4 ms·

Are Google Brand Links making it tougher for your online business to compete?

22 points by shandsaker 16y ago

chaosmachine 16y ago
Yuck. More proof that Google gives "brand name" businesses an unfair advantage.
- DenisM 16y ago
  The big boys have it easy in many aspects, off Google and on Google. The other example of the latter is domain authority which also heavily favors big boys. I'm not sure it's reasonable to expect Google to democratize internet. They probably do what's more profitable, and it's likely that suggesting familiar brands makes surfers buy-happy.
- jackowayed 16y ago
  Google's goal is to get people to the most useful page for what they're looking for. There's a good chance that what they really want is the website of a brand they've heard of, so it makes sense that Google would want to put those brands at the top. Sure, it's kind of an unfair advantage, but so is the fact that people have heard of Victoria's Secret and not Freshpair. But you can't fault Google for trying to make their search better at sending people to the site they're looking for.
  - briansmith 16y ago
    Google's goal is to make itself as much money as possible. If Google thought that result was the best one for the user, it would rank it #1 in the SERPs. You can see over the last few years that they are increasingly putting profitable (for Google) links in front of the most relevant results. And, when they can't find anything profitable to put in front of the top link, they try to find other ways to avoid you clicking through--e.g. "search within this site."
vaksel 16y ago
Google has been tweaking search for a while now. From what I've seen, their goal with all these brand links/shopping links etc is to make people buy adwords to show up in results.
Qz 16y ago
I didn't even see the brand links at first, not sure how they're going to kill a business.
ghergich 16y ago
http://www.authoritydomains.com/blogs/seo/4-ways-to-use-google-brand-links-to-your-advantage.php http://www.authoritydomains.com/blogs/seo/4-ways-to-use-goog... I think you can turn this around and actually get traffic from it. Just posted a blog about it.

22 points by shandsaker 16y ago

chaosmachine 16y ago

Yuck. More proof that Google gives "brand name" businesses an unfair advantage.

DenisM 16y ago
The big boys have it easy in many aspects, off Google and on Google. The other example of the latter is domain authority which also heavily favors big boys. I'm not sure it's reasonable to expect Google to democratize internet. They probably do what's more profitable, and it's likely that suggesting familiar brands makes surfers buy-happy.
jackowayed 16y ago
Google's goal is to get people to the most useful page for what they're looking for. There's a good chance that what they really want is the website of a brand they've heard of, so it makes sense that Google would want to put those brands at the top. Sure, it's kind of an unfair advantage, but so is the fact that people have heard of Victoria's Secret and not Freshpair. But you can't fault Google for trying to make their search better at sending people to the site they're looking for.
- briansmith 16y ago
  Google's goal is to make itself as much money as possible. If Google thought that result was the best one for the user, it would rank it #1 in the SERPs. You can see over the last few years that they are increasingly putting profitable (for Google) links in front of the most relevant results. And, when they can't find anything profitable to put in front of the top link, they try to find other ways to avoid you clicking through--e.g. "search within this site."

vaksel 16y ago

Google has been tweaking search for a while now. From what I've seen, their goal with all these brand links/shopping links etc is to make people buy adwords to show up in results.

Qz 16y ago

I didn't even see the brand links at first, not sure how they're going to kill a business.

ghergich 16y ago

http://www.authoritydomains.com/blogs/seo/4-ways-to-use-google-brand-links-to-your-advantage.php http://www.authoritydomains.com/blogs/seo/4-ways-to-use-goog... I think you can turn this around and actually get traffic from it. Just posted a blog about it.