Sorry Google, I don't Want Your Answers

At a recent “insiders” event at Google headquarters, the company confirmed that it was revamping its search algorithms to make better use of semantic web. That’s “geek speak” for teaching a computer to understand the context of what you’re searching. Over the last few years, Google has been pretty good at figuring this out and serving up relevant results. But its latest announcement makes me question if Google’s growth strategy has jumped the shark.

Google rocketed to success in the late 90s because of the efficient way it found other people’s information. That was key; every other search engine (remember Webcrawler?) relied on what webmasters put in special tags. The system was easily abused as webmasters stuffed keywords in order to get on top of search results. Often a page that would show up in search was totally unrelated to what you wanted: the webmaster successfully duped the search engine and you. But he registered the page view, which, for many in the infant web, was all that was necessary. Google was different.

Google figured out how to search all of the text in the page. This huge change allowed quality content to flourish online because webmasters weren’t so hung-up on creating search-engine filled gobbledygook (but it does still happen in some parts of the web today). Businesses like Amazon and Wikipedia were built because of this. Google had successfully organized the internet (which is still its corporate mission) in a way that was easy, fast and without clutter.

With semantic web, Google is changing that philosophy. Instead of organizing other people’s information, it wants to make a decision for you and give you an answer it thinks you will want. As a user, that’s not what I want. As a marketer, that’s not what I want. I know it’s not as black-and-white as that, but deep down that’s the core of this effort if Google wants “to be more like” Bing and Facebook as many have claimed. The search giant was recently accused of chasing after social by a former (disgruntled?) employee now at rival Microsoft. Is Google become so enthralled with competitors that it will destroy the very essence of its success? It seems like we are regressing from a world of open internet where you can find anything, to a more closed internet where you will find what a computer thinks you should find.

In some instances, “answers” do make the search experience more enjoyable. For example, being able to get a measurement conversion ratio or a word’s definition from Google is helpful, and the answer is a clear fact. But in general, information isn’t as neat and tidy. I’m far from a conspiracy theorist, but who is Google to decide what answer I should get on things that are not necessarily black-and-white? Many AdWord keywords are already becoming too expensive for entry-level businesses that aren’t local or brick-and-mortar; will semantic web marginalize them in favor of large corporations that have the money to spend? Is semantic web a way to kill the long-term value of long-tail SEO, which generates no revenue for Google? Even worse, what if the system is corrupted and we’re only served information someone wants us to see for a specific reason? It may sound far-fetched, and I think in this case it is, but it’s happening in other countries.

I understand Google’s desire to stay ahead of the game: its shareholders (I’m one of them) demand it. However, if Google decides to chase down Bing and Facebook search in this way, it’s simply commoditizing its best and most market-dominate product: a simple interface that organizes the world’s content, making it easy to discover new things. Many look to Google to search, discover and surf the web. With semantic search, that discovery process begins to go away. Where is the discovery in being delivered what the Googlebot thinks you want? How do truly new, radical and inspiring ideas get discovered? Through the social web? Maybe. But that requires me to have “internet friends” who span every single topic known to man. With the increasing fragmentation of social networks (they are more niche than ever), how am I supposed to make sure I get out of my own information bubble?

Semantic search absolutely has value with interfaces like Siri. But do we needevery search engine to be semantic? I believe there’s value in different ways of finding information. The homogenization of the entire internet’s search into one method will likely give rise to the next great killer search startup, which will be a bigger problem for Google down the road. Maybe that’s a good thing, an opportunity for a new player to enter the search market since all of the big boys want to play the same game exactly the same way.