With great power, they say, comes great responsibility. This is because corruption is usually just around the corner. That’s where Internet giant Google seems to be headed, as they have recently been fined a record breaking $2.7 billion for skewering search results. People are finding it very hard to compete with the bigger parties on the Internet already without Google actively placing its results first.
The problem with the Alphabet corporation exists in its monopoly over the Internet. They are, by far, the best search engine out there, and certainly the most used. The corporation itself is on the forefront of many innovative technologies and the founder of what we use today. They are the best when it comes to user satisfaction, but when it comes to small businesses, they spell doom.
Google is horribly unfair to those trying to use the Internet to have a voice. Whether your voice comes in the form of a blog post, or a picture, or an item that you want to sell, it is almost impossible to compete with the big players in whatever market you are in without relying on ads.
For those of you who use Google for advertising, don’t worry, you’re not alone in your frustration. AdWords is a system that even journalists at Forbes don’t recommend. AdWords is the search results that appear at the top, or side of your screen when you search for a specific query. You only have to pay Google for publishing these ads when someone actually clicks on your site. In theory, it’s great. You can get to the top of Google’s search result, and you only have to pay for the people that actually visit your site. These people should be potential customers. You should be getting revenue.
Except nowadays you pay dollars for each person that clicks the result, instead of pennies. You can end up paying anywhere from $5 to $60 per click, depending on how many people want to use your specific keywords. You don’t get a guarantee that the person who has visited your page will have bought anything. They could visit, their computer could die, and they could reboot and visit your page through the same ad, and you will have paid Google twice for the same visitor.
There are similar problems with AdSense, the sister service that Google offers. AdSense is AdWords, except instead of appearing in Google search results, they appear in websites. Like AdWords, AdSense has let many people down. See https://www.seoclerk.com/faq/19219/Banned-by-Adsense-Here-are-some-adsense-alternatives for more information about AdSense alternatives.
Google used to be a wonderful tool for small businesses. Now it caters to well-known brands who can pay hundreds of thousands of dollars per month to advertise their product. On top of that, many of Google’s security systems block or ban users for seemingly no reason, and it’s hard to get reinstated. In an ideal world, Google is fair and equal to all. For now, it seems to be fair and equal to big brands and to users, rather than small businesses.
