But I guess that's just capitalism.
samwest, I'd actually argue the opposite. Free market capitalism has worked so well for so long and been adopted by so many societies because it is efficient and democratic. Every decision or purchase that we make as individuals counts as a vote and the providers of those products or information naturally rise to the top. Providers of the best products/information succeed and we, as consumers, get the best products/information. Fair competition ensures that quality stays high and costs stay reasonable. However, with Google acting as a middleman in the quest to find products and information on-line for 90%+ of people in many countries we - the individuals - have lost the ability to make our own choices, and the ability to compete depends on how Google rates a site. Markets can't operate freely if someone controls them and fair competition is eradicated.
We can only describe as best we can what it is we desire through a search engine and Google (most of the time because of its dominant position in the search engine market) presents us with its choices. Google's choices, not ours. These choices are limited and what is shown is completely at the discretion of Google for whatever motives the company has. By taking away the ability to choose for ourselves Google, effectively, has destroyed free market capitalism. Yes, with so many sites out there we need some way of searching and search engines are essential, but there has to be a better way other than giving so much power to one company. In some countries Google has almost absolute power and something that Orwell wrote comes to mind.
And yes, if you were wondering, this is personal. On 28th September an algorithm change (Penguin, I guess) sent many of my previously high ranking longtail keywords to the Google 'low quality' trash can. Instead of page 1 near the top, they now sit way down where no one ever looks. Bing and Yahoo still rate them highly, but Google dominates as we all know. For several years G has been gradually strangling my site by reducing page views. Adsense became a joke, but I enjoyed some success with affiliates for a while after dumping Adsense. However, it's all a numbers game and with such a big loss of traffic my affiliate earnings have all but dried up. It's site wide and I haven't a clue what I have done that is so bad. On one site 12 years of hard work and local knowledge has been replaced with big brand sites on which contributors clearly have only very limited knowledge of the subject.
My site will probably end up being another casualty once this year's hosting charges run out.
