Google is all about the user experience ... My Ass
 

Another article taking an in-depth look at google's ever increasing share of the pie and how they manipulate searchers attention to ends that make google more money.

** See Hong Kong hotels example.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/2125...k=false&uprof=

You have to sing up to read the full article.:winkwink:

Did someone say ass??

Sorry ... I'll copy and paste it:

There's hardly an area of technology or digital content in which the incumbents don't fear Google (GOOG, GOOGL), which, due to its domination of Internet search, can have a big say over where on the Web curious consumers wind up.

Online travel is among the areas Google is throwing its weight around. Go ahead and Google Hong Kong hotels, and you'll see something that didn't exist a few years ago: a horizontal stripe across the top of the page of actual hotels, drawing users' eyes away from the listings of a normal Google search, the stuff that appears below, which is largely online travel agencies. Click on hotels in the stripe and you'll be led to a reservation system of sorts, one in which Google gets more income.

That has to be frustrating to online travel companies which are among Google's best customers. Priceline (PCLN) spent $1.8 billion last year on online advertising. Though it doesn't break down where that money went, one surmises Google got the biggest share, either directly or indirectly (as we'll explain below). Expedia (EXPE) spent $1.2 billion on all kinds of advertising (online and offline) last year, and we're guessing again that Google got more of that money than any other player. TripAdvisor (TRIP) spent $236.5 million on ads last year. And there are several more huge players advertising heavily to attract eyes online.

GOOG Revenue (TTM) data by YCharts

Airlines, car rental outfits, individual hotels, hotel chains, meta-search travel outfits like Kayak (owned by Priceline) and many other travel players all get huge portions of their business via Internet searches dominated by Google. In recent years, those advertising dollars have become less efficient, as competition has increased, so Priceline and others spend a higher percentage of revenue on ads as time goes on.

From Google's point of view, that means it extracts a rising percentage of each consumer travel dollar. One more reason to do some investment research on Google.

TripAdvisor's overall sales and marketing expense, for instance (and advertising is the bulk of that category) has consumed a growing percentage of sales: 39.0% in 2013 vs. 32.8% two years earlier. Same for Expedia, where sales and marketing expense (advertising is the largest component of the category) consumed 46.0% of revenue in 2013, up from 42.8% two years earlier in 2011. The same trend is seen at Priceline.

And even ad dollars not spent with Google can end up back at Google. TripAdvisor, formerly owned by Expedia and spun off in 2011, gets 47% of its revenue - or $444 million in 2013 out of a total of $944 million - from the combination of Expedia and Priceline paying for clicks from its site. As enumerated above, TripAdvisor spends about one quarter of its revenue on advertising, and we're persuaded Google - again, directly or indirectly - gets the lion's share.

So, Google doesn't have to dominate the online travel business in any traditional sense to be the winner in this space. In fact, the across-the-board reliance on Google ads to generate traffic and customers means that, even if a huge player like Priceline falters (not likely anytime soon) Google would likely pick up business from the companies disrupting Priceline.

(As we wrote earlier this month, Priceline is an unusually well-positioned technology company with a huge head start in the most sought-after and lucrative area of travel, foreign hotels. Its acquisition of booking.com about a decade ago stands as one of the most astute corporate deals in memory. Though its ads aren't as efficient as they once were, Priceline realizes substantial economies of scale, widening gross margins and appears to operate more efficiently than the competition.)

PCLN Revenue (TTM) data by YCharts

If Google were a traditional competitor in online travel, seeing the rapid revenue growth of these companies would be discouraging. But with its unique position, their success is Google's success.

why is that surprising? or unusual in any way? doesn't every company try to maximize it's revenues?

Because they claim that what they want is to provide the best user experience and what they are doing here is directing everyone to a destination that makes google most money instead.

Of course companies try to maximize profit but google constantly sings the chorus about 'user experience' being at it's core when really most know better.

Sure, I think the complaint though is that they've really diverged sharply in the past year or two from providing a relatively objective & useful service via their search engine, to one that now points consumers towards their many properties at the expense of the SE's quality. The change has been really noticeable. And it's just going to get worse because such a huge chunk of the public is conditioned to use Google's "free" services without thinking about what's going on behind the scenes.

It's also kinda a drag because of what it symbolizes. For years the internet was a relatively democratic place where things were equalized compared to brick & mortar - the little guy had a much better chance of eking out a spot. Now we're seeing more and more big corporate entities collaborating and crowding out the small competition.

You can see that in adult pretty blatantly - used to be tons of indie paysites and a huge population of affiliates. Now both have dwindled and it's mostly tubes and large programs out there. Prolly the end of an era for the internet, and I don't think for the better...

I agree, what you said is all true, but it's not a shocker at all... since they did the IPO, it was obvious that the objective will become "we need to beat quarterly estimates every quarter"... that's just how the game works, pretty much all companies are run like that...

for a while they managed to increase revenues by innovation, but lately, my guess is that that started to dry up... so they kinda became forced to diverge a bit in order to keep increasing revenue...

it's unfortunate, but this outcome was inevitable...

Don't use them then - Oh wait...

Google my ass...

they love money not you

I agree that that's when it started and when everything changed.

I really is a failure as a search engine now.

Trying to find a music clubs webpage, even typing it name and locality just brings up "whats on" sites...

Try finding a hotels actual address or website.

Having more and more to try other search engines

No argument there.

I (and most people I think) just thought they'd be more "elegant" about it. Google has many properties and 100x more secondary business relationships than that, they monetize their data & services in ways the average consumer can't even comprehend - I just figured they didn't need to augment the income stream by blatantly crowbarring crap into their search results. It just feels.... clumsy.

But my negative experiences as a webmaster informs my opinion of the SE quality as a user, if nothing else because I'm primed to notice the shitty irrelevant results even when I'm not on the clock. Do regular users notice it? If they do, will it become enough to look for alternatives? Not sure.

The other question is whether search engines in general will be obsolete in the near future due to proprietary apps & networks (another symptom of the closing Web). Perhaps Google knows this and is looking to take advantage while it lasts, knowing that emphasizing search engine quality over profit won't serve them long-term.

The search, especially for anything local is very inaccurate at times with useless results, or totally outdated, it's almost like if they wanted to deliberately offer crap organic search results to force one to click ad-words.

Google results blows the goats.

Google hiding behind the user experience bs updated android developer policies march 30th. In a nutshell they call the shots where an app developer can advertise and how or they risk getting their app removed from android play store. User experience... to get more advertisers to admob :)

I don't see a "user experience" conflict in this example.
They are trying to provide a better experience for their user. If they believe their implementation is better than booking.com, kayak.com, hotelscombined.com - why can't they try and make money at the same time?

The gripe I'm reading has no relation to their user experience, but how they are screwing their media buyers.

Based on the SERP I see, it's a pretty good user experience.

Every company try to make more money.I do the same....

I wonder if Google has become too big to fail. If they were on the brink of bankruptcy, would they be bailed out? Sure, their [lately quite shitty] search product can quickly be replaced by someone else like Bing, but what about all of the little products that Google weasels into our online (and even offline) lives? How dependent are we on the big G?

The keywords you mentioned above are, 'if they believed ...'

For some reason, whatever they 'believe' happens to always make them more money.

As for user experience I 'believe' that offering a few different companies in the first 4 four spots of organic search is always better for the user. Let the user choose. Google does not know best.

Because they have a monopoly on search and they are using it to squeeze out competition

True, 1# Goal: Make money for their sock holders:2 cents:

Of course.

What I am doing is calling them out on their bullshit:

"Everything we do is to enhance user experience"

Stop using goygle and spread the word, change IS possible.