Google is currently being looked at by the Federal Trade Commission in Antitrust hearings in Washington. Several company executives, including Eric Schmidt from Google and Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, have testified, giving differing opinions, as both companies have a lot at stake in the hearings. Yelp has been battling Google regarding local reviews for a good part of the last 7 years. They claim that Google is giving emphasis to their own products, particularly their Google Places listings which also contain reviews for local small businesses. Yelp is claiming that this product, which previously contained data from Yelp’s web site but no longer does, gives Google an unfair advantage.

Google relies on a massive algorithm to organize their search results, and they maintain that this algorithm does not bias results toward Google products. They want to provide the best results possible to users, and claim that the minute they stop doing that, users will find someone else that will. It is that sense of urgency that Google utilizes to strive to be the best. The company’s search algorithm is under almost constant change, with upwards of 500 updates made last year. Some of those were small, while others were quite large like their “Panda” update in March. All of these are designed to continually improve search results for users.

The outcome of this trial will be closely followed by all of us in the SEO community; and even closer by those who compete directly with Google services. The outcome could have a major impact on how search results are displayed on the first page of Google if Google is forced to change how or where they display Google-places, Google-products or any of their own business units that compete with natural indexed content. It is too soon to know if Google will be forced to change or if they will change on their own accord. Or if Google’s lobby is strong enough to maintain the status quo.

Some noteworthy features of this new program:

• Businesses will be billed a flat monthly rate, so ongoing management is less necessary.
• Businesses will be ranked based on category and physical proximity to the searcher.
• Businesses will have the option of a built-in call tracking service.

Currently the program is only available in the San Francisco and San Diego. Whether local paid search prices are linked to AdWords pricing also remains to be seen.

The algorithm attempts to immitate consumer behavior as closely as possible. To do this, it looks for new stories with established citations. It also gives more weight to local sources but prefers trusted sources. Striking the right balance seems to be the key to a highly ranked news story. This also applies to the search engine, for which Google has not and likely will not reveal its algorithm.

If you would like to know more about search engine optimization, contact The Search Engine Guys at 800-267-1704.

Because so many people turn immediately to search engines for information, it is important for any business to make sure it can be found. Unlike with a phone book, you do not simply pay for a spot. Every website that comes up on Google or any other search engine is given placement based on its relevancy.

If you would like to know more about search engines and how they work, contact The Search Engine Guys at 800-267-1704.

Although it is nice to see competition in the marketplace, the problem for these other search engines is that Google does a phenomenal job and returns results quickly. We personally think most of the efforts to improve search are pretty futile. When is the last time someone said something to the effect of, "Google search is terrible," or "I never find what I want?" That is the issue. We understand that everything can and will be improved, but I think that if someone is going to take on Google, they are going to have come up with a different spin on how they compete.

We think what may end up hurting Google is the fact that consumers may start to feel a little leary of the company having too much data on them, and becoming a little too big brother. If I was competing against Google, we would use the angle that we are not mining data from the individual user and that searches are private or deleted within 3 months, something to ease that worry. The battle for search in the future should be interesting and fun to watch.