The beauty of this thread is that we all may come from different parts of the world, operate in different industries and have far different backgrounds. A discussion based on diversity, respect for even opposing views and the ability to make our own assessment of who the current state of search benefits and why is good. My original post was simply to connect some dots that some may have overlooked. Regardless, the diversity in this thread is not something I'm seeing in Google's search results and it just got worse. Imagine a world where the only choices you have are those that are spoonfed to you by a single entity or group of entities. That's exactly where consumers are headed and if small businesses want a piece of the action, they had better be prepared to bid high on those keywords.
Expertpeon touched on a good point. Those who have been in IM long enough to witness and feel the financial impact of how Google has changed over the years do have a unique perspective. While competition has greatly increased in most sectors, and the technology that drives user experiences/expectations has improved, the ecommerce industry's dependence on Google has only gotten worse. Many brick & mortar stores, which are small businesses, have little time to build any type of social presence that would limit their dependence on search. While this is not the case for some industries, such as those related to technically inclined webmasters, many small businesses are finding themselves falling deeper and deeper in the search results with every little Google algorithm update. Many of these business owners still advertise in print, radio, television and even in the Yellow Pages. Imagine looking in the Yellow Pages book twenty years back to find a plumbing company listed 5 times in a row and another company listed 3 times in a row. It makes no sense unless you are really trying to route as many leads as you can to those select companies. This is the current state of Google search.
The main point I hope everyone walks away with after reading the posts in this thread is to do something. Don't roll over and die. Google is doing their best to expand into different industries and monetize everything in sight. While their "Internet Association" may have lofty goals of free speech, freedom from government regulation and all of the above, they want this for a reason - to expand their profits. To expand their profits, they must take money out of our wallets as the number of new users coming online is nowhere near what it was just ten years ago. And that is exactly what they are doing. While ordinary webmasters are spinning their wheels trying to fix their sites because of panda, penguin and all the other nonsense, Google continues to methodically tighten the noose around small businesses.
Thanks to all for their constructive opinions of support and disagreement. It's nice to know there is at least one forum around where people can have a good discussion about Google that expands well beyond the superficial.
