Google has been an epitome of web search as well as a synonym used by many for searching on internet. Has Google changed its motive from “Don’t be Evil” to ‘Be EVIL’ off late? Well, that is precisely how it is looking in my view. Let me explain in detail why I feel so. A friend of mine recently asked me the meaning for a slag word ‘kewl’. Though I knew that ‘kewl’ is used by many in place of ‘cool’, wanted to know if there is any different meaning. So, there I started to ‘Google’ for that special meaning if any for that word ‘kewl’. I remembered a site which had a good representation of such slangs with all possible manipulations – UrbanDictionary. Since I wasn’t very sure of the site address, I searched for ‘urban dictionary’ on google first and this is what I got.
It was good to see an option to search directly on urbandictionary.com through a new search enhancement by Google, refer to the image above. Upon keying in search query and hitting the ‘Search urbandictionary.com’ button, I was expecting the results to open up directly on urbandictionary site. But to my surprise, the result was shown inline as below:
Out of curiosity to know what is happening on its rival search ‘Bing’ by MicroSoft and their search engine too had a similar feature to do urbandictionary.com search inline on Bing page. From my initial review on Bing, it has come a long way to be a potential candidate to take on the mighty Google. Good to see all these small changes making up to provide a good user experience. Even the Related search suggestions to the left of the screen were pretty impressive! This is how Bing looked like:
In contrast to Google, upon keying in the search query for external site and hitting the search button on Bing, the results were displayed on urbandictionary.com site rather than showing the results on its own page. It might be a good customer experience from Google’s perspective to show the search results for external sites on Google itself, but the sites feeding content to Google will take a hit on their traffic. Isn’t that an EVIL act by Google?
Rocky says
they’re ALL evil… if making money is evil. People seem to forget that it’s all business. They begin to feel attachment for brands.
Heck what am I saying? I’m gaga over Apple and Google myself! ;o)
shenoyjoseph says
google gives exact specified address
Sourav says
Is this what Yahoo! think you to think on? 😛
Jokes apart… there is a great point…
Yes! I too believe that a for-profit monopoly is always bound to be evil…
No matter if it is Google or Cargill or Microsoft or Apple… it is evil… today tomorrow or a day after…
Aathira says
I agree.. the smaller sites which survive on traffic and ad revenue will surely take a hit in the long run, when something like this enhanced.
Mohan says
That is the whole point!! Thanks!
Nagarjun says
May be google is evil. They seem to be increasing the digital divide.
Mohan says
this is bound to happen when someone monopolizes the market and go to any extent to flex its muscles 😉
PNA says
Maybe since Google is our lifeline for so many years, we just take it for granted that they have done this bit of usurpation. when it happens too close home, it starts hurting and the protests start. it is partly evil, may be..because it is their company’s policy not to be, but when u are a giant in ur jungle, a little dent of rules never matter I suppose. Bing has a long way to go, but google is innovating at a pace, it cannot catch….still Google should play by the rules and be the clean page they put up every time we type their name.
Nice observation between
Mohan says
Right! Innovation is good, but that shouldn’t kill the content provider’s traffic 🙂
Misterjester says
Actually I have looked around a bit and have found that Google does the Searching for within the site only if you are using the custom search box for your site.
In which case it makes for a better user experience, for the user rather than getting to a site and searching for information. This as Google would have indexed the said site anyway …
Correct me if I am wrong, Happy visitors = returning visitors = more traffic ?
Mohan says
I do agree with you to certain extent, but displaying results on Google’s page would usually satisfy the users need and may not have to go to the content provides site!
keerthana says
Another day, another new development. As long as we get what we want, its fine:)
Mohan says
hmm… too contented huh?
Kalpesh Ajugia says
I feel ideally the results searched using Urban Dictionary search engine should be displayed on UD rather than Google. Come on Google let the sites get their deserved traffic 🙂
Mohan says
Absolutely, that is the whole point I am suggesting google to follow.
Lakshmi says
I dont think this is a big deal as long as google is copyrighting the information. After all, anyone can have a website that functions better and show that the source of information is from else where, and be perfectly legal in his actions. Bing has a looooong way to go before it can veen hope to usurp google. Google’s page ranking mechanism is much superior to all engines.
If the urban dictionary website found anything wrong with google’s action, rest assured they will sue them. Google is no different form other big companies in their ethics like Microsoft, Intel, etc.
“EVIL” is a very very strong word 🙂
Mohan says
I certainly don’t deny your thoughts, but just a wish that Google gets friendlier with publishers too there by building more credibility which is a win-win situation for both. But going for that extra click on its own site for a content by someone else doesn’t sound good to me. Of course, there might be a mutual consent between those two, as a publisher and blog author I wish the search traffic lands up on my page!
Lakshmi Rajan says
how about tomorrow when someone searches something and google captures the entire article in its own page when they click it :O 😛 and may be Google will add adsense in that particular page and say will share it with content providers 😉
Mohan says
That is ‘Sooper’ isn’t it?
Manjunath says
ha ha ha ha ha! hope google do not see this comment…. else they may think about your suggestion or even implement it! 🙂
Kartikay says
Btw, who owns this “data”? There are two parts:
1. Anything on the internet is free and publicly viewable, unless protected by a login and/or removed from robots.txt
2. Search engines are empowered to “copy” words from the website they scrape, and show it to the user. We assume that they don’t show the full page (but they do: search engines cache full pages)
I’ll give an analogy: fashion designers give their clothes to celebrities for free. Remember the Versace dress that J.Lo wore on some Grammy night? Versace provided that dress free-of-cost to drive more customers back to her business.
But its not ethical for J.Lo to start selling those clothes directly to customers. She needs Versace, and Versace needs her.
I totally agree with you Mohan, Google is doing the wrong thing. #DeathToGoogle!
Mohan says
Bang on!!! I liked that analogy with JLo & Versace 😉
Krishna Chaitanya says
I don’t think Google is selling the content that has been published on other websites. I don’t think they can.
Mohan says
Krishna, I think you got the analogy wrong here.. No where did Kartikay say that google is selling, he was giving an example on how apt is it to retain user on its own site than forwarding the traffic to the content providers site.
Shrinidhi Hande says
From a content owners perspective, you are right… from a user perspective, Google is more friendlier, as I just quickly want to know the meaning- Instead of waiting for another webpage to load and them wait to read the meaning of a word, if i can get it in same screen within seconds, that is good for me..
But then as a website owner, I certainly want google to send some traffic and not just source info from my site and show
Mohan says
Yes, I agree with you. Well, if you actually look in detail, you end up with more number of clicks (to reach to the exact page on urban dictionary) on google with this feature as against Bing’s implementation!
Maverickshree says
Hey got to your blog from Indi..i must say you have a nice blog with lot of variety in it 🙂
As far as google is concerned it has become lifeline for all of us..isn;t it?
Mohan says
Welcome! Look forward to see you often!
Well, it is indeed a lifeline – undeniable fact, but I suggest you try Bing too.. it is shaping up well 🙂
hardik says
Not your fault Mohan! Anyone who is on TOP is always criticized…till now it was MSFT and now it’s Google, obviously. Had Yahoo! been on top, people would have done the same. Trust me!
This (Criticism) is what it takes to be on TOP!!! 🙂
Talking about specifics of what you have illustrated here, it is a trade off between user experience versus business and per my wisdom, latter should always always take a backseat.
Mohan says
That is true with most! Criticism can be used to make the best of the opportunities too provided it is taken in the right way. In this case, Googles user experience comes at the cost of urbandictionaries business! that is where I wish to see them striking the balance 🙂
Prateek says
I think, it’s not a big deal. After all you will have to go to urban dictionary if you want the full explanation 🙂
Mohan says
On the outlook it doesn’t appear to be a big deal, but does matter a lot for the original content publisher. Few might be satisfied with single line answer on google and stay happy. If the sites were to give content to google to index without much traffic to their own, why should they run sites if not many are visiting them?
Praveen says
You work for YAHOO & may obviously have envy towards GOOGLE 🙂
(Just kidding, don’t take it seriously)
Mohan says
Well, you may call whatever you want! But I am sure the smaller sites would like to get traffic, that is where their bread and butter is…
Chandrika Shubham says
Interesting representation of an interesting search. 🙂 Enjoyed reading it.
Mohan says
Thank you 🙂
Manjunath says
I agree with chaitanya!
Mohan says
No harm in having difference in thoughts!
Krishna Chaitanya says
Google is not stealing or diverting the website’s content. In fact, the user’s first choice was Google and from Google he would be directed to the website. Meaning, Google is generating traffic to the website and not vice versa. This is probably Google’s way to be omnipotent. But calling it evil is probably going a bit overboard. The only issue with Google is once we start using it, we are voluntarily giving up our privacy. Here is a satirical 2 mins on Google.
Mohan says
I am fine with google indexing the links and showing excerpts in its search results. But when an external site search feature is implemented like what is shown above, it would be good to show the results on the respective site than captivating the traffic on its own site. Being a big player in the market doesn’t make one to refrain from diverting traffic to the external site. Nothing wrong in taking a cue from Bing and being good to all 🙂
Nice video 🙂