The central defining quality of Google search was that they didn't do that. That's what that quote refers to. Google wasn't the first search engine. It wasn't the best, at least not initially. But Google, the first decade, refused to destroy it's own relevance for a buck, and all the others did. From Yahoo to Altavista.
It now appears it was a delay tactic. 2-3 ads on the side, next to 10-20 "organic" search results, like Google in 2005, was great and nice. And it's certainly true that occasionally the ads were useful. The ads, like the search results, were high quality.
Now Google barely has one organic search result visible. I just checked for the search "credit card", which I know is bad, but ... The first organic search result is the fifth, with only 2 results actually visible when you do the search, both "sponsored". 3 and 4, not on the first page, are sponsored too. And if you don't want commercial search results for that search (excluding wikipedia that seems to get very special treatment) the first organic result, the first result not trying to get you to put yourself into debt ... well, I gave up after scrolling though at least 20 pages. It just isn't there anymore.
Hell, it isn't even that long ago that in-line ads were on the first page of Google ... now they take up 80% of the space on every page of Google results. So organic results have been banned from the 2nd page to at least the 21st page or so. There's no more point to "Googling".
Google now really does look like Yahoo looked in 2000. And last year they did layoffs, just like yahoo. What I don't understand is how investors fool themselves into believing the stock price won't do the exact same thing. 5-10 more years and Google gets sold to Verizon for 10 billion. And why? Because no manager at Google will risk their career on getting 1% less out of their customers than they did last quarter ... and they do that like everyone else: by accepting every last dollar every last scummy advertiser makes to Google.
It now appears it was a delay tactic. 2-3 ads on the side, next to 10-20 "organic" search results, like Google in 2005, was great and nice. And it's certainly true that occasionally the ads were useful. The ads, like the search results, were high quality.
Now Google barely has one organic search result visible. I just checked for the search "credit card", which I know is bad, but ... The first organic search result is the fifth, with only 2 results actually visible when you do the search, both "sponsored". 3 and 4, not on the first page, are sponsored too. And if you don't want commercial search results for that search (excluding wikipedia that seems to get very special treatment) the first organic result, the first result not trying to get you to put yourself into debt ... well, I gave up after scrolling though at least 20 pages. It just isn't there anymore.
Hell, it isn't even that long ago that in-line ads were on the first page of Google ... now they take up 80% of the space on every page of Google results. So organic results have been banned from the 2nd page to at least the 21st page or so. There's no more point to "Googling".
Google now really does look like Yahoo looked in 2000. And last year they did layoffs, just like yahoo. What I don't understand is how investors fool themselves into believing the stock price won't do the exact same thing. 5-10 more years and Google gets sold to Verizon for 10 billion. And why? Because no manager at Google will risk their career on getting 1% less out of their customers than they did last quarter ... and they do that like everyone else: by accepting every last dollar every last scummy advertiser makes to Google.