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On the 2nd May - when the 'something weird is happening on www-sj.google.com thread' started [webmasterworld.com...] - which led to the 'Update Domenic' threads - we all had no idea that Google was about to (we now speculate) move to new algorithms, new filters, new pagerank and a 'rolling update' process.
I suppose I've been trying to understand the timing - and the best analogy for Google at this point in its evolution is it has become just like Intel.
Intel's success in the PC Micro processor marketplace was underpinned by the observation of one of its founders, Gordon Moore. 'Moores law' identified that the number of transistors that you could fit onto the same space on an Integrated Circuit doubled every 12 - 18 months. Moores Law has been true since the mid 1960s - and still holds true today. Exponential growth. The realisation of Moores Law effectively made Intel adopt the business proposition - if you don't become your own 'worst nightmare' competitor - someone else will.
Once Intel realised that every 18 months - you could build a whole new generation of processor - at lower cost, on a smaller piece of Silicon - thats what they HAD to do - and it became a self fulfilling prophecy. Why? If they didn't - someone else would. There was no room to be complacent, and 'milk' the technology marketplace, and slow the rate of introduction - or someone else would launch a faster, better, cheaper processor. And they tried - with technologies eg. RISC, from numerous competitors.
So Intel became their own 'worst nightmare competitor'. As soon as they made cost savings - they reduced prices. As soon as a new breakthrough manufacturing process became available - they jumped on it. They moved up to the next highest ground - and left the 'old' technology for the 'compatibles' companies. When traditional supporting chipset manufacturers couldn't deliver chipsets to support new generations of Intel processor fast enough - Intel started making support chipsets itself. Pretty soon - Intel was making the whole motherboard - and was driving the rate of change. In short - they made the whole industry so fast paced & cuthroat - no one else could easily, or profitably, compete. There is Intel - and there is 'everyone else'.
In the Search industry - in the past 6 months - we've had the 'contenders' line up. Yahoo bought Inktomi. Overture bought AltaVista and FAST/Alltheweb. Google bought Pyra (Blogger), introduced 'content targeting' for Adwords; & bought Applied Semantics. And only a week ago, Ask Jeeves sold Jeeves Solutions, and announced plans for a $100M Convertible Notes issue - bolstering its battle chest.
The Intel strategy was based on the premise that if you don't take advantage of the technological advancements you know will happen - your competitors will. Thats what makes the technology industry different to most other industries. Todays Hard disk drive cost less - and holds more - than the one you bought 2 years ago. A competitor who replicates Googles distributed PC architecture today will do so at a substantial discount to Googles cost for the same platform. But the car you buy today doesn't cost half as much as the same one you bought 5 years ago, and yet have 2 times more power, speed or fuel efficency. Yet the PC you buy today is far cheaper - and much faster, with more storage and....
We were all 'happy' with Google - but Google can't wait for its competitors to move forward - for fear of leapfrogging. Several people have already commented that Alltheweb can do some neat stuff - and it accurately counts backlinks, it now gives whois information to the unwashed masses etc. And all the PFI's by definition, are doing 'rolling updates'.
Google has done a lot of things - and introduced a lot of features in a short space of time - but it had to accelerate the rate of change - and really become its own worst nightmare competitor. Because if it didn't - it would risk someone else (probably the new Overture/Fast Alltheweb/ AltaVista entity - lets call them 'All-Over-FAST') becoming Googles worst nightmare.
Google worked out what AltaVista didn't understand a few years back. If Google wanted to stay number 1 - it had to grab the goal posts, and run away and move them as soon as technology allowed it to. And it had to do it before 'alloverFAST' gets its collective act together. Otherwise, alloverfast might become Google's worst nightmare competitor in a month and leapfrog them. And if its not alloverfast - what have Yah-tomi been plotting?.
Who really thinks Google wanted to do these 'Domenic' changes live and in full view? I think it didn't want to - it had to. It couldn't justify the cost in time to market to do this behind closed doors - and wait for months. It had to do it - it had to work in the datacentres live - and Google had to do it now. In the last month, Google has exhibited all the desperation usually associated with being pushed and wrongfooted by a competitor - and is acting like a company rushing to catch up. Google has been smart enough to bring this on itself - Google has become its own worst nightmare competitor - before itsallover has got its act together....
Google was already clearly ahead - the current 'roadworks' are Googles way of moving further ahead - before it got pushed/ leapfrogged & was forced to play catch up. These roadworks will move the goalposts. And 99% of Googles users don't even know that there are currently roadworks..... As we all know - in the serps - who better to be the competitor breathing down your neck - than yourself?
Alternatively - I may be wrong - Google may have just messed up - as many have suggested. But I don't think so. I think Google will still be holding the crown when the dust from these roadworks settle. And just think - we've all had the chance to share some of Googles worst nightmares....
Chris_D
Sydney Australia.
OK iid shut up at this point, as a whole thread devoted to GG may not be very useful.
On the contrary it may be very useful. It is unlikely that GoogleGuy will remain the only 'communications channel' (and I use this term in its loosest possible sense) for ever and ever. There are those that hope the 'channel' will evolve into something more sensible and less theatrical. The more of us who question the status quo the quicker that will happen.
As for
His role/job includes giving advice, but it isnt official, which is the only thing i was arguing
If he is "official" or not is a debate for those interested only in semantic obfuscation.
He works for Google and makes public pronouncements with the obvious sanction of his senior colleagues.
Let's face it if it looks like a banana, smells like a banana and tastes like a banana then it probably is a banana. Although maybe to some, not officially.
We may see more use of the term 'AllOverFast' in the future, perhaps even by AlltheWeb/Overture/Fast entity itself.
Kareem
I thought my analogy was appropriate too - and I do like AllOverFAST as a brand.... Do you know something we don't?
Mind you - I also like LooksNutZ - but so far, the Looksmart/Wisenut/Zeal merged entity have ignored my suggestions...
: )
There is synergy in the Intel/Google comparision at many levels - after all - they even grew up in the same neigbourhood - Intel's first premises were in Middlefield Rd, Mountain View.
But deanril - I didn't quite understand your post #53? - maybe your view of the history of the semiconductor/microprocessor industry is just different to mine?. AMD and Intel have both been around for over 30 years - founded around the same time by ex colleagues - and I understood that AMDs core products (major products) were memory until the late 1980's - not processors.
My understanding was that back in 1968 - a couple of the founders of Fairchild Semiconductor left and founded Intel. Both were PHD's - one was a VP, and the other was the Head of R&D.
Another ex Fairchild guy - the Marketing Director - also left Fairchild & in 1969 he founded AMD.
In 1971 the Intel guys invented the microprocessor - and sold their 4004 microprocessors for about $40 piece.
In 1974, when Intel launched the 8088 microprocessor - Intel sales revenues was $134 Million - AMDs was $26.5 Million ie 20%
Until the mid 1980's - I would have thought that Intel's largest external competitor was actually Motorola - but internally - the 80186 and 80286 16 bit processors were both developed by competing Intel R&D teams at the same time. Thats what being your own 'worst nightmare competitor' is all about.
Last year - Intel's revenues were $26.7 Billion - AMD's revenues were $2.7 Billion. ie 10%
As I said in my original post - "There is Intel - and there is 'everyone else'". Bit like search has been this past year or 2.
You don't just 'do' die shrinks deanril. It was the 1965 revelation of 'Moores law' that showed this would be possible - and Intel knew if they didn't commit to agressive product lifecycles - and deliver - and doing the research to clear the obstacles to making more transistors fit - someone else would.
And that was the message of my post. If Google didn't move to a new 'generation' of search technology - it would be stuck with 'old' search technology as soon as someone else had newer technology. Go to alltheweb and type a URL into their search box. Go and click on their advanced search link. That is 'new' search technology.
And - potentially along with rolling updates; better spam filters; translations; natural language etc - thats what we are 'postulating' that Google is doing now - before the merged AllOverFAST gets its act together. And it has to do it now - because alloverfast must be getting really close in terms of integration.... and as Critter & BigDave said - there are underlying changes required to the Google data model to implement these new improvements.
And potentially there are changes being made to the GFS - the Google fault tolerant File system - to cope with the rollling updates we are speculating will appear.
Disclaimer - before anyone accuses me (I mean - GG suggested I wanted to be a politician!) no - I didn't/ haven't/ have no aspirations of/ working for either Intel or AMD.
: )
Chris_D
Sydney Australia
Google's changing thier entire approach to providing search results from webmaster's point of views.
Or is it? Just how much can they change in regards to search results in terms of ROI?
Google is private. There may be "reports" of what thier revenue is, but they are just reports.
Is it possible to tweak the results to the point that all those who need AdWords will have to buy them?
All Page 1 results infomational sites only- eventually?
Why has Yahoo initiated an ad campaign during this update? Or did Google know yahoo was going to initiate an ad campaign for their 'better, faster search' and put this out to screw 'em?
Does it screw 'em?
Does anyone really know what the hell the other is doing?
How many normal people know Yahoo uses Google results?
Google is screwing a lot of people over during this back date.
New sites/updates sites- they must want to be seen- let's see just how many will go to AdWords and for how long...
Gee...AdWords increased 400% this month? Hmm...let's hold off on the update another month.
:)
Will it all pan out for "us" in another month or two?
Will yahoo switch all their SERP's over to a modified Inktomi database before Google is fixed?
If a news reporter went out and stopped people walking around the streets and asked them "What search engine do you use and do you like it?"
How many would start to complain like we see here? Unfortunately, I think few would complain about Internet Search results.
Until things pan out and we can analyze what the deal is- we just build. Or post here and speculate 'cos this is the only place we know others hang out and understand our frustrations.
AW
Such a major change in their processes could lead to major unforeseen problems. Let's say the risk is just 1 in 20 that this change is a step backwards for Google. Perhaps the change takes months longer to implement than planned or the resulting SERPs are disappointing.
Significant competitors are waiting in the wings to capture some of Google's marketshare.
Right now, it seems that the only chance for competitors to gain ground is for Google to make a misstep.
I don't believe Google will flub this change but it is always a possibility that should be considered.
Is it possible to tweak the results to the point that all those who need AdWords will have to buy them?
Sure, but it's unlikely. I can't see Google moving an airline, a hotel chain, a cruise line, or a mail-order vendor to position #100 just to make the company buy AdWords. Users would abandon Google in droves if they searched on "airlines," "cruise lines," "Marriott," etc. and didn't find useful results.
All Page 1 results infomational sites only- eventually?
It's important to remember that Google indexes pages, not sites.
Google might well tweak its algorithm to give informational pages more prominence than e-commerce pages. That would help to insure that a search on "Hotel Widget Plaza" would give the #1 ranking to the Hotel Widget Plaza's home page (or one of its other informational pages) rather than to a boilerplate affiliate page at a third-party reservations site.
That wouldn't be the same as giving more weight to informational sites, however. It would be foolish for Google to do the latter, since a user searching on "Microsoft Windows" or "Coca-Cola" would expect to see search results from microsoft.com or coca-cola.com at the top of the SERP rather than search results from editorial, .edu, and .gov sites.
But deanril - I didn't quite understand your post #53? - maybe your view of the history of the semiconductor/microprocessor industry is just different to mine?. AMD and Intel have both been around for over 30 years - founded around the same time by ex colleagues - and I understood that AMDs core products (major products) were memory until the late 1980's - not processors.My understanding was that back in 1968 - a couple of the founders of Fairchild Semiconductor left and founded Intel. Both were PHD's - one was a VP, and the other was the Head of R&D.
Another ex Fairchild guy - the Marketing Director - also left Fairchild & in 1969 he founded AMD.
In 1971 the Intel guys invented the microprocessor - and sold their 4004 microprocessors for about $40 piece.
In 1974, when Intel launched the 8088 microprocessor - Intel sales revenues was $134 Million - AMDs was $26.5 Million ie 20%
Until the mid 1980's - I would have thought that Intel's largest external competitor was actually Motorola - but internally - the 80186 and 80286 16 bit processors were both developed by competing Intel R&D teams at the same time. Thats what being your own 'worst nightmare competitor' is all about.
Last year - Intel's revenues were $26.7 Billion - AMD's revenues were $2.7 Billion. ie 10%
As I said in my original post - "There is Intel - and there is 'everyone else'". Bit like search has been this past year or 2.
You don't just 'do' die shrinks deanril. It was the 1965 revelation of 'Moores law' that showed this would be possible - and Intel knew if they didn't commit to agressive product lifecycles - and deliver - and doing the research to clear the obstacles to making more transistors fit - someone else would.
And that was the message of my post. If Google didn't move to a new 'generation' of search technology - it would be stuck with 'old' search technology as soon as someone else had newer technology. Go to alltheweb and type a URL into their search box. Go and click on their advanced search link. That is 'new' search technology.
And - potentially along with rolling updates; better spam filters; translations; natural language etc - thats what we are 'postulating' that Google is doing now - before the merged AllOverFAST gets its act together. And it has to do it now - because alloverfast must be getting really close in terms of integration.... and as Critter & BigDave said - there are underlying changes required to the Google data model to implement these new improvements.
And potentially there are changes being made to the GFS - the Google fault tolerant File system - to cope with the rollling updates we are speculating will appear.
Disclaimer - before anyone accuses me (I mean - GG suggested I wanted to be a politician!) no - I didn't/ haven't/ have no aspirations of/ working for either Intel or AMD.
: )
I explained your analogy was all wrong, I disagree with you.
Intel is not its own worst enemy. Its called competition. Intel does not own the CPU market. Intel has had plenty of blunders just like the current google situation. Intels size or moores law has nothing to do with Competition.
2 years ago AMD was beating Intel thats called competition, 5 years ago cpus were $1500 until AMD came up with a cheaper comparable product. Thats called Competition.
If Intel had their way they would still charge $1500 a cpu, die shrink or not, their in it to make every dime. Without the Competition AMD <>Intel Your computer would cost you atleast Twice the amount if not four times the amount you paid.
Currently AMD is suffering a bit waiting on ClawHammer 64 bit gamble, it may pay off, and Intel will again be beat. It may fail, at this point its anybodies horse race.
Intel has tried Un-successfully to play with the big boys in the high end Server arena, They dont call the Itanium, Itanic for nothing. Hence the current offering Itanic II. Amd is trying to break into the Server arena with its sledghammer 64/32 backwards compatable, and thus far are doing a better job the ItanicI and II put together.
Intel size doesnt matter, competition matters.
Google's size does not matter, competition matters, All the Web is BETTER then Google. Yahoo will be BETTER then Google.
Google will own 55% at best very soon. Maybe 35%- 40% if Netscape and Aol jump ship(likely).
How this has to do with themselves being their own worst nightmare? It doesnt its called competition.
I believe it's not the technology that drives competition (as some have said the best technology does not always succeed.) Rather it's the perception of clients as to whether there is clear competitive advantage. In general, the search engine clients are not here in forums such as this. I believe Google is making very necessary changes for those ultimate search engine clients.
The key challenge for Google links to the Relevancy concept. How do you maintain Relevancy when you are trying to expand your database from 3 billion web pages to 10 billion web pages. The typical search engine user does not want to find that, in the SERP list of ten web pages for a keyword phrase, a number of them are all pointing to parts of the same website.
A machine-based approach is necessary since you can never have enough humans applying judgements. This is not just avoiding spamming website owners. It links with the whole clustering notion. Sites such as Teoma and ATW are trying this through listings and others try to show the Mind Maps that show the interlinkages. I don't find that any of them have got it right in the way that a typical search engine client would find it user-friendly.
That's the challenge. It's certainly exciting times for us all.
Barry Welford
[edited by: Marcia at 8:48 am (utc) on June 10, 2003]
[edit reason] No links to our own sites, please. [/edit]
I explained your analogy was all wrong, I disagree with you.
Where? I saw NO explaination, just vague statements and hyperbole. I believe the analogy was SPOT ON and DEFINITELY NOT "...all wrong".
The "own worst enemy" analogy is just that: AN ANALOGY. To Quote from dictionary.com, an analogy is
a. Similarity in some respects between things that are otherwise dissimilar.
b. A comparison based on such similarity
Therefore, I fail to see how the analogy is "wrong". You may disagree on the grounds of semantics and specifics, but an analogy is NOT an argument, it is a way of illustrating a point for others. If this analogy confuses you, or all you see are differences and nothing worth considering, that is your issue. For many others, the similarities, and indeed the comparison, are excellent and worth pondering.
Aol, Netscape, and Yahoo, are all extremely pissed right about now.
All the Web is BETTER then Google. Yahoo will be BETTER then Google.
You comments above score ZERO on all three. Perhaps you should stop trying to be "right" and starting listening and considering.
Great Post Chris_D.
But reading your further posts and deanrils posts I think I should point out, that (at least IMHO) you two are not that much different with your stories.
I think you both agree (please correct me if I am wrong), that Intel was huge, No.1 in their business-sector, and they wanted to stay No.1, of course to make money.
Of course outside competition plays a major role with this objective. But, deanril, I think what Cris is saying is, that (back then) Intel could have had longer product cycles with their chips. We all know that the longer a product cycle is, the more money you sare making (less development cost, less one-time-costs in the production for upgrades, etc. etc.). However even t a point where Intel had a huge market share (and AMD was no real competition), Intel decided to shorten development cycles, and bring out new chips knowing that they would be hurting their own sales on the older chips. And they were doing this, because they knew that scientifically the 'time was ripe' war those advances. Meaning if they would not make those advances, then others would. So even if they were hurting themselves in the short run, strategically and this in the long run that was more profitable.
And I do think the Analogy works (for me). Wether goolge's competition only has their newer stronger search-technology only in their own labs (still developing) or are working on setting it live or wether they don't even know about it (certainly unlikely) does not matter. What matters is that the time is ripe, things can be done which are not being done yet. And so google is trying to innovate even if this innovation may hurt themselves in the short run.
To identify your "worst nightmare" competitor you must identify what (you believe) the market is going to demand and be the ones to meet that demand first. In the case of micro-processors, as Chris_D has pointed out, Intel correctly believed that "cheaper, faster" was what the market would demand and developed the technology just as soon as it became theoretically possible to realise "cheaper, faster". And so the battle took place, the result being we now have very cheap, very fast computers.
When trying to identify what the the market will demand it is worthwhile to find areas that are inefficient, where value is not being properly realised, anomalies that need to be rectified.
When I look at the current market for search results I am struck by a rather strange arrangement:
AOL PAYs (via its advertising space) Google for search results (content) to deliver to their users; this same content is available FREELY to the same users from the supplier (Google)! Intel never gave its chips away to the end user.
While AOL might hope that providing search results to their users makes AOL a 'sticky' portal the statistics suggest otherwise. My referer logs show thousands of entries for Google, only a small percentage from AOL, even though AOL has MILLIONS of subscribers.
If I were the CEO of AOL (or other portals that are paying for Google SERPS), I would not be impressed with this statistic. I appear to be wasting money and the market definitely doesn't like to do that! I am sure this point cannot have escaped the CEOs of many portals.
So, here, perhaps is the battle ground; but what about the weaponry. Intel's was the technology to realise faster/cheaper, but that doesn't seem to fit in this case. If I were the CEO of AOL, I would be all ears to the SERPs supplier that came along and said "Here you are, some truly sticky product that will guarantee your users stay on your portal, use your services, buy your products, click through your ads and renew their subscriptions (with you)". Suddenly, I have a portal with a business model that has a good chance of earning significant revenue.
Reading through many of the posts the theme that comes through is that "higher relevance", "better quality", "more important" websites are listed at the top. The trouble is these are very subjective terms; it is difficult to demonstrate that any given set of SERPs is equally relevant to all users at all times. In fact such a set of SERPs is highly improbable. So the (abstract) nightmare competitor can't really compete by saying "we have higher quality, more relevant results"; not only can this not be easily demonstrated, it doesn't solve the problem that those same results are available FREELY on the competitors own website anyway.
So, what SERP product can the nightmare competitor offer AOL that would truly scare Google. The main attributes are it has to be (or can be made to be) unique and it has to give the most relevant results for any particular user.
I would see such a product as a wholesale search index that can be queried in many different ways. The queries would set filters including contexts (derived from variables incuding user specific ones), themes, preferences and so on. The results displayed would obey these filers "on the fly". The filters would also be able to "learn" user searching habits.
If the setting of these queries were to be implemented using an API, it would provide the ability for portals (or other service providers) to create unique search tools, some biased towards commerce, others biased towards academic research, some towards business etc. To use your search products your users stay on your portal. To carry on using the filters which learn individual searching habits, users would retain their subscription with your portal service. Other opportunities exist for application writers to create desktop searching clients, which are licensed to use the SERP providers index.
If I were Google and I knew that my competitor had developed their index into such a product I would be concerned.
What evidence might there be to suggest Google is in the throes of developing its index in this way. Well, the data centre results are fluctuating significantly, they still are not synchronised; perhaps Google is testing its API (or the infrastructure to implement it) it on different data centres using different options availble. I also note a couple of mysterious comments that GG has made:
He pointed out (way back now) that SJ/FI were "cut from the same cloth" - does he mean the same basic data is served in different ways (a different pattern to cut the cloth)
He also pointed out (on the thread considering why Google is not top for the query "search engines") that AthlonInside "was closer than he might think" when AthlonInside had pointed out the straight forward logic of why does a searcher need to find Google in such a search - the searcher is already on Google. Obviouse logic, but what was GG trying to point out - perhaps Google is picking up context from the environment?
Furthermore, the logic of my argument leads to the conclusion that the provider of the "wholesale" search index ends up with a not very busy website - users stay on their own portal as they like using that set of search tools. So, Adwords appearing on Google's site wouldn't make very much revenue. New channels for delivering Adwords would need to be found - Google are certainly doing this with some vigour.
That's it. My contribution to the Dominic speculation. Far fetched - perhaps; but not as far fetched as the idea that Google is somehow broken!
When i saw Chris's post and what he had said about Intel, I know most people would just, oh yeah thats right, sounds good. But I know differently, I know Intel very well.
Again Intel would never ever ever sell something cheaply without competition, even then the competition has to be stiff, even if Intel has 95% market share and the other competition has 4% if its stiff enough Intel is forced to sell cheaper.
The product cycles were Dictated by Competition, about 2.5 years ago we had a race between Intel and AMD to 1.0 ghz (1000 mhz) In 2 months AMD released 6 speed grades, like 700-750 800-850 and so on, at the time AMD had less then 10% market share, Intel was forced to follow suit. In the end Intel lost AMD was the first to 1000 mhz.
Competition dictated this as always with Intel. If there was no competition we would be at 1000 mhz today, Intel would be releasing a 1050 cpu 12 months from now at best, and 12 months from then 1100 mhz.
Thats why i jumped in, the analogy if you know enough about Intel is incorrect, if you do not know enough about Intel it all looks very good.
Intel would have us all paying $1500 a cpu right now if there was no competition. Intel will not go and die shrink anything unless it was going to make more money, Intel will not give anything to its customers unless it makes Intel money.Die shrink = more CPU at the same wafer cost. You can now make 800 cpus off of 1 wafer where as before on 450, this makes Intel more money. Acpu at .18 and .13 will perform the same, one will get a little hotter then the other, one will take less watts then the other, but performance wise they will be the same. Intel die shrinks for Intel, not because its forced to because Intel is so big they need to provide the latest and greatest technology.
Your Pentium 4 in your computer has had HT (hyper threading) technology since the 2.0-2.4 speed grades, Intel would not enable it till as of the last few months, it was there, in the silicon. If Intel was so genrous and did things because it is its own nightmare they would have enabled that 2 years ago.
Intel would love to see AMD fall off the face of this earth, then its $1500 a cpu all over again. And nothing would stop Intel, we would pay $1500-$2000 on every CPU indefinately, UNTIL a competitor comes to the plate.
And nothing would stop Intel, we would pay $1500-$2000 on every CPU indefinately, UNTIL a competitor comes to the plate.
deanril, Your analysis is excellent and I agree with all that you are saying. However, in this global village created by the Internet, it is very much easier to let potential customers know that you have a new, better mousetrap. I believe the "barriers to entry" are now lowered, versus the pre-Internet world. So a new competitor with the right product and the right marketing approach can quickly get a share of the market. Word-of-mouth has been replaced by blogs and search-engine visibility.
What does this mean for #1 in any market? Of course, you normally want to "milk" your cash cow and keep prices high for as long as you can. But customers have long memories so if they feel they are held to ransom, they may take a competitive product just to break your stranglehold on the market place. Since it is difficult to be sure when the next competitor will come along, a more prudent plan is to stay just ahead of the marketplace needs.
What does this suggest for Google at the moment? I assume they have a strategy and that is to maintain their position ahead of the herd. Relevancy is the critical factor and can be improved by a variety of approaches. I am guessing that Google believes a priority is to index as many web pages as possible. However if you are going to triple the number of pages in your databases, then you must have automatic ways of avoiding the spammers. This is a tough technical challenge, perhaps as shown by the continuing frazzled state of the SERP's. I believe what we are seeing is akin to the effort involved in launching a space shuttle. Hopefully it will all come together soon.
Barry Welford
That would be my guess.
I often wonder about this Technology of the SE's .
If most cant even spot hidden text, how well will they address other spams?
If they cant even implement a hidden text filter how well can they do anything, hidden text is atleast 5 year old scam. And still not many SE's combat it.
In the end if google "gets right" what will they have?
Are they suppose to have a "live index"? what is a live index, updates constantly? or every 3 days, or every month?
What will the end user know about this? How will they market this to make people understand "live"?
What is google definition of live?
How many people are out of their index, and why did this ever come about, why cant their technology be full proof, why does it have so many holes?
I have a lot of questions : )
I actually don't think Dominic is a pre-emptive action. However, some of the other purchases this year are certainly strategic acquisitions taking Google into new directions. It'd be kind of interesting to see if they have any joint ventures with companies like SAIC [business2.com] (re: their data-mining software).
absilutelu agree apart from being a major house/spring cleaning in order to compete on search quality for a year ahead. What you say is right, other factors such as new aquisitions and internal development of new products are far far more significant than anything that Dominic is a result of. My feeling is all they are doing reflected in Dominic is building a more robust algo/system to spam and SEO - other things are more significant and are very rarely discussed - which is why it is good to see Chris's post and subsequent discussion.
...we would pay $1500-$2000 on every CPU indefinately, UNTIL a competitor comes to the plate.
Who is (still) Intel's biggest threat? The answer is simple: Their own complacency. Ditto for Google. Therefore, the question arises, how to combt complacency, and stay numero uno.
Answer, be a LOT better THAN YOURSELF. Google are trying to do this, via spam filters, new algo changes etc. Intel does it by getting faster and better. SIMILARITY is in the METHODOLOGY, not an ABSOLUTE.
Even back then they have been nudging Intel.
I just dont see any correlation between being your own worst nightmare and making a better product, you guys could talk to me forever I still dont see it. Im not refusing to see it, maybe Im just stupid, but I dont see the correlation.
I see Competition. My market I see websites that have been kicking it for a couple years, now start jazzing up their sites a bit, the drive is more competition. The competition in my industry keeps poping up everyday, I of course think my site is better then the rest, but I do see some sites poping up that scare me. So I must one up them, to keep that lead.
