Site sues Google over search rankings – Mar. 19, 2006 — This is just ridiculous. Incredible. That said, many sites, including Dvorak Uncensored rely on Google for the majority of its page views. But why should Google be responsible for page views? A Google hit is essentially free advertising. I’m on the Google side of this debate.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A parental advice Internet site has sued Google Inc., charging it unfairly deprived the company of customers by downgrading its search-result ranking without reason or warning.
The civil lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, Friday by KinderStart.com seeks financial damages along with information on how Google ranks Internet sites when users conduct a Web-based search.
Google could not immediately be reached for comment but the company aggressively defends the secrecy of its patented search ranking system and asserts its right to adapt it to give customers what it determines to be the best results.
KinderStart charges that Google without warning in March 2005 penalized the site in its search rankings, sparking a “cataclysmic” 70 percent fall in its audience — and a resulting 80 percent decline in revenue.
This is most likely nothing more than a brilliant PR move on Kinderstart’s part. Its server is probably smoking right now from all the blog generated traffic. Moreover, it was only a question of time before a law suit of this nature was launched because Goog screws over a hundred sites a day in this manner.
You could be next.
Google should now ban KinderStart for attempting to boost their search by embedding hidden search terms like BMW AG did several months back.
I guess I can now sue Google for not displaying my site at all? I guess Google violated my first amendment. Seriously, if anyone is violating our first amendment, it would be the federal government.
I totally agree with John on this one.
If sites want free avertising, they should pay for it, not just sue a company that was essentially promoting the litigious person’s site for free.
You don’t see Yellow Pages giving away adverts for free, why should google?
Addition, perhaps Kindersafe should consider paying for a few adsense advertisments, that way they can be assured of their site getting the recognition they think it deserves!
So what? They’re third down the list. I have seen it with other businesses. If you want it shown at the top or on the first page pay to advertise on the page when you type in “kinderstart”. Isn’t that how Google makes money? If you notice there is no advertising on that Google page. Of course, Yahoo now has a link to this suit at their #5.
What is interesting is what is shown at the top on Google,
http://www.kinderstart.co.uk/ , is not shown on Yahoo’s first page at all.
More “we-are-ENTITLED-to-something-for-nothing” from the parent industry. Big surprise.
Brilliant move by kinderstart. The publicity is sure to triple their hits to at least six or seven.
What do they do any way? I’m sure not checking them out.
I average about 15 regular readers to my blog, with about the same number of one time hits each month. Now thats tiny by anyones standards, but search “jasontheodd” in google, yahoo, or MSN and I’m at or near the top. I don’t expect it, it’s just a fluke. And if somebody using a similar sounding name gets above me then more power to them. It is a pretty reasonable system. Unless you had some proof of malice then I don’t see what hope you would have in court.
Perhaps people such as those from Kinderstart think that Google is a search engine monopoly. Sor far they have proved not to be the evil giant; however, to many they ARE the only game in town.
Granted Google has some kinks that need to be worked on however kinder startt lawsuite makes no sence.
If no one is searching for Kinder starts search terms then they will not get the traffic. they also need to provide the content to back up the search and links to top sites.
All google does is sets up the paramaters and lets the robots do the magic.
#9 Jason You have a real nice blog!
keep working it!
Currently your Blog has a Page Rank of 0
The reason your name pops up first is because
“jasontheodd” is not a popular search term thus less competiton.
only 2 pages.
If your name was Howard Stern you would be in the shadows.
The Trick is to be top on a popular search term!
For Example.
Susan Lucci is A list. celebrity!
Very popular!
If you type in Susan lucci under image search you will see Richard Brill’s TCF.NET on the top page.
HOPEFULLY 🙂
If you do a google search you will find me on page 3.
HOPEFULLY 🙂
This changes all the time at one time I was on top of the search.
I really worked hard to accomplish this.
Time after time I see this these days. Corporations trying to sue their way into profit. Often it works.
Richard Brill,
Thanks, it’s just a freebie blog though (not enough traffic to get hot and bothered about, just Linux geeks like me)
Must confess, I’m a Dogpile man myself. Got mad at google addsense and I think I unconsciously avoid them. They kept trying to sell wrist watches on my old blog.com site (long dead) with out even a single mention of the word. Just got annoying.
zybch wrote:
“If sites want free avertising, they should pay for it”
Ok, now WTF?
Problems on Google..
try doing a general search, And common wording.
ALOT of sites have been hijacking Google to OTHER search engines.
NOT even legit search engines. They are SALES sites that ONLY show sites that are paying for the service, and to hack sites..
Any general search will show up, 1-2 on the 1st page, and they are ALL thru your search…
Are we ever going to get any tort reform in this country? Deep pockets == easy money. It’s sad.
Throw this out and make then pay Google for any fees incurred.
Mike T
Isn’t it blatantly obvious that any business whose model is built upon its Google Search ranking is floating on a shaky foundation? They’re claiming a loss of 70 – 80% in revenues. The story shouldn’t be about the “loss,” it should be about how friggin’ lucky they were for getting 70 – 80% more revenue than they actually deserved.
Google’s site rankings ough to be performed at the whim of Google. If it stops pleasing the surfer at large, the surfer at large will stop using Google.
…that’s my take.
I’ve been on the receiving end of the “disappeared from google” once before. I found solace with several other webmasters at the Google Groups. http://groups.google.com/groups/search?q=lost+my+site+ranking Who all complained of the same thing. They had a nice little site that was paying the hosting bills and being entirely self sufficient, and then inexplicably they dropped off the face of the google.
Desparate to hold on to what I felt was “my moment of genius”, I bought http://ntldrismissing.com and purchased advertising (using Google AdSense no less) to drive traffic back.
Within 2 weeks the rankings for my site were right back where they used to be, likely not a result of my advertising shenanigans but a return to however they were ranking sites before.