HeleneOnWheels
Junior Member
- Jun 2, 2017
- 112
- 59
Ah, so this is why I regained some rankings this past week!
I haven’t looked into this a lot, but I believe Google is under investigation for antitrust activity. I don’t know if it’s for the way they dominate search, but it should be. Think about how so many people's livelihood depends on the arbitrary decisions of one company and where they decide to place a business in search results. As a private company they have the right to do this, but the problem is that we effectively have no alternatives. Other search engines just don’t have the same level of usage and clout because Google has done everything possible to kill them.
It’s the same with social media. Several months ago my Facebook ads account got suspended because I was advertising a product that was similar to something they had recently decided not to allow, but have not made it clear in the rules. I wasn’t selling anything harmful, it was a rule change because of the pandemic. But fine, I changed the ads, resubmitted and they were approved. A few days later my ad account got banned for the ads they had approved. I appealed and they denied in a way that made it obvious no human had looked at the situation. I still can’t advertise on Facebook. It’s so messed up that I’m essentially begging them to take my money. It should be the other way around. Companies should make you want to advertise with them and care about making you happy as a customer/advertiser. But they know you have limited alternatives and so they can do whatever they want.
The only silver lining of not being able to advertise my affiliate site was that I decided to learn SEO because I had to rely on organic traffic. And here I am! But multiple big companies still outrank me for keywords even though they have not had the products in stock for months. If that is not unfairly favoring large corporations, I don't know what is.
By the way, all of this also applies to the political situation. The problem isn’t that these platforms are banning people as they have the right to do, but that they are also trying to shut down other companies that provide a space for discussion. To be clear, no website should be allowing death threats and the like, but these big companies have so much control now that they can actually stop the creation of alternative platforms. I vehemently disagree with those who are currently seeking alternatives, however, the same thing could just as easily happen to people on my side of the political spectrum in the future. Big Tech may be socially liberal, but economically they are driven by MONEY and that is going to trump (so to speak) their ethics every time, in the long run. Monopolies are dangerous whether you think they're on "your side" or not.
I haven’t looked into this a lot, but I believe Google is under investigation for antitrust activity. I don’t know if it’s for the way they dominate search, but it should be. Think about how so many people's livelihood depends on the arbitrary decisions of one company and where they decide to place a business in search results. As a private company they have the right to do this, but the problem is that we effectively have no alternatives. Other search engines just don’t have the same level of usage and clout because Google has done everything possible to kill them.
It’s the same with social media. Several months ago my Facebook ads account got suspended because I was advertising a product that was similar to something they had recently decided not to allow, but have not made it clear in the rules. I wasn’t selling anything harmful, it was a rule change because of the pandemic. But fine, I changed the ads, resubmitted and they were approved. A few days later my ad account got banned for the ads they had approved. I appealed and they denied in a way that made it obvious no human had looked at the situation. I still can’t advertise on Facebook. It’s so messed up that I’m essentially begging them to take my money. It should be the other way around. Companies should make you want to advertise with them and care about making you happy as a customer/advertiser. But they know you have limited alternatives and so they can do whatever they want.
The only silver lining of not being able to advertise my affiliate site was that I decided to learn SEO because I had to rely on organic traffic. And here I am! But multiple big companies still outrank me for keywords even though they have not had the products in stock for months. If that is not unfairly favoring large corporations, I don't know what is.
By the way, all of this also applies to the political situation. The problem isn’t that these platforms are banning people as they have the right to do, but that they are also trying to shut down other companies that provide a space for discussion. To be clear, no website should be allowing death threats and the like, but these big companies have so much control now that they can actually stop the creation of alternative platforms. I vehemently disagree with those who are currently seeking alternatives, however, the same thing could just as easily happen to people on my side of the political spectrum in the future. Big Tech may be socially liberal, but economically they are driven by MONEY and that is going to trump (so to speak) their ethics every time, in the long run. Monopolies are dangerous whether you think they're on "your side" or not.
