[1]

I just posted a comment at John Battelle’s searchblog

… and the comment was so long that I guess it was held for review. I will link to it if/when it appears on the blog, but I also want to share it with you right away.

Here it is:

Rob,

thank you for the “free” [2] information! :D

In your SEL [3] article, you state: “The committee wanted a full range of witnesses, all with different experiences from using search marketing.” However, if I type in something like “debate video”, then isn’t it true that I am also *demanding* a certain type of information that could be supplied by many information suppliers (so in other words: not only by the google.com media empire — which includes youtube.com — but also by the Commission on Presidential Debates [at Debates.ORG ])? I am a little disappointed that people who use the Internet to search for information were not included in the panel — it seems to me that the panel was rather skewed towards *PROVIDERS* of content/advertising rather to the detriment (or complete absence) of *END USERS* of such content/advertising.

Note that according to *my* view of the process, there are currently several players involved in “information gathering / provision”:

1. the information “seeker” (”end user”)
2. the information “provider” (”advertiser”)
3. the “transaction participant” (”business owner”)

From the videos provided at youtube.com, it appears that you and other members of the panel were either transaction participants or advertising representatives / agents (though not advertisers or similar “information providers” themselves). Regrettably, information seekers were entirely absent from the panel.

I would guess that for every advertiser/information provider there are maybe 100 or 1000 (or more?) information seekers. You yourself stated that you order placement on Google’s network of websites for about 10,000 keywords (I assume you’re including keyword phrases and common typographical errors such as “eaby” in that number) by paying Google some “pay per click” amount to have your result show up as #1 result on Google’s engine (and, as was noted during the hearings, you are apparently indeed showing up at the top of the results on Google.COM). I have now found a term to succinctly describe this phenomenon — I will call it: the “Wisdom of the Wallet”.

If you compare the results provided by wisdom of the wallet with the the results “wisdom of the language” (see http://gaggle.info/miscellaneous/articles/wisdom-of-the-language ), I think you will find that the wisdom of the language is more reliable than the wisdom of the wallet (you yourself noted during the hearing that virtually anyone could appear at the top of results for almost any keyword search phrase on a ppc engine such as Google).

Contrast that with the highly reliable information to be found at debates.org or physician.md (etc.): Indeed — I have found that the younger generation of “digital natives” are in fact very aware of their presence/location on the Internet (however: they are perhaps not as aware of the process of media conglomeration that is occurring if/when Google acquires other companies such as YouTube.COM or Yahoo.COM or forms close partnerships with other large media companies such as AOL/Time Warner or NewsCorp).

I feel that when these digital natives “come of age” and realize that Google is ranking results according to the “wisdom of the wallet”, they will start to think about it — and ultimately will also begin to look elsewhere. I just looked at dogs.com and hunting.com — and I must say that I am impressed with the apparent effectiveness of those search engines, which are apparently more focused on highly targeted audiences of consumers than general “one-size fits-all” ppc engines such as Google or Yahoo.

Presently, all search engine algorithms are strongly influenced by what is commonly referred to as “navigational” results. Therefore, hunting.net appears as the #1 result for a search on “hunting”. The ads on the homepage of hunting.net are delivered by “DoubleClick” (an advertising agency Google recently acquired). Note that the “title” field of the homepage of hunting.net reads “huntingnet.com” — a rather confusing and therefore dubious marketing tactic. In contrast, hunting.com doesn’t even appear in the results provided by Google (not in the first 10 results, and not even among the first 10 pages of results).

Currently, hunting.net is also #1 at Yahoo for the keyword / search term “hunting”) — but at least hunting.com is #2.

Do you think that if Yahoo enters a deal with Google to place Google’s advertising partners at the top of Yahoo’s results pages, that hunting.com may be removed from the top of the results page at Yahoo (like it apparently is being removed at Google)?

Thank you again for sharing your knowledge of this industry.

:) nmw