keeps a very nice weblog that covers an interesting mix of tech and personal stuff (house buying and such). Last night though, he tried, in vain, to defend paid inclusion (aka Yahoo’s ‘Content Acquisition Program, or CAP) in the face of criticism from Dan Gillmor. Gillmor noted a couple of stories (from the WSJ and the Times) that have reported that the new Yahoo search privileges firms that pay for inclusion. Not ranking, to be fair, but inclusion and hence, in a way, coverage by the new, much-lauded search engine.
Too bad Jeremy misses the point entirely. He writes, “Anyway, as a user, do I really care if the company paid or not? If it was ‘paid rank’ I might, but it’s not.” Then, at the end, “Welcome to capitalism.”
This totally misses the objection though. People aren’t suggesting that Yahoo is evil for taking money – rather, they’re suggesting that doing so likely weakens Yahoo as a competitor for Google and thus makes the whole endeavour less important and ultimately less significant. There seems to be a sense of disappointment, in the sense that people really wanted a legitimate competitor to Google and they feel they might not be getting that.
What’s more – the critics are right. Google set the bar very high in terms of credibility. There is a sense, rightly or wrongly, that the results Google returns are the correct results. Google’s results are canonical. Anyone who wishes to compete with Google must therefore not just return decent results to a particular search, but must do so in a way that isn’t perceived as being even a little bit influenced by the almighty dollar. Now, with paid inclusion, no one will ever know if that’s the case or not, and Google proved that to be the downfall of any search service.
Jeremy Zawodny says
No, Google’s results are screwed up–not canonical.
Run a search for “pam blackman” on both search engines. She was my realtor. Which gives better results?
Jon says
Though screwed up they might be, many users *do* perceive Google results as canonical, like it or not.
Michael says
Yes – that’s the point and I meant to make that distinction more clearly than I did. Google is not canonical – there is no such thing, really – but they are perceived as such. And perceptions, Google showed, are critical.
It’s not about the results but a combination of the results AND how people feel the results were attained that is important. It doesn’t seem that Yahoo gets that.
But maybe Yahoo isn’t trying to build the most trusted search engine and take over the primary spot from Google at all. Perhaps that’s not the goal, in which case the whole question becomes relatively less interesting. Maybe Yahoo is just trying to do the minimum it has to do in order to avoid paying a third party for the service.
Zeke says
Howdy!
My favorite example of how Google gets it right, and others don’t quite get it at all (apologies for not slagging Yahoo) is this search that someone did at Sympatico: http://search.sli.sympatico.ca/partner/sli/asp/results.asp?lang=fr&mode=Popular&go=true&query=pointe-aux-trembles+rifle+range&su
Somehow, my blog is the number one place to shoot in the east end of town!
Michael says
Damn that’s funny Chris. Geez.
No need to slag Yahoo! I love their services overall and use My Yahoo every day several times.
Zeke says
Howdy!
My aside was more along the lines of jumping on the pile. And according to this article:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/03/02/yahoo.search.reut/index.html
Yahoo is going to make it possible to search “the audio files of National Public Radio, the U.S. Library of Congress, the New York Public Library and Supreme Court audio recordings available through a Northwestern University project…” If it works, I don’t know how they’re going to make the Supreme Court pay for rank, but it could be very cool.