Google is not presenting their own competing services in a biased way over others. They are presenting search results in context sensitive ways. Searching for sushi in a geographic location indicates you want to find sushi places in that area. A google map is the best possible way for google to present the information you want. Does a crowdsourced site completely dedicated to this tiny niche do a better job than google's algorithm? of course it does, but there is no way for google's algorithm to judge that for every query.
Search instead for "sushi review stockholm" and the cited website is the first result and there is no google map at the top, because the search does not indicate to google that the first priority is to simply find sushi places and nothing else.
Now if google was artificially placing gmail, or google docs, or any of their other service products that are not themselves presenting search results, above the competition for generic search terms; that would be a problem. The behaviour cited in the post is simply the best way for google to provide search results. Google maps is a core search technology, just like google image search, books, video etc. You can't use anti-monopoly rules to handicap the dominant product itself. Especially when all the competition (search providers) considers the same behaviour to be part of their core search service as well.
I'm sorry I don't buy this argument: When someone searches for "sushi stockholm" on Google, they aren't saying "Show me a map with all the sushi places in Stockholm". They are saying "I want to know more about getting sushi in Stockholm. Can you show me a webpage that can show me that?"
That webpage could well be the Google Maps website; and to level the playing field, Google could use a similar blue-link to the Google Maps page that highlights sushi places (or alternatively, show a map from the author's website).
I wouldn't, however, hold my breath. On the Internet, it's NEVER going to be completely fair. If they could, simple, personal geocities-based recipe sites would prevent AllRecipes and BBC from taking over "their" expertise (some of those old homepages had seriously awesome recipes!)
>they aren't saying "Show me a map with all the sushi places in Stockholm". They are saying "I want to know more about getting sushi in Stockholm. Can you show me a webpage that can show me that?"
[Citation needed]
Presumably if you're correct, and users aren't actually looking for the google maps interface, they'll skip it and move to the web results. Users have now come to expect this behavior from Google when they type in local search queries.
They aren't saying either of those things. They are saying "show me sushi stockholm" which google interprets as "show me sushi in stockholm" and as far as google knows (and accurately as far as I'm concerned when I use google), any sort of searches explicitly limited to a known geographic area are best answered by a map of that area with search results shown on top of it. If you search for "getting sushi in stockholm" you don't get a map. The language that triggers a map as the first result is very specific and not limited to google. Individuals may find that they don't like the map as the first result for some queries, but as a company every major search engine as decided this is the best way to present certain results. Rail against it as a website owner or user all you want, but it is absolutely a legitimate practice.
Of course it is possible to have better results for certain queries. Is it even remotely plausible for google to reliably decide that? To my knowledge, not without solving some very difficult problems, which they may or may not have any motivation to do, but they are certainly under no obligation to do it either.
Note that to see this behaviour on other search engines, you may need to use US locations. Yahoo and Bing don't seem to recognize stockholm as a location.
Now, what happens when I search for "sushi Baltimore"? I get Google's helpful map, and the websites for several sushi restaurants in Baltimore, but no single site that lists them all and does detailed reviews. In this case, Google's map was much more helpful than any of the actual listings. If Google didn't know about Ted's site, how are they supposed to put it above theirs? Mea culpa, you can't really claim Google is pushing their content above similar content if they don't know it exists.
Perhaps, as the submitter mentions in another comment here, Google could form a partnership, but that would require massive organization to set up. Even if they just wanted to form a partnership with all sushi listing websites in major cities, that would still require a lot more effort on Google's part for a benefit of...what? Better listings for sushi, yes, but would it be worth the trouble for them to index it all?
I prefer Google's results nearly 100% of the time. Quite often, it's more trustworthy. Not only that, most people are familiar with the Google maps interface, so that's what they would prefer. How do I know that his web site is going to be littered with custom maps and great information? I don't. He could be using yahoo maps or something I don't want to use, or could have his own opinions which I don't want to hear. Google Maps is going to be unbiased, easier to use, and better integrated into my phone.
Not only that, I EXPECT Google Maps results to be at the top of the mobile search view, if only because I don't want to have to find a suitable web site for which better data might be found. What if the top web site on Google's results was bunk (this happens more often than not), and then it was SushiKartan? I'd have to look at the top result, learn it was horrible, then click the second in hopes of it being relevant (it probably is not).
Basically, while this guy actually DOES have the best information, Google doesn't necessarily know that, and neither does its users. I don't want to waste my time looking for quality results ALL the time.
What should Google do here? Clearly, in this case users would be better served by the third party service. But overall, Google Maps results for these queries are probably a good thing. Is the answer that Google should index and present the information from Sushikartan in Google Maps? I don't know.
Why not index and present Sushikartan's hard earned relevant information and reward them. Perhaps with something like content revenue for click through traffic from the search results page. This would benefit Google's search results by producing the relevant and local aspect of a review. If Google had ad placements on the destination site the concept of content revenue could pay a better rate.
As an aside I expected to see some form of ad placement on the Sushikartan site that would help support my concept. No such luck. Not sure how it generates revenue.
I agree - but given Google's scale, managing the relationships with these kinds of third party sites could be challenging indeed. Perhaps they could set up a system similar to Webmaster Tool's sitemap submission where you could upload structured data to Maps including links back to your site?
Regarding Sushikartan's revenue, it's not entirely clear but I believe there is no direct revenue from Ted's map sites (he has a lot of similar sites to Sushikartan). He has a few maps sites with partners which probably brings in some revenue, but I think it is a traffic and reputation that is the main goal. Ted already had an exit a few years back, moderately sized but very good for a one-man shop.
Since the website already uses some javascript API to integrate google maps, I suppose the API could be extended to include information about what the little yellow blobs mean, which Google could then index appropriately. The map in the search results page could then contain markers from different sites, annotated by site, weighted by the site's page rank.
"Increasingly /.../ Google presents links to its own services, like maps, Youtube videos, local business results and product search listings. Executives argue that providing these easily accessible results clearly benefits users. Rivals claim that this is self-serving, and that Google promotes its content even though there may be better material elsewhere."
I am not sure whether this argument holds, since the Google Search itself defines, what is a "good material" and rank it.
Search instead for "sushi review stockholm" and the cited website is the first result and there is no google map at the top, because the search does not indicate to google that the first priority is to simply find sushi places and nothing else.
Now if google was artificially placing gmail, or google docs, or any of their other service products that are not themselves presenting search results, above the competition for generic search terms; that would be a problem. The behaviour cited in the post is simply the best way for google to provide search results. Google maps is a core search technology, just like google image search, books, video etc. You can't use anti-monopoly rules to handicap the dominant product itself. Especially when all the competition (search providers) considers the same behaviour to be part of their core search service as well.