europeforvisitors - 8:46 pm on Aug 2, 2004 (gmt 0)

this policy did indeed serve them well as a private company with a huge advantage in search engine market share and little true competition in the contectual advertising sector.

Why should they spell out their algorithms (and the rationales behind those algorithms) any more clearly after they've gone public? Such proprietary information is Google's "secret sauce," whether it's used to rank search results or to deliver maximum value and peace of mind to advertisers.

I think a bigger problem that Google faces is how to win acceptance in the mainstream advertising marketplace (which dwarfs the current PPC market, as I mentioned in an earlier post). As long as advertisers have no control over where their ads appear and the AdSense network has minimal quality standards, Google will be a disadvantage against competitors like Overture's Content Match (which, admittedly, doesn't offer access to the special-interest sites that are Google's strength) or future niche competitors in high-profit sectors like travel.