Good Hacker News thread about what Web 1.0 businesses still make money. One of the answers is affiliate, but even better than the answer is this explanation of the complicated relationship between Google and affiliates: “Big Daddy G basically sees most affiliates as bugs which, if fixed, would entitle them to an extra 100%+ on the purchase at issue over what they’re getting currently. This results in a frenemy dynamic because affiliates also spend $$$$$$$$ on AdWords.” That’s the trouble with Google, whether they like to admit it or not, they’re in competition with many of their biggest customers and like to pretend they’re not.
February 12, 2012 // This post is about: affiliate, business, google, search
This one’s pretty hilarious. Google ran a sponsored post campaign for Google Chrome and in turn forget to make sure that the links included in the posts didn’t pass credibility. I’ve been really annoyed with this policy from Google for a long time and I’m happy to see them screw up. Like Search Engine Land wrote, “It also raises the serious question that if Google can’t keep track of its own rules, what hope is there that third parties are supposed to figure it all out?” Google has forced webmasters to be responsible for something that their algorithm should be able to figure out. I know that’s hard/impossible, but I thing this brings into focus how confusing the policy really is.
A search for “browser” in Google doesn’t show Chrome on the first page.
January 4, 2012 // This post is about: chrome, google, search
I never read Steven Levy’s In the Plex, but I was just mentioning this quote about Google’s speed to someone and thought it was worth sharing here:
[Google] was too good. If Excite were to host a search engine that instantly gave people information they sought, [Excite’s CEO] explained, the users would leave the site instantly. Since his ad revenue came from people staying on the site—“stickiness” was the most desired metric in websites at the time—using Google’s technology would be counterproductive. “He told us he wanted Excite’s search engine to be 80 percent as good as the other search engines,” … and we were like, “Wow, these guys don’t know what they’re talking about.”
November 14, 2011 // This post is about: excite, google, search
