Google And The Corporate Focus

By Author: John Tang
Total Articles: 507
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The biggest SEM Conference in the world was held in New York City in March at the Hilton Hotel. This is one of the few events where SEM Companies, Agents and Independent Websites can gain knowledge and the most recent Industry News on all aspects of SEM including SEO, PPC, Social Media and Social Book marking. Industry giants such as Google, Yahoo, MSN and many other companies show up with speakers, and also to promote their presence.

It's a huge advantage for anyone in the Online Industry to even be in the same room as Google, as they do not get to ask many individual questions since Google is very secretive about many of its operations. Their Algorithm and Universal Search gets criticized a lot due to the fact that they do not release much information. They have also been criticized a lot lately about not practicing what they preach. Google has always been the defender of relevant search however lately we have seen that they do not want to be just a search engine that provides relevant results, they want to be more. The purchase of YouTube and many other companies by Google supports this concern.

Universal Search ...
... is just another name for Show me everything related to my search term. So if I search for Britney Spears, I probably want to see some videos of her where she embarrasses herself (YouTube), I might want to see revealing photos for her (Google Image), I might want to read a biography or her life story (Google Knol), I might want to read some news about her (Google News) or I might want to click on a link to buy a CD or her merchandise. (Google Adwords PPC)

As we can see from this example, Google has it all and more. Google used to be a search engine and they basically forwarded people to relevant information. Now, they want to capture that second and third click and keep the user on their network because the more people stay, the more Ad Revenue.

Can you blame them? Yes and No. NO, because they're trying to expand and keep making money. Just recently, Google was one of the very few companies to post more than expected quarterly earnings and of course there's a reason for that. YES, because they're following a policy where they're going against their original idea which made them billions in the first place; relevance. So, if a video on Metacafe is more relevant to search than YouTube, who do you think Google will display?

The theory is quite simple; as corporations get larger and more powerful, they lose focus because money is sweet and that's how companies can often lose their way. However, I'm not suggesting that Google will lose their; they're far from it. They have a good team, almost perfect management and they have all the talent and the revenue to support it. All I'm stating is that new geniuses and opportunities will arise from this lack of corporate focus.