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## Google Faces Backlash from Small Businesses and SEO Industry Over Recent Changes
Google, once a beloved search giant, is presently in the midst of a public relations crisis due to a series of misguided decisions. Over the past few months, the tech giant has seen a turn of sentiment within the small business community and the SEO industry, largely due to its controversial actions.
The core of the outrage can be traced back to two recent updates to Google’s search algorithm, which have led to the removal of various small businesses from the search results. Despite Google’s justification that these sites were merely “low-grade spam”, their content has been repurposed in its new AI Overviews. This has led to allegations that Google has wrongfully appropriated content from numerous websites, subsequently excluding them from search results and monetizing their content.
The knee-jerk response to this situation was frustration and anger, initially from the business owners who lost their sources of income, but this soon spread to the SEO industry. Many are seeing these moves as Google’s attack on small businesses.
TravelLemming’s CEO and founder, Nate Hake, expressed his disappointment with Google’s approach. In paraphrasing his argument, he stated, “Google does not owe rankings to any website, yet it’s the breaking of the “social contract” with the internet that’s problematic. This implied agreement meant users created content and search engines indexed the content providing valuable traffic. Google’s current model prioritizes maximizing ad revenue through AI and executing the greatest copyright theft in history.”
Another repercussion of this crisis is the undermining of trust in Google due to inaccurate responses from AI Overviews. With Google’s main business concept relying heavily on search, they seem to be failing significantly in this area.
According to SEO consultant, Adam Riemer, “Google’s early rollout of SGE, particularly in maps, has resulted in harmful and incorrect data being surfaced in its search results. They actually recommended a combination of cleaning products that could potentially create mustard gas.”
Significantly, this predicament comes hot on the heels of the Department of Justice’s federal antitrust case against Google. This case revealed evidence of deceitful and fraudulent business practices through Google’s Ads program.
Search Engine Land’s managing editor, Danny Goodwin, expressed his shock regarding the data on Google Ads. He mentioned, “Google manipulated bid prices in the ad auction to extract more from the ‘winner’, increasing prices for all advertisers. This decision was designed to increase profits for Alphabet, Google’s parent company, and not to heighten the return on investment (ROI) for advertisers and businesses or enhance user experience.”
Another twist in the tale is the revelation by respected SEO professional Michael King, that documents leaked by whistleblowers confirmed long-held suspicions that Google had been dishonest about its modus operandi. This revelation of dishonest representatives might just be the finishing blow for Google as it has lost the backing of a significant portion of the SEO community.
Regain of trust is crucial, according to Michael King, “It’s one thing to say ‘Hey, our algorithms are proprietary information, and we can’t disclose specific things.’ It’s another to intentionally mislead people.”
The negative response from the SEO community is in contrast to previous reactions, signaling a dramatic shift in the perceived trustworthiness of Google. This current scenario resembles the phase Microsoft went through in the late 1990s and early 2000s, earning widespread contempt.
Navah Hopkins, an evangelist at Optmyzr, provided insight into the contrasting level of transparency between Google’s paid advertising and SEO, indicating a loss of trust with advertisers due to revelations from the DOJ antitrust trials.
Further aggravation comes from Google’s response to this issue. A spokesperson from Google, John Mueller, recommended to affected businesses that they apply their learnings to “another project.” This insensitive reaction may result in the company losing customers.
A conventional crisis management strategy would involve the company acknowledging the issue, offering a public apology, and outlining what measures will be taken to prevent reoccurrence. Google’s diverging approach seems to be worsening their PR crisis.
Danny Goodwin argues, “Google used to focus on creating the best search product. Now it seems like Google aims to monetize Search to maximize profit.”
Though Google is a giant in its industry with various revenue streams and holds a substantial share in multiple sectors, the evident lack of trust among users, business owners, and consumers could lead to decreased revenue and subsequent market share losses. However, entrepreneurs are advised in the meantime to reduce their reliance on Google for web traffic.
*by Jeremy Knauff, Entrepreneur, author, and the founder of the PR firm, Spartan Media.*
© 2024 Newsmax Finance.
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