I love this piece in Ad Age if only for the way it characterizes Google’s results, at least in the eyes of a troubled traditional media world:
Major media companies are increasingly lobbying Google to elevate their expensive professional content within the search engine’s undifferentiated slush of results.
Many publishers resent the criteria Google uses to pick top results, starting with the original PageRank formula that depended on how many links a page got. But crumbling ad revenue is lending their push more urgency; this is no time to show up on the third page of Google search results. And as publishers renew efforts to sell some content online, moreover, they’re newly upset that Google’s algorithm penalizes paid content.
“You should not have a system,” one content executive said, “where those who are essentially parasites off the true producers of content benefit disproportionately.”
Where “true producers,” of course, are media companies that make packaged goods content. On the other hand, there is a point here. And the piece is worthy of the read.