A few years ago I made the joke about Google buying digg.com and turning it into an affiliate site for gardening products.
After Google has now become a credit card affiliate and giving itself preferred ranking in its search engine it seems it is now competing with the very same sites it has indexed in its search engine.
Moneysupermarket.com gets a third of its revenue from Google organic searches and investment analysts are warning that Googles move into making money from credit card sales could wipe out two-thirds of moneysupermarket.com’s earnings. And the share price has dropped 8.1 per cent lower at 116.2p, its sharpest daily fall in four years.
Does this mean it’s the right time for those relying on Google to seek viable alternatives? But as Google has a virtual monopoly on internet search it’s difficult to see where else to go.
It’s one thing when a website has to worry about another competitor setting up a website, but when Google squats its Billion dollar corporate ass over your niche you may as well pack up and go home.
Time to think beyond Google