How much do you cost Google? ... calculations.

[batto]

Hi

Based on few free online sources i calculated how much an average user costs google.

First i'll describe how i was calculating, then i'll write the result.

At beginning I checked how many searches i made.

For this i used Google web history (if you are logged in to google you can see it at [google.com...] ). On the right there is a small calendar and underneath it is a line with sum of person's searches.

Since 06 October 2006 i've made 8728 searches and
according to timeanddate.com it has been 976 days from that date.

This means , on average, i make 8.94 searches per day , 3,098 per year.

One thing to acknowledge is that i'm not always logged and google counts my searches only when i'm logged in so i'll increase the number of searches by arbitrary "times 2" factor.

Next part is google cost.

Here i used googles "Total Operating Expense" from [google.com...] (Annual Data view).
For year 2008 it was $16,258.34 mln (~$16.26bln)

To calculate cost of one search the last variable i'll use is the number of google seraches made worldwide.

Newest data i found was comScore's press release from 2007 [comscore.com...] .
It states that google users made 37,094,000,000 searches in August

Thats ~37bln a month, times 12 , ~444bln searches a year.

So here goes the The formula:
(Google Expense) / (Number of search World wide a year)= Cost of one search
(Cost of one search) * (Average persons searches per year )= Cost of using google by one person per year

And calculations:
($16bln) / (444bln)=$0.036
(3,098 x 2) x $0.036 = 223.05 U.S. dollars

Thats $223, quite big.

Would you pay $223/year to use Google ads free?

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 6:16 pm (utc) on June 8, 2009]
[edit reason] fixed link formatting [/edit]

[tedster]

Thats $223, quite big.

Isn't part of the reason it's so big is you are using the total operating expense for Google, Inc - the whole company. I'm sure that operating expenses for just Google Search would be a smaller slice of the total pie.

and to answer your closing question - I'm probably like most of the searching public. I don't want to pay anything at all for web search.

[Samizdata]

Would you pay $223/year to use Google ads free?

No, because the advertising on Google Search - so far, at least - is not intrusive, excessive, annoying or ugly, and does not detract in any way from the page it is displayed on.

Unlike most of the websites the search results lead to.

...

[LifeinAsia]

Would you pay $223/year to use Google ads free?

No.

Would I pay $0.036/search? Probably not. But like tedster pointed out, the actual price would be a lot lower than that.

Would I pay a certain amount to get results without MFAs and other spammy sites? Possibly...

When I search on Google, I actually click on ads sometimes, if it's something that I'm very interested in (so I'm not so sure I'd want those turned off).

If it turns out to be an MFA site, I'm annoyed and hit the back button. But I have some satisfaction knowing that I cost the MFA site some money without adding anything to their revenue.

[edited by: LifeinAsia at 6:42 pm (utc) on June 8, 2009]

[Awashi]

No, I am happy to pay nothing and have advertising that I and many others ignore, advertising blindness results in me completely bypassing the adwords.

I am sure people would pay to use Google if it came to it though.

[batto]

Google's doing wonderful job with unobtrusive ads.
Looking from perspective of source of cash, it seems to me that google acts similar to country's Social Security. I'm not much of a online buyer and i benefit from those that buy things online, paying to companies that pay google.

[StoutFiles]

advertising blindness results in me completely bypassing the adwords.

Which proves that in the future we will all be paying for internet services.

[Stefan]

Perhaps you could do a similar study on how much money G makes off of us by using our content to generate their revenue stream, with no return for those of us who aren't part of their advertising schemes.

[quote]Google's doing wonderful job with unobtrusive ads.[quote]

I'll take your word for it. I don't see them, since I use Firefox with the appropriate extensions.

[edited by: tedster at 1:58 am (utc) on June 10, 2009]

[LifeinAsia]

If you don't want Google to use your content to "generate their revenue stream," then there is a simple solution: block Google in your robots.txt.

[internetheaven]

advertising blindness results in me completely bypassing the adwords.

Which proves that in the future we will all be paying for internet services.

Don't talk nonsense ... the day Google starts to charge for searches will be the happiest day in Bing and Yahoo's life!

I'll take your word for it. I don't see them, since I use Firefox with the appropriate extensions.

Now that they might do something about ... but I doubt it ... ;)

I think the real question here is why are we discussing this? Because so many decent sites are tanking under the current spam-friendly/geo-bust algorithm are we searching for any way to feel important to Google?

[supafresh]

If you want a more accurate number you have to adjust 2007's search in August with a growth value ( % of new internet users, mobile devices and netbooks ect ect ect) and Adjust the months of October, November, December, And January for their explosive traffic.