Google vs Domainers

[Kenny]

Hello members,

I caught this on another Board and wanted to share this with all of you.

Michael Gilmore, of ParkLogic.com and WhizzbangsBlog.com has started a series of articles related to the recent power play moves affecting the parking industry conducted by G recently.

It's a great read so far, and I expect more valuable information forthcoming as he digs deeper into the mire.

Check it out here:
Part 1

For the past few days I've been trawling my way through global Internet reports, advertising reports and through the last five years of Google annual reports. In fact, I think that I'm nearly reported out.

After reviewing the recent Google quarterly report it can clearly be derived that Google is continuing to adopt a very aggressive strategy of cutting off Internet traffic from competitors. Since the beginning of 2006 Google has been progressively reducing its network traffic margins from a high of 22.1% (Q1 '06) to low of 11.9% (Q1 '08).
More.....

Part 2

This is part 2 in the new series on what are the changes occuring in the domain industry and how Google in particular is controlling the landscape that we all work in. It continues directly on from part 1.

For example, the online games vertical may have a maximum profitable bid price for advertisers of $1 per click. If an advertiser purchases clicks for $1.10 they will eventually go out of business but at $0.90 it's a bargain. There may be slight variations on a day by day basis but they will tend to oscillate around the $1/click price.
More...

Cy

 

[DN BROKER]

Very good post... thanks

rep added

 

[omnia]

Interesting post....tks, repped

 

[jeffoverman]

Thanks in posting and will look at this more when I am around a computer

 

[Peter]

will be interesting to see where he takes this. Not too much revelations so far to be honest.

Obviously Google like any other company in the industry want to maximize the ads they display and squeeze out the opponents. it is business.

 

[Kenny]

Peter,

The opponents are us, the small domainers without legacy type in portfolios.

Ths was my reply on the other board:

From a business perspective it only makes sense for G to try and capture the market that is in fact dependent on search driven traffic for those of us without "legacy" (type in) portfolios, or the working capital to afford the investment required to build one.

With G becoming a registrar and holding all the data needed to manipulate the algo, and thus the income of the small time players, we will have to let a lot of Domains that used to earn off the parking/adsense platform, (and will earn again once in the G portfolio) expire.
As they drive us out of the industry it will be easy to cherry pick exactly which domains will earn as they drop.

The actual numbers within the article lend to motive, but only time will prove out the facts.

Obviously Google like any other company in the industry want to maximize the ads they display and squeeze out the opponents. it is business.

That doesnt make it right... or ethical.

 

[equity78]

Excellent post Kenny nice to see a worthwhile thread that has a lot of substance to it.

 

[onewordonly]

I think G have way too much power, it will only get worse....

 

[cache]

interesting

 

[Mike]

That doesnt make it right... or ethical.

I couldn't agree more. I've been singing that song for a while now, most often i got a smile and a "yeah, whatever - Google rocks" as response. It's good to see that others are finally smelling the rat. Google is an unethical, relentless machinery that is working on monopolistic tendencies.
At no particular time has Google done anything for the domainer, other than making our lives miserable by constantly changing algos, SE requirements, PR, adwords, traffic valuation, preferential pricing models, etc.
Google has decided to declare themselves the internet police, demanding content or increasing someone's adwords prices as a sign of dissatisfaction, if one dares not to comply. I am truly surprised that the general industry hasn't taken any action against Goog yet. However, i am hoping that it's only a question of time before someone develops a competitive platform (and doesn't sell out) or Google hopefully crumbles in the process of achieving their heroic internet regency.

M.

 

[leegor]

I'd like to see in the future something open source related kick Google in the groin. The Linux of search engines can't be too far away.

 

[firefly]

Unfortunately Mike, I can't see anyone rivaling Google. They are unethical and allow corruption of their system by Governments and extremest groups all the time. While they continue to allow this sort of censorship on a case by case basis they will remain king. Too many players (governments & groups) have had google do their bidding when it comes to censorship and would have too much to lose if a true rival were to emerge and allow *true* freedom of speech. Such a platform would simply bought out or crushed in some underhanded way.

The constant movement of the goalposts when it comes to SE's, PR, and algorithm content and what not is is just the way google attempts to appear legitimate to those honest and legit companies online that are somewhat oblivious to the underhanded and insidious ways google actually handles it's dealings. Domainers, like you and I, simply have to bend over and spread our cheeks and let google do what it wants. Now that really sucks

I'm afraid that we are stuck with google and there way of dealing with things for quite some time. :imho:

Here's another article to highlight why google won't be challenged for quite a while.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article3634123.ece

Sad but true.

Anyway...that's my take on things

 

[Domagon]

On the flipside, such aggressive strategies will further encourage businesses to buy generic domain names to more easily promote themselves / products via other mediums, such as print, radio, tv (youtube), word of mouth, etc.

Many domainers parking generic marginal traffic domains are leaving money on the table - the easy big money for such domains is in end-user sales.

I'm currently in the process of moving most of my domains off parking to dedicated sales pages containing custom sales pitches, which in my past experience with a small sub-set of domains, has been very effective.

Ron

 

[accent]

will be interesting to see where he takes this. Not too much revelations so far to be honest.

Agree. I am getting annoyed at writers who spin out their story into endless segments like an old time serial movie, just so we have more ads to look at. Why not have one word per page - that would max revenue.

Google and Microsoft are giant and soul-less. They probably will dominate what they do for quite a while. But what they do will become less important, in time. Other companys will emerge, and they will eventually suck, too.

 

[rcep]

interesting

reputation added

 

[Peter]

That doesnt make it right... or ethical.

Very true but it is no less ethical than any other major companies practices.

Google have lived on a free ride for years regarding image. People have seen them as whiter than white reardless of what they do. That perception is now fading at a faster rate (especially with things like storing people's medical details etc).

I used to see ridiculous claims on Google such as they are completely open source etc. No they use other people's open source technology and keep their own source and algorithms private. Ther only details they give out are ones they have to for reasons of copyright registration etc. They do pour a lot of money into open source but as a % of their total income it is negligable. Other companies such as Microsoft put a lot of money into such things as well yet people don't notice that.

Parking used to be (and to some extent still is) the stable income for many domainers. Look at it from the advertisers perspective tho. What would you prefer as an advertiser (and hence pay more for) adverts on generic pages that have no real or beneficial content so the ads are not going to be that targetted. Or of course sites that have good content and the ads are more targetted.

All good and well some parked domains will have a good ctr but that does not benefit the advertiser unless it transforms into profit. The best way for it to be trnasformed into profit if from having the ads on targetted sites where people are looking for your type of product or service.

It is just a shame Google have contradicted themselves. On 1 side they are trying to squeeze out parking pages on the other hand they have the high traffic scheme aimed at sites that park.

I'd like to see in the future something open source related kick Google in the groin. The Linux of search engines can't be too far away.

The people who made wikipedia are trying that at the moment. To be honest I have not visited the site in some time but when it stated it was failling misererably.

http://re.search.wikia.com/

Do a search on George bush for example. The actual results seem to be fixed now (the top result used to be an anti bush site that had ridiculous claims), however only 3 pictures have been found and only 1 of them is actually George Bush.