Google, directories and monopolies

If you pop over to SE Roundtable you'll see that Google's stopped suggesting people submit their site to Yahoo's Directory.

This is fairly big news. What does this mean for directories? It needs some thought but I have some answers. It's the sort of thing that gives me cause to think and then email around the SEO group within the 200+ bigmouthmedia employees.

Nah. I'm not going to bore you with what I suggested to our SEO teams but have you thought about the monopoly side of the story? Google and Yahoo are trying to strike an ad deal right now and they're trying to convince both the EU and the USA regulators that there is no monopoly. No, really.

Now is a bad time for Google to be recommending that webmasters spend advertising dollars at Yahoo.

I'm sure Google had many reasons for removing that particular line from their guidelines... but if you like to consider all angles then keep the proposed ad deal and monopoly concerns in mind.

Should Google recommend Yahoo services if they're supplying the ads?

Comments

Anonymous said…
That's a great point that you make.

I definitely wouldn't be bored with regards to reading what you suggested to your SEO group!
Anonymous said…
Google is a massive monopoly. They're getting into the content business with their own Wiki so you know who will now dominate the search engine result pages
Anonymous said…
That's definately a possibility but the trend seems to be anti directories, with PR dropping and now guidelines being changed. I think the key question is "Are directories now bad hoods?".

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