Studies & Opinions
Google can’t do it Alone!
Alex
Tajirian
April 5, 2006
Search engines, including Google, have
adopted a strategy of ignoring input from companies regarding
the quality, breadth, and accuracy of information used in search
results. Such a strategy is presumably intended to eliminate
outside influences on results. However, besides being a source of distraction, the current
strategy can lead to value destruction in the hundreds of millions
of dollars. The remedy, outlined below, is to seek cooperation
with their search engine customers – the companies behind the
link results.
For example, Google has recently been
sued for deleting a company from their index. There have also
been rumors that Google is considering the deletion of all information
associated with a website when the domain name changes ownership.
These links have value and thus, indiscriminately eliminating
them destroys value. On the other hand, a cooperative arrangement
with the companies can increase value by selectively deleting
legacy information that is a source of negative externalities.
The search engine business represents a two-sided market[1]that
captures the interaction between an Internet searcher and an
online company represented by link on the search engine results.
A search engine, such as Google, mediates the market whereby
currently, it does not charge the user or the companies that
appear in the organic search results.[2] Thus, companies in the
search results are customers of the search engine and must be
treated as such.
Any way the issue is analyzed, the value creating results point
in the direction of cooperation. I consider three perspectives
on corporate relationships: