Comments on: Interview: For AOL/Google, The Devil Is In the Details

By: Business for sale

Business for sale — Fri, 30 Dec 2005 19:41:20 +0000

Mismatches turn out to be the best partnerships

By: Steve Bryandi

Steve Bryandi — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 10:31:32 +0000

a very interesting interview and in future it is good to know, that a google friendly page have good chances to get a place in the aol output serps, but the interview is very good – thanks to john. best wishes for a happy new year!
Steve

By: Search Engines Web

Search Engines Web — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 03:31:15 +0000

1- If AOL is using Google SERPs, what does this mean…..
//Mayer reiterated that Google is not going to fiddle with its organic results in any way,
DUH!!

2- The only conceivable One Box benefit for Google would be taking advantage of AOL’s advanced Mutimedia offerings and including THEM as options in relevant queries … ahead of the Natural SERPs of course

3- There is STILL a void in the scenario as to why Yahoo did NOT win (did they appear too much like a portal competitor to be convincing? – perhaps MSN’s portalization was also the real reason – it just is NOT believable that a visit to the MS campus to be so-o disheartning as to kill a deal!)

4- This is in that controversial WSJ article – but not acknowleged in the interview

///AOL will also receive advertising credit valued at about $300 million toward buying ads on Google.

Surely, this had some effect

By: John Battelle

John Battelle — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 02:24:47 +0000

Update: I asked Google, and here’s what they said: “Google will share best practices of how to create a crawler friendly web site, but will not share non-public information.”

By: JG

JG — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 01:50:35 +0000

To simply reiterate what David Brake says above, this interview does not really clarify what sort of insider help Google plans on giving AOL. It doesn't matter if you don't change an algorithm; if you can give someone insider information on how to better "game" that algorithm, then the same overall outcome can be affected. Marissa might be completely telling the truth on "no algorithmic changes", but it does not really express what the rest of us are really trying to understand here.

I reiterate this, even though David has already made this comment, in order to underscore the point. It is really at the heart of what we are after here.

By: Philip Pearlman

Philip Pearlman — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 01:25:12 +0000

some takes:

1. still pretty murky despite a sharp guy asking the right questions. is a thing that makes me go hmmmm. surely...

2. this last statement, "so my guess is that to the general public those numbers will look very big" is critical. goog put up for aol which is bullish twx and very bullish for aol ipo in '07. i bet goog simply reticent to articulate the magnitude of it.

3. the deal is not signed yet. it is not done deal. msft could still try to buy aol property.

4. these companies already have a very successful history of the deal with each other. was lucrative and defining for goog and frankly it likely saved aol's butt from oblivian. they are a part of each others karass.

often the more salient a relationship which develops in good faith over time the more trust and sense of teamwork evolves. as well, on occasion apparent mismatches turn out to be the best partnerships as there is a complementarity, a gestalt where the whole is greater than the sum of parts.

i think of lennon and mccartney and a story paul told about how different they were but how well they wrote together because of these differences. paul would write, "its getting better all the time," and john would shoot back, "it cant get much worse" the perfect counter balance...

By: Fred

Fred — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 23:58:52 +0000

Marissa says there are currently 20 OneBoxes. I can come up with about a dozen I’ve seen. Anybody know what all 20 of these are?

By: kumar

kumar — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 23:50:58 +0000

someone take a picture of that literal devil as it lurks in the details …

By: Joe Hunkins

Joe Hunkins — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 23:20:59 +0000

Did you ask her this riddle?

What do you get when you cross the
UNcoolest internet company with what USED to be the coolest?

By: David Brake

David Brake — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 23:20:37 +0000

The part I would like clarification on (which you didn’t really touch on) is whether AOL is or is not getting any priviledged access to knowledge about how to get their pages indexed or perhaps being helped to add their content editorially in ways not accessible to people without deep pockets (eg direct database feeds). Seems like there are some increasingly murky ways in which you can ‘buy your way in’ to search even when the algorithms aren’t tilted in your favour.