Thursday, December 15, 2005

Google Bashing

I have blogged before that people are going to start revolting against Google as it successful.
And so it begins:
So increasing the amount per word DID increase sales, though not enough to justify the additional cost. Google's revenue per word, of course, went up by 10X. But dropping the price by more than half was greeted by a huge decrease in clicks-through that could only have resulted from some unknown resultant change in GOOGLE's behavior, given that all other variables were constant.
If that's indeed what's happening, it isn't illegal and to some might not even be unethical (I guess) but it feels just a little bit EVIL.
In a nutshell, this nutjob is complaining that a new business has to pay extra for prime placement on Google’s AdWords advertising service, while an existing website (that ultimately is the same business) gets the same traffic for a much lower cost.
Google has to take a risk to display new sites because it doesn’t know if the service will be attractive for it’s customers.  It’s not rocket science, Google wants to make money whether or not your business is successful.  If it displays a not-so-successful business over a proven entity it is risky a certain percentage of its revenue.  By paying a higher fee, you are subsidizing that risk.
Is this any different than networks charging premium fees for PrimeTime TV adds?  Or adds during the Super Bowl which can cost millions of dollars for a mere 30 second spot?  Of course not, but there are people out there that simply hate success and will twist logic into a pretzel to find a scheme to make it seem like the successful are screwing us over.
What they always fail to mention is that we keep screwing ourselves over voluntarily.  No one is forcing him or anyone else to use the Google advertising service.  If he doesn’t like it he can always use any of the competing services such as the one that Yahoo runs.
It always come down to the same basic question, how much is it worth to you?  If you are a brand new business trying to get established, those click throughs are your life-blood.  As an established business they aren’t worth as much since you have an established customer base.  Is economics really that foreign of a concept for so many?
HatTip: Slashdot

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