Is Google's Closed Nature Its Achilles Heel?
from the attacking-where-it's-weak dept
There's been some well-deserved buzz lately about the new upstart search engine Blekko, which I've been playing around with a bit. Most of the attention has been focused on the concept of "slashtags" that allow very quick and dirty targeted search, or added parameters in a format that builds off of user suggested groupings of sites. It's a neat feature, but so far I have to admit I haven't found in that useful in my testing. What has struck me as significantly more interesting about Blekko is that it -- unlike just about every other search engine out there -- lets you dig in on the data the site used to determine the results rankings. This is the type of stuff that is a closely guarded secret at Google, in large part because revealing the data might make it easier to game.And while Blekko founder/CEO Rich Skrenta (who, I should disclose, I've known for many, many years) has been clear from the very beginning that the goal is not to take down Google, but rather to carve out a decent, but highly profitable, niche in the search engine space, I do find this rather interesting. By opening up the details in a way that lets users dig in and find out how a site's ranking is determined, Blekko is doing something that Google can't easily copy. I always find this quite fascinating. We end up talking quite a bit on this site about the idea that some insist upon, that if you come up with something disruptive, big companies will just come along and copy the idea, killing off the small company. However, as we've detailed over and over again, this happens a lot less than you would think, in part because "copying" the innovation often will seriously upset an existing line of business or an existing way of doing things. That's what's so disruptive about disruptive innovation.
I have no idea if Blekko really will turn out to be disruptive in any way. But I find it quite fascinating that a big part of its attack on Google's marketshare is to enable a feature that would totally turn Google upside down in terms of how secretive it is about its algorithm and ranking. Google is often seen as a leader in the "open" technology world, but as we've pointed out before, while the company works hard to encourage others to be open, it can be incredibly closed itself. So it seems only fitting that its potential achilles' heel may be in the part of its business that it has kept quite closed.
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Indeed
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Just a thought
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Re:
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How does this make sense?
So now we'll have a search engine that caters to those who know how to game search engine optimization instead of those who have the most relevant content?
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Re: How does this make sense?
Search engines don't cater for those who have content they cater for the searcher.
If this facility also enables the searcher to "game the algorithm" to produce better results for their personal needs then it might have a chance.
Maybe it could even crowdsource the optimum search algorithm?
At the end of the day the quality of search results as perceived by the searcher that will determine whether this takes off or not.
Google results only matter to website owners because lots of people use Google. This new site is irrelevant until people start using it and it is the quality of search results that will control that.
Google took over from Alta Vista, Yahoo etc because it's search results were so much better. Only after that happened could the ad money start to roll in.
Google had a smart idea and backed it up with plenty of risk finance upfront before they started to make money.
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Re: Re: How does this make sense?
That's exactly what I was thinking. If you aren't going to keep the algorithm a secret, and you're sure as shit to not want SEO gurus gaming the system, simply take the system completely out of their hands.
As I see it, there is one huge key to making that work: user base size at the onset. The problem with doing this as a startup is that company interests can game a crowdsourced ranking system because there aren't enough legitimate users. What's interesting about this "disruption", if that's how they want to do it, would be that Google, with it's huge user base, is positioned to do the job at the onset better than any upstart.
....but only if they do it RIGHT NOW.
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Re: Re: Re: How does this make sense?
Until blekko has 51% market share, no one is going to spend time spamming us. blekko has no traffic. We don't let other search engines in, so you can't even get a measley nofollowed link off of blekko.com. There is simply no incentive to spam us.
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Re: How does this make sense?
No one knows if that's true or not, only that Google believes it. But their approach is essentially security by obscurity - which only really ensures that if someone does manage to game Google, they can stay under the radar more or less indefinitely.
On the other hand, if it is possible to produce a search engine algorithm that is impossible (or at least impractical) to game, then an open process, where everyone can see what's happening and suggest improvements to the algorithm, may be the best way to go about it.
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If so...
If this is true then I think they may stand a chance at success. It seems that when someone enters the market and brands itself the "(insert market leader) killer" they doom themselves to fail for not being able to kill the giant.
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Another search engine I've forgotten about.
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Re:
The fact that it requires a tweet to get into the private beta indicates that it caters to a particular crowd. As such, the odds of this actually being useful is rather low.
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Re:
http://searchengineland.com/xerox-sues-google-yahoo-over-search-patent-copy-that-36742
where Xerox sues Google and others for search, among many other bogus patents seen here on Techdirt.
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Wait....What????
This is one of the reasons I keep coming back here to read your articles... You don't try to hide your affiliations or positions on things like too many mainstream media outlets.
On top of that, even though this guy sounds like a good friend of yours, you're not pushing this site with unreasonable claims or anything, and you're still coming across with your professional "These are the facts, this is how I feel, please discuss" approach. Much respect.
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Google?
In the comments I always read that Google is your corporate overlord. Are you sure you can draw attention to an upstart competitor?
Where are those commenters on this thread? I need them to explain this behavior to me.
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i HaTe BleKkO
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Blekko has made it this far
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