To Understand Google Favoritism, Think "If Google+ Were YouTube"

by Danny Sullivan, searchengineland.com
January 12th 2012 2:17 PM

Google’s favoritism of Google+ in its new Search Plus results is just the latest in the line of favoritism it has done with vertical search? It’s not, because Google hasn’t really favored itself with vertical search. It is favoring itself with Google+, and that’s why things are so disturbing.

Vertical Search Is What Search Engines Should Do

Long-time Google-critic and occasional Microsoft consultant Ben Edelman has this out today:

I’ve found more than a dozen Google services receiving favored placement in Google search results. Consider Google Blog Search, Google Book Search, Google Checkout, Google Health, Google Images, Google Maps, Google News, Google Realtime, Google Shopping, and Google Video. Some have developed into solid products with loyal users. Others are far weaker. But each enjoys a level of favored placement in Google search results that other services can only dream of.

That complaint about vertical search favoritism is the type of thing I previous said I found laughable from Google critics (though that doesn’t mean everything Edelman says is laughable, nor should be dismissed just because of his Microsoft connections).

Providing vertical search results that lead OUT of your web site is exactly what search engines should do. That’s why Bing does it, as well.

To understand more, read these past posts from me:

Especially read the last two, if you really care about understanding this important issue.

Google+ Is Not Vertical Search

Google+ is a completely different creature. Google+ is a Google destination, a place people go not to search and exit Google but to hang around.

Yes, plenty may leave through shared links. But Google+ is not a search engine, nor was it designed to be a way to search through all the web’s socially shared content.

Google did have something like this. It was Google Realtime Search, which Google decided it had to close when it failed to renew an agreement with Twitter for however that failed to happened. See these articles for more about that:

Google+ Is First Non-Search Engine With “Results” In Google

Since Google+ it’s not a search engine, having Google+ suggestions positioned on the Google search results pages is simply unprecedented in my time covering the company — and I’ve covered it from the start.

I cannot recall any other product where Google has done this. The search results page has always been for showing search results that come from a diverse list of sources, with the exception of maybe Google Books, where it’s hard to find similar book search engines that should be included

To really understand the big change that has happened here, how it is far different from what critics have mistakenly considered some type of unfair favoritism in the past, consider this.

Google Video Vs. YouTube

When Google launched Google Universal Search in 2008, it took great care to stress that video content blended into its results came from Google Video, not from YouTube. That’s because YouTube doesn’t have video from across the entire web. Google Video was a more inclusive service.

Now imagine if this week, Google had announced that YouTube results would replace the Google Video results displayed when you do a search. Suddenly, video content from across the web would have no visibility.

Google+ Results = YouTube, Not Google Video

That’s what Google did with the Google+ results that now get shown. It effectively launched a “who to follow” search engine, a way to show people and companies with social accounts that searchers might be interested in. But it based that solely around Google+, when it has the data to include social accounts from Twitter and Facebook, as well.

You can easily see this. Do a search that triggers the Google+ suggestions to come up, such as “music.” Click on the “see more” link at the bottom of those results. You’ll be taken into results from Google+ itself, like this.

Google+ equals YouTube, not Google Video, not a way to search beyond Google’s own hosted content.

Yes, it can seem like YouTube is favored by Google (especially more and more) in Google’s search results, but much of that is down to YouTube simply having so much content. It drowns out other things, sometimes rightfully so.

So Build A Real “Who To Follow” Search Engine

Google+ is a different issue. It’s not drowning out the others, because the others aren’t even being allowed to swim in the pool.

I’d love to see is Google retool the social suggestions that come up, so they aren’t simply Google+ “People & Pages” results injected into Google but more inclusive of other social sites, as well. Because that type of inclusive search product is what Google does well, and what we expect for the company to provide.

Original Page: http://searchengineland.com/to-understand-google-favoritism-think-youtube-107857

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