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| MOVIN’ ON UP - THE GOOGLE WARS Each day tens of millions of Internet users access search engines to sort through the billions of available Web pages and find the most appropriate Web sites to meet their search requests. By some counts, almost 30% of all searches now take place on Google; an astounding market share considering the popularity of Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Ask Jeeves and numerous others. Stop for a moment and count the number of times you yourself have searched using Google. Too numerous to count, no doubt. Now consider the number of times that you have searched using Google and have looked beyond the top 10 Web pages listed in the search results. It’s a safe bet to guess that you’ve rarely looked beyond the top 10 results. For a Web site operator, getting to the top of Google search requests can mean the difference between millions of hits or languishing in Internet obscurity. This fact has not escaped advertisers, web marketers and Internet service providers, and they have been engaged in an all out war to influence and control the Google top 10; sometimes employing questionable tactics. In the early days of the Internet, Web site operators would attempt to improve search engine results (i.e., appear higher on the list of Web sites found by a search) by using strategically chosen keywords, often times containing their competitor’s trademarks, placed on their Web site or in meta tags hidden in the HTML code of their Web site’s index page. However, the rise in trademark infringement lawsuits significantly reduced that practice. Next, search engines began to sell higher search results for a fee. While it became a guaranteed way for marketers with large budgets to ensure that their Web pages would appear to be the most relevant Web sites in search queries, Internet users were not aware that these results were being artificially manufactured. That practice was popular until the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) issued a commercial alert on June 27, 2002 stating that the practice of paying for higher search results (known as “paid placements”) or paying to be included in search results in which a Web page would not naturally have been included (known as “paid inclusion”) could potentially deceive Internet users. The FTC reasoned that users of search engines would logically assume, without notice to the contrary, that the results of search requests were impartial and not targeted solicitations. Therefore, the FTC, while not taking any enforcement action, strongly suggested that search engines include clear and conspicuous disclosures when displaying such paid search results. The paid placement industry is actually thriving despite the FTC recommendation, through services such as Overture, but most search engines now disclose when search results are paid placements or paid inclusions by indicating that the results are “sponsored links” or “sponsored matches.” Currently, the latest trend is for Web sites to hire companies that provide search engine optimization services (“SEO”), which, as opposed to paying a search engine for higher search results, manipulate the power of the search engines for their client’s benefit by using a variety of techniques. In the early days of Google, users marveled at the quality of the search results obtained by Google’s mysterious “algorithm” that performed the searches. SEOs have since found the keys to manipulate the Google algorithm and sell this service to advertisers and Web sites. The algorithm uses various criteria to develop a “PageRank” for each Web site to determine its popularity and match for a particular search query. A better PageRank results in a higher listing in the search results. One of the keys to the Google algorithm is “linking popularity.” Google’s algorithm assumes that if thousands of Web sites link to your Web site, then it must be popular and should therefore appear higher in the search results. With this knowledge in hand, some SEOs have established “link farms” which are hundreds or even thousands of Web pages with nothing but listings of Web sites all linking to one another, thereby manufacturing a Web site’s popularity. Using this method, an SEO can make a Web site appear to be the most popular site of its kind on the Internet overnight. While many SEOs offer valuable and professional services (typical services might include optimizing meta tags, refining the selection of keywords, making multiple search engine site submissions and paying for reciprocal links or sponsored links) it is practices such as the use of link farms that most frustrates Google. Meanwhile, Google is fighting back. Google actively solicits information on any practice that may produce artificial search results, including the use of cloaked pages, deceptive redirects, duplicate sites and other methods (i.e., pages that are generally inaccessible, contain no useful information and exist solely to manipulate search results through a variety of methods). In addition, Google is aggressively defending itself in a pending lawsuit filed last October, where Search King, Inc., an SEO, sued Google alleging that Google intentionally reduced the Search King’s PageRank. In its answer to the lawsuit, Google readily admits that it manually decreased the PageRank for Search King. Google reasons, however, that it is entitled to do so because (i) Search King’s practices are undermining the integrity of Google, (ii) it has no obligation to rank Search King where it desires and (iii) its PageRank system is protected under the First Amendment as commercial free speech. This case, while exposing some disfavored practices in the SEO industry, also has the potential to disclose more information about Google’s PageRank system and other practices. While the battle continues to rage in cyberspace, the courtroom battle may draw new boundaries for the limits of Internet marketing tactics and the right to control the Google Web site which most Internet users have now come to view as an impartial tool, almost akin to a public accommodation. While there are plenty of SEOs that engage in valuable and beneficial practices that do not raise the ire of the search engines, it is incumbent upon buyers of new Internet marketing practices to become familiar with the tools of the trade, and evaluate the propriety of these methods. . © 2001 Davis & Gilbert LLP |
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