Bloomberg: Google Continues March Towards 'Walled-Garden' at the Internet's Expense

Throughout the years, search giant Google has made many changes to its Search product. Now, many websites are being forced to pay more to have their content ranked higher in search results, fighting against Google’s own content. As one expert explains, “We’ve passed a milestone in Google’s evolution from search engine to walled-garden. They used to be the good guys.”

In a recent article, Bloomberg reports how Google’s Search product has evolved throughout the years, between adding extra advertising spaces to altering its algorithm, Google Search has seen many changes that are mostly negative for other companies on the web.

In the early 2000s, Google offered a deal to websites, produce high-quality information and Google will send traffic to your website which will allow you to generate income via ads. If that cash is then reinvested, the internet will grow and give Google even more content to explore and organize.

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin wrote when the company went public in 2004: “Our search results are the best we know how to produce. They are unbiased and objective.” They also promised that their ads would be helpful and unobtrusive.

But, in June 2019, it was reported that more than half of searches kept users on Google’s sites for the first time rather than sending them to other sites through web links or an ad, according to the digital marketing firm Jumpshot.

Rand Fishkin, who instructs businesses on how to work with Google’s search engine, commented: “We’ve passed a milestone in Google’s evolution from search engine to walled-garden. They used to be the good guys.”

It was also reported that from June 2016 to June 2019, the proportion of mobile searches that led to users clicking on free web links dropped from 40 percent to only 27 percent. No-click searches, which according to Fishkin means that users found the information they wanted on Google, rose from 56 percent to 62 percent. Clicks on ads, however, more than tripled.

As businesses struggle to survive with Google’s new search rankings, the company’s revenue and profit have surged. Google generated sales of $24 billion and profits of $6.5 billion in 2009. Last year, Google’s parent company Alphabet reported $162 billion in revenue and $34 billion in net income. Search alone generated almost $100 billion in sales.