IanCP - 10:13 pm on Nov 14, 2009 (gmt 0)

like everyone says, google create nothing. they don't even create the traffic -- it's already there. all they do is channel it. that is pretty much all they do

I most certainly don't know about "everyone", a percentage perhaps. So would we be better off without Google? I most certainly would not.

Since 2000, Google have consistently proven they do it better. I can put in "obscure esoteric phrases" I embed in some of my pages into other SE's, Bing for example and, get zero results. I can put the exact same phrase into Google and Bingo!

Google simply does it much better. People trust Google to deliver the results they want, that's why they're the 600lb Gorilla in the room.

No one can say Google enjoys an unfair monopoly. There is absolutely nothing [excepting resources] stopping anyone from competing with Google.

if they disappeared tonight, who is to say our traffic would suffer? i mean, really, would it even drop at all?

Personally? Probably. Using a few the phrases people coming to my sites I find Bing results in nothing or next to nothing including sites not relevant to the genre.

when stories like this blow up people begin to realise that google is really just a big traffic-channeller -- and they seem to be channelling more and more of it in their own direction

Of course, that's the whole point, traffic-channelling! But, I see absolutely no evidence of Google "channelling more and more of it in their own direction". When did Google enter the content network? When did they become in competition with me or yourself?

and as a result people like murdoch threaten to pull their content -- because they don't feel that they're getting a decent return on their 'investment' of handing over their content everyday

Replaced by what or whom? Bing or anyone else? Whoever else is going to devote vast resources without advertising revenue? No one is handing their content over to Google. If anyone believes that is the Google concept and finds it unacceptable then opt out.

this is a bigger deal for google than murdoch, with potentially worse results. if murdoch can get more people to jump on his float then google will have to come up with some kind of a deal to keep them sweet

In the overall scheme of things Murdoch isn't even a gnat to Google.

In an idealised world, how would you imagine things being run? I believe this thread is more of a Google bashing exercise for some. What model would you replace Google with? Word of mouth?