Are You Working for Google? You Probably Are!

[Peter (IMC)]

Here's a statement to think about.

If you depend on the internet for your income, and you need people to find your website in order to get clients, then you are working for Google.

The other day a client visited for a meeting and made the interesting remark that we´re all working for Google. He especially because 80% of his time goes to projects that are related to his website and the need for it to have most of his traffic coming in through Google. So he reasoned he practically is working for Google.


Actually he was very right... Everybody that depends on the internet for their income is working for Google. Sure there are people that say that a business never should depend on one source of sales, but the big money almost always comes from Google. Simply because most people use Google to find what ever they are looking for.

Saying that Google isn't needed for the success of an internet depended business is like saying it's better to go from L.A. to New York on your bicycle than to take a plane.

How much of your time do you work for Google? (directly or indirectly).

[incrediblehelp]

I like to think that my income depends on the internet than one mere search engine. Sure Google is the goliath for search traffic but anyone that purely relies on them for traffic won’t be working for long on their own.

[Peter (IMC)]

That is correct but at the same time, without the Google traffic, you also won't be working for long on your own. Maybe in the US it's less of a factor because Google does only about 60% of the searches online, but in many other countries it's closer to 90% and in some countries even more than 90%.

[activeco]

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

That is correct but at the same time, without the Google traffic, you also won't be working for long on your own.

I don't agree.
There are a lot of (online) businesses who don't depend on a search engine in order to stay competitive.

[grid6]

It's true... Adsense is everywhere.

This article illustrates a possible counter effort.

[maemae]

I think this is a very intresting question. Those that display google ads are displaying ads that googles customers purchase so in a way we could be working "With" them by displaying there customers ads on our website so increasing there customers clicks. I personally dont use google the search engine when I am browsing the internet I use Yahoo. I have found google ads very usefull though this past month and have been working on rankings since I began my website.

Random Ramblings lol
Maemae

[dburdon]

Peter,

wrong! In the UK we're all working for one of the most incompetent governments on the planet. 17.5% VAT (revenue tax), 28% corporation tax, 41% income tax, 18% capital gains tax. After finally getting some hard earned out of our businesses or jobs, we then pay petrol (Gasoline) tax of £4.20 ($8.30) per imperial gallon. And on top of that people with houses like mine me are paying £2,500 ($4,900) per annum in local housing tax. In return we get high crime, dirty streets, poor schools, dirty hospitals, roads full of potholes. That's what socialism does for you.

What Google get out of my business is a relative pittance. And at least they deliver.

[maniactive]

Very interesting headline!

Too many folks are hyper-focused on every little hiccup and happening at Google. And Google can deliver a lot of customers, to be sure. But focusing solely on Google is a mistake.

Here's the irony: if you focus instead on great, well-organized content and deploy a DIVERSE marketing plan (not just Google-centric) -- you're doing all the stuff Google wants to see, anyway.

(Anyone notice a teenage dating analogy here? No one gets popular by wondering worrying about what ONE being (company, hot guy, etc.) thinks of them. Being fabulous, good-looking, interesting, engaging and entertaining is a much better road to popularity!

Don't panic about Google. Deploy a balanced content and marketing plan, and you'll be golden!

[Big Juice]

Sounds like yet another Kiss up to Google statement to me.

The truth is I do work on websites so Google can work for me.

Google is simply another tool and just like any other tool, it makes chores easier. The hammer works for the carpenter and not the other way around.

One of the reasons that Google enjoys the market share that thry do is because of misleading statements like "we work for Google". When newbies to the search game read statements like that what are they supposed to believe?

If we all "work" for Google then I would have to say that they make for one crappy employer as I have yet to receive any of my bi-monthly paychecks.

Search engines are my bitch and not the other way around.

[pahalik]

I depend on referrals for my business. Good old-fashioned word-of-mouth.

I don't advertise on google and I don't run google ad-sense ads. I don't want ANY company telling me how to run my business. I don't do SEO or any of that other stuff either. No "site-maps" etc.. Personally I don't care if a search engine or robot ever finds my sites. More bandwidth for my customers to use.

5 years and I have all the business I need. I have no desire to "get rich". I just want to work for myself and make a comfortable living. I find that I can do that without google just fine.

I advise anyone that asks me, to find something where you can build a good customer list and work on keeping them. Repeat sales, without having to pay a commission to someone like google, are better than constantly having to find and register new customers.

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by dburdon

Peter,

wrong! In the UK we're all working for one of the most incompetent governments on the planet. 17.5% VAT (revenue tax), 28% corporation tax, 41% income tax, 18% capital gains tax. After finally getting some hard earned out of our businesses or jobs, we then pay petrol (Gasoline) tax of £4.20 ($8.30) per imperial gallon. And on top of that people with houses like mine me are paying £2,500 ($4,900) per annum in local housing tax. In return we get high crime, dirty streets, poor schools, dirty hospitals, roads full of potholes. That's what socialism does for you.

What Google get out of my business is a relative pittance. And at least they deliver.

Come live in Brazil for a couple of years.. lol Then you´ll be running back home.

[Peter (IMC)]

Working for Google doesn't mean being an employee of Google. But almost everything you do online is noticed by Google and if you do it right so that search engines (not just Google) can do something positive with it, they'll give you more visitors... Google being the most used just makes it more directed towards them.

I'm not a Google lover, but I do like the way they do their thing. But if they'd change that in a way that I'd like it less, I won't change with them. Who dictates are the people that search. If another search engine (or another way to find stuff on the web) gets more popular than Google, I'll follow that. What matters are visitors, not who brings them.

The fact of the matter is though: Google does 84% of the searches in the country I'm in. So if I would not be after google refered visitors, then I'm throwing away 84% of visitors. It would be plain stupid to think that the other 16% is more important than the 84% that comes from Google.

Don't panic about Google. Deploy a balanced content and marketing plan, and you'll be golden!

Yep, and that basically means you´re working for Google,.

[DrTandem1]

I agree with dburdon. Beyond that, Google is simply the king of the hill for the moment. Before Google, it was Yahoo! If Google was gone tomorrow, something else would simply take its place. Sites that don't use AdWords or AdSense are not working for Google.

A better analogy would be if you're not flying American Airlines to New York, you'd be flying United. There is very little difference between the main three SEs. One wouldn't say without McDonald's we would have to eat dirt. Although, McDonald's is the most popular fast food, it is hardly the best. Don't confuse popularity with superiority.

[deepsand]

Google's hardly the only game in town. In fact, they don't even have a plurality share of the global online ad business!

There are quite a large number of online businesses than thrive without Google, and despite their competitors use of Google.

Google may well be the emperor in Brazil, at least for the market sectors in which you are engaged, but you cannot extrapolate that to the world as a whole.

[beakerbum]

It's funny, I never hear anyone saying 'are you working for the yellow page company?' when people spend thousands to be listed in the ads.

I don't understand all the worshipping at the altar of Google though. Now don't get me wrong, I am not saying ignore Google. They are currently the dominant player and we have to adapt accordingly. But here's the deal... Google could do an Enron-esque collapse tonight and the internet will go on.

People, Google is not indespensible. There's a difference between dominance and being indespensible. Google may well be the best at what they do, there's some reason for their dominance. But it's not like they're the only ones that do it. So if people wake up tomorrow and Google is no longer there, they'll go on to somewhere else to do their search. And one of them may become dominant and thus everyone starts worshipping at their altar, but when it's all said and done the end result will be pretty much of the same impact of all those massive failures that happened at Y2k. Remember all those planes that fell out of the sky? Some of the hype about Google owning the internet has a lot of the same hysterical pitch as all the Y2k panic and to me it has about the same amount of substance.

[activeco]

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

The fact of the matter is though: Google does 84% of the searches in the country I'm in. So if I would not be after google refered visitors, then I'm throwing away 84% of visitors.

There is something clearly wrong with the equality of percentage of searches to the total percentage of visitors.
A search engine is mostly good for initial contact, first time visitors. The quality of the website is what keeps them on and spread the word by other means.
Each one of us has a daily routine visiting most of the sites without even touching search engine. I guess this forum is one of them.
Of course it depends on the market too and even the niche inside the market can have a substantially different percentage of search engine visitors. I guess very few people use SE for e.g. news sites.

For example, there was a joint study of comScore, P&G, SEMPO, And Yahoo related to Consumer Packaged Goods, answering the same question.
The conclusion was that search engine traffic was undoubtedly important, but it varied a lot among products. E.g. percentage of unique category visitors that used search to reach Baby Products was as high as 60%, but for Personal Care Products that was 'only' 27%.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by beakerbum

It's funny, I never hear anyone saying 'are you working for the yellow page company?' when people spend thousands to be listed in the ads.

Well said.

In fact, about the only time one hears the phrase re. "working for (someone other than ones employer or self)" is when the speaker is unhappy with the value received from another party as compared to that which was paid.

[edhan]

I wouldn't say we are working for Google but instead we are making use of each other for our own benefits. We need Google to get clients to find our sites and at the same time, Google needs us since clients and visitors use them to search for us.

So, I am taking this as a two way streets, it benefits both parties. Without search engines, our sites may not be found international or locally. Therefore with the help of search engines, everyone gets a piece of the pie. Google happens to be one of our best helper and same goes with other search engines.

[jenteh]

That's an interesting concept!

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by jenteh

That's an interesting concept!

But, if you accept such as being in fact correct, does it not then necessarily follow that you are also working for every other business with whom you have relationship, and, by extension, every individual and other entity with which they themselves have relationships?

And, if that is the case, how is such an "interesting" concept, as opposed to one that is universal and unavoidable by all but the true hermit, i.e. mundane?

[LongDaGe]

I don't agree.

Here in China Bidu is king, and so we do not need or depend on google. We get 90% of our traffic from Bidu, and maybe only 5% from google.

Long DaGe
LongDaGe - Your Local Resources for China - Connecting People Locally - Across China

[davidmg]

There is a difference between working for google and letting google work for you. I have several sites that rank on the first page of google and it is just proper SEO and the right incomming links. Setting up a webiste and promoting it is just like a physical location. The key words are location - location - location. Incoming links are very important, I have one site that I started a simple listing of manufactures of a simple product. I am constantly getting other manufacturers accross the company asking for a link to their websites and I require a link back to ours. This page ranks #1. Learn to let the search engines work for you, that is why you are in business to have others work for you, not to become a slave for someone else. Thats OK if you can't cut it because someone has to wash my cars and somebody has to cook my fast foods. Learn to build quality pages that attract and they will come.

[Peter (IMC)]

The conclusion was that search engine traffic was undoubtedly important, but it varied a lot among products. E.g. percentage of unique category visitors that used search to reach Baby Products was as high as 60%, but for Personal Care Products that was 'only' 27%.

Yes that is correct. The less frequently used the product is, the more you depend on search engines (when you market online of course). Products you need to buy every week you will buy in a place that you trust. You don't go searching for a new store every time you buy it. Products you need only in special circumstances, you normally don't have a fixed address for and hence you´re using a search engine to find a place to buy it.

Personal Care Products: frequently used
Baby products : the average person needs those like 2 to 3 times in their life for a short period of time, so not so frequently used. (Actually like 3 to 4 times if you take into account the first time when you´re the consumer,.. )

So yes, it depends on what you´re selling. And that just shows you need to understand your customer very well. Most of our customers sell products that are not used frequently, which makes sense since we´re an seo and adwords optimization/management company.

A company that sells personal care products still depends heavily on TV ads I guess. They need to shove it into the faces of their customers all the time to make sure people won't change or forget. The internet isn't the right place for that (yet). Or at least search engines aren't that interesting to those kind of companies.

So I guess everybody in this thread is right from their point of view. Your opinion is based on your experiences and your experiences depend on what you sell. This is what makes marketing so much fun, especially when you do it for many different types of businesses.

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by LongDaGe

I don't agree.

Here in China Bidu is king, and so we do not need or depend on google. We get 90% of our traffic from Bidu, and maybe only 5% from google.

Long DaGe
LongDaGe - Your Local Resources for China - Connecting People Locally - Across China

Well,.. then in china you´re working for Bidu,.. Doesn't really matter. Google wasn't actually the subject of this thread,..

[fdmaps]

My business partner and I run several websites selling parts for a percentage of sales. We do well in Yahoo and MSN with many first page rankings. As far a Google goes, 85% of sales is from the King of the search engines and in many cases we have 30% to 50% of the first page.
My goal is to Exploit Googles popularity as long as we can. Thats just $$$$$$$$ in the pocket, and the name of the game. Traffic is good sales are better.
I don't consider our Company as working for Google, never payed for one click or put Adsense ads on a site (I hope that through good Content and SEO we wont have to pay the man). We get the "3 Big" search engines working for us.
Well, I need to get back to work building pages and seeing what our competition is up to that job never ends.

[joliettech]

As far as I'm concerned, Google and all the other search engines and the internet in general works for me.

Our website is to generate sales leads. We could hire a salesperson to cold call 1000 companies and they would be lucky to get a 1% response let alone get to speak to a person who could make a decision about buying our products.

Where as our website brings us 1000 visitors in less than 2 days, visitors who are actively looking for our products and most likely are the person making the decision to buy our products. These people are asking us to send them a quote. With just over 1/2% response rate and a conversion rate of over 18%, this translates to over 16% of our annual sales for 2007, over 21% in 2006.

The internet and Google, work for me.

[mjtaylor]

I work for myself.

I see dburdon's point ... or similarly. As I see it, we work just as much for our governments as we do for Google or any other search engine.

But if Google was gone, there would still be an Internet and people would still be searching and finding sites. So, I am not working for G ... I am working for my clients, and finally, for myself... to buy food, sheleter, twirly dance skirts and trips to interesting places where I dance. Sure, I fork over a chunk of change to the US government, but I look at that as a cost of doing business.

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

Well,.. then in china you´re working for Bidu,.. Doesn't really matter. Google wasn't actually the subject of this thread,..

Huh? Then you might want to clue us in on the topic, Peter. 'Google' appears in the title you chose and in each of the paragraphs in your opening post ... so, the subject of the thread was ??????

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

I work for myself.

I see dburdon's point ... or similarly. As I see it, we work just as much for our governments as we do for Google or any other search engine.

But if Google was gone, there would still be an Internet and people would still be searching and finding sites. So, I am not working for G ... I am working for my clients, and finally, for myself... to buy food, sheleter, twirly dance skirts and trips to interesting places where I dance. Sure, I fork over a chunk of change to the US government, but I look at that as a cost of doing business.



Huh? Then you might want to clue us in on the topic, Peter. 'Google' appears in the title you chose and in each of the paragraphs in your opening post ... so, the subject of the thread was ??????

As you said: "But if Google was gone, there would still be an Internet and people would still be searching and finding sites." If it wasn't Google, it would be somebody else. I just used Google because they have such a huge market share.

The whole thread came from something a client said: "We´re all working for Google". He meant it as a joke of course, but it was a fun one which gave me the idea for this thread. I knew it would be good for some fun discussions.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

I just used Google because they have such a huge market share.

But, you must understand that that is a common misconception, one born of an invidual's own limited personal experiences, which are, more often than not, insufficient for being taken as representative of the world at large. One's own experiences represent but an exceedingly small sample of the whole.

Furthermore, if one does look at available empirical data, one finds, as I've earlier noted, both here and elsewhere, that Google does not even have a plurality share of the global online ad market. I.e., measured on a global scale, their "huge market share" is not large enough to make them the "biggest" player in this arena.

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by deepsand

But, you must understand that that is a common misconception, one born of an invidual's own limited personal experiences, which are, more often than not, insufficient for being taken as representative of the world at large. One's own experiences represent but an exceedingly small sample of the whole.

Furthermore, if one does look at available empirical data, one finds, as I've earlier noted, both here and elsewhere, that Google does not even have a plurality share of the global online ad market. I.e., measured on a global scale, their "huge market share" is not large enough to make them the "biggest" player in this arena.

Don't be rediculous. We´re talking about Google's market search share, but you just change that into online ad market because that serves your post better.

Google Market Share Up (Again)

World wide their search market share is even larger than in the USA.

[dburdon]

Peter,

interestingly enough one of Britain's leading newspapers is reporting that the average Brit now pays £6.63 ($13.14) in tax for every hour worked. See:
Every work-hour another £6.63 for tax man - Telegraph

I personally give Google zero. And manage to run a growing business on the back of that investment.

In contrast the bloodsuckers in the HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs) demand an ever increasing share of the rewards generated by my efforts. Meanwhile we get less and less for this increasing contribution. Rather than sending me to Brazil, I could send the millions of incompetent politicians and bureaucrats than are running this once great country into the ground. I'm sure you could feed them to the piranhas.

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by dburdon

Peter,

interestingly enough one of Britain's leading newspapers is reporting that the average Brit now pays £6.63 ($13.14) in tax for every hour worked. See:
Every work-hour another £6.63 for tax man - Telegraph

I personally give Google zero. And manage to run a growing business on the back of that investment.

In contrast the bloodsuckers in the HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs) demand an ever increasing share of the rewards generated by my efforts. Meanwhile we get less and less for this increasing contribution. Rather than sending me to Brazil, I could send the millions of incompetent politicians and bureaucrats than are running this once great country into the ground. I'm sure you could feed them to the piranhas.

Once great country? You mean the kolonial days when the UK ruled half the world by force? I think it is greater now than it ever was in the past.

But I understand your complaints about taxes. Personally I don't care about taxes. I pay what I'm suppose to pay and make sure I don't pay a dime more than required by law. Taxes may be high, but it has zero effect on your ability to run your own business.

As to less and less service for this increase in taxes,.. I noticed one thing in my still relatively short life,.... the older people are, the more they complain about the quality of the government. It's always been like that,..

But back to the subject. When you work for somebody or a company, you never pay them for it. You do the work and you get a reward in return.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

Don't be rediculous. We´re talking about Google's market search share, but you just change that into online ad market because that serves your post better.

Google Market Share Up (Again)

World wide their search market share is even larger than in the USA.

But, is it not in fact the case that Google earns revenues from ads displayed or clicked on, not on the mere presentation of search results? Therefore, which is the more appropriate measure; views or converted sales revenues?

BTW, when looking at search market share, it's best to:

1) Use more than 1 source;
2) Use a time period greater than 1 month; and,
3) Use data that's current.

A single sourced report for APR 2007 is hardly relevant.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

That is correct but at the same time, without the Google traffic, you also won't be working for long on your own. Maybe in the US it's less of a factor because Google does only about 60% of the searches online, but in many other countries it's closer to 90% and in some countries even more than 90%.

I believe I could make my total living off the social media sites.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by janeth

I believe I could make my total living off the social media sites.

And probably by any other number of ways as well.

It's amazing that so many have so quickly become so accustomed to the Web, SEs, etal., that they forget that life was good long before those entities became extant. It's a natural tendency, born of ones expectations based on the most recent experiences; in this case, though, a change that happened with unusual rapidity.

I can vividly recall visiting my mother's home, and using her rotary dial phone decades after having become myself accustomed to using a TouchTone one; it seemed to take forever to complete dialing a number. Yet, I also recall when, as a child, we first got that rotary phone; compared to the previous crank operated phone, which only connected you to the operator, who would then complete the routing of your call, the ability to ourselves directly dial the desired party seemed miraculous.