Debate is already gearing up, with commentators divided over whether Google was mistaken to have launched another peripheral element - which many see as irrelevant to the more general crisis of direction Google is seen to be labouring under - or if this is the first step in a radical rethinking of the monetisation strategy which has so increased Google's stock in recent years. Its an issue at once specialised and indicative of a potential rethink of Google itself. Are we returning to the online staple, prominent years ago, of 'portal' companies - a concept so dismantled by the effectiveness of Google search itself?
It's clearly vital to Google to maintain something approaching the excessive growth that has come to be expected of the search engine company by financial analysts, yet Google's advertising revenue is considered to be reaching a plateau. The solution for Google seems to be the discovery of innovative new ways to generate advertising revenue and attract useful traffic through its search engine - hence the portal concept suddenly seems viable again.
Google releases have been increasingly controversial, with, for example, speculation rife last week regarding the existence or not of serious plans for the infinite capacity Google project the 'GDrive' - speculation, it is nice to be able to say, predicted by our own team here at bigmouthmedia (http://www.bigmouthmedia.com / newsletter / html2003.asp?newsletter=159). And current critics of Google's 'seller reputation' element also point to this as one of many developments by the search engine giant which seem to have something less than the focus Google has demonstrated historically.
Google is intense speculation over its future prospects, principally because advertising opportunities are being perceived to have reached a monetisation limit as predicted by market analysts. Innovation is required but it is not obvious, from statements made recently by Google itself, where that innovation will come from or how it will integrate with the existing services Google provides.
The 'seller reputation' element is potentially one more example of this perceived uncertainty and lack of innovation. But take a moment to consider the concept of the 'seller reputation' element within Google as a whole. Consider, specifically, the synergistic implications of a Google-wide rating system. If information gathered from Google Base could be used to identify disreputable ecommerce sites then could a penalty not be applied to the corresponding domain in the Google SERPs? Could a site even be removed from SERPs as a result of consistently bad user feedback? Google Base could well become another element to now consider in the optimisation of a site.
True, this system would provide a more direct link between the offline quality of service and online rankings. But it's also true that it is difficult to see all the liabilities such a system could throw up, and it would become extremely hard to quantify precisely how to monitor any abuse of the system, not to mention potential confidence loss over Google's 'objective' approach to search engine rankings. Nevertheless, it is an example of the inherent value of any offering from Google as the search engine's next step is searched for.
