create useful sites with useful content that people use, and don't be spammy, and you'll most likely rank well in Google. You don't need to force Google to reveal the nuts and bolts of its algorithm. That doesn't change anything. If you're trying to craft your websites to the specifics of the algorithm, you're already lost. If you're creating websites that match the "plain English" code above, you're going to be just fine.

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Google So Dominant That A French Town Might Need To Change Its Name?

from the or-hire-some-better-seo? dept

Apparently, the French coastal town of Eu is so upset that people can't find the town via a Google search, that it's considering changing its name. The mayor of the town is quite concerned about how this is impacting the town's tourism business -- which does show the cultural dominance of Google, these days, on some things. Of course, as the article notes, a search on Eu french town turns up plenty of results -- though, even those are currently dominated by stories like this one about the name search. Perhaps the town just needs to hire better SEO experts...

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Internet Marketer Tries To Trademark 'SEO'

from the *sigh* dept

Similar to the guy who tried to register a trademark on the term cyberlaw, it turns out that some internet marketing guy is trying to get a trademark on the term "SEO" (thanks to Eric Goldman for pointing this out). SEO, of course, is a very generic acronym for "search engine optimization" and has been used for ages (not, as the guy claims, since early 2007). The link goes through, in rather great detail, how the Trademark folks turned this guy down multiple times, and he kept adjusting the trademark application, occasionally in totally nonsensical ways -- but eventually it seems as though people in the USPTO simply threw up their hands and said "whatever, let it through...." It's now at the stage where the USPTO is waiting to see if anyone objects to the filing, so hopefully with enough folks in the SEO filing objections this one will get completely rejected.

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