Why Spammy Adsense Will Never Kill Google
One of the most important things I’ve learned in business is that you can accurately predict what someone will do if you know where their biggest self interest lies. Once you know what will help them the most, you know what they’re aiming for, and thus have a tactical advantage selling, negotiating, or anything else with them.
(BII’s are not included in this phenomenon.)
And this kind of “always act 100% in your own self interest” behavior is not always a good thing.
Take Google for example.
Before Adsense existed, it didn’t really have any reason to act in it’s own interests as far as search results go. Adwords is a fairly unobtrusive advertising mechanism which certainly doesn’t affect the natural search results.
But then… those geniuses invented Adsense, a content based advertising program.
*BAM*
Now Google has a reason to act in its own interests in the search results.
Obviously, from an economics point of view, the saturation of Adsense websites makes sense up to the point at which the presence of Adsense begins to stop people from using Google. Or does it?
In Google’s perfect world, webmasters will create high quality websites that are monetized with Adsense. But that is rarely the reaility.
For example: Adsense revenue is not nearly as profitable as promoting your own money lending service in the Mortgage market. But of course Google doesn’t have a cut in that situation.
So the risk/reward Algorithm Google is working from is the one in which it works out just how many SPAMMY Adsense site’s are acceptable to the general population before people stop using Google. And Google also realizes that public perception is best controlled through BRAND PERCEPTION & PR - NOT QUALITY SEARCH RESULTS.
Ultimately Google is the “oh so clever” Company which delivers some of the worst search results while maintaining one of the best ethical veneers - on or off line. I read a headline on a business magazine the other day which said “Kids don’t ask Dad anymore, they ask Google.”
Which is truly a scary thing.
This in my opinion is a big part of the FRP - and that is a cost society bears to make a few guys rich.
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