An unofficial blog that watches Google's attempts to move your operating system online since 2005. Not affiliated with Google.

Send your tips to gostips@gmail.com.

December 20, 2006

Google Pushing Blogger... Really Hard

It's no secret that Google uses AdWords to promote its products. If you search for "blogger" you'll have a surprise (for "blog" the situation is similar). Basically, there's a very slim chance someone will go to other site than blogger.com. Why?

1. There's an ad for blogger.com at the top.

2. Google recommends you to try Blogger (you'll see the same tip for almost any keyword that contains "blog"; that includes: "blogs", "blogosphere", "weblog", "bloglines").

3. The first result is for blogger.com and there are also four more pages displayed next to the result.

4. The second search result is still for blogger.com.

So, basically, the first eight relevant links from the page send you to blogger.com.

Posted by at

18 comments:

  1. AnonymousDecember 20, 2006 at 5:43 AM

    is there any news of gafyd integration?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Helge Olav HelgsenDecember 20, 2006 at 7:46 AM

    I get the same result in Norway when I use google.com, except for some ads for some local blog servers.

    www.google.no is more balanced as only the two first entries are for blogger.com.

    But gow do I get ads on top of the search results???

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousDecember 20, 2006 at 8:10 AM

    If you search for 'canalblog' (in France, and maybe anywhere else), you get the same thing.
    Canalblog is a French blogging site...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Alex ChituDecember 20, 2006 at 8:29 AM

    Yes, basically they show the tip for anything that contains blog. Even for xxblogxxx, which is not a word.

    Google also promotes Calendar in the same way (search for Yahoo Calendar.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousDecember 20, 2006 at 10:35 AM

    And Google isn't allowed to pimp their own blogging service?

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousDecember 20, 2006 at 11:18 AM

    Yes this is very true of Google in general of using AdWords to promote their services.

    It seems that Blogger is particularly important to them.

    Here are my findings about the subject matter.

    A bit of a shame IMO, but nevertheless the case.

    Thanks,

    Jason
    Flexewebs

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousDecember 20, 2006 at 12:07 PM

    If you search for "blogger" on Yahoo! you get similar results. I don't see what the big deal is.

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousDecember 20, 2006 at 6:14 PM

    And for live.com

    Results for the keyword blog at live.com :
    1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
    2. www.blogger.com/start
    3. blogger.com
    4. googleblog.blogspot.com
    5. blogsearch.google.com
    6. dictionary.reference.com/search?q=blog
    7. analytics.blogspot.com

    #1 and #6 are explanations to a blog. (space.live.com not on top 10 ?)

    But no blogger on right-column sponsored sites.

    ReplyDelete
  9. AnonymousDecember 20, 2006 at 9:53 PM

    Helge: The top ads are there by default. However, if Google notices that you never click on them (I think you have to do six searches in a row without clicking one), they will set a cookie so they don't show up anymore.

    If for some reason you'd like to see them, you can just delete your Google cookie (but they will go away again eventually, unless you keep on deleting the cookie forever).

    ReplyDelete
  10. joeDecember 21, 2006 at 11:53 AM

    I wish blogger would offer a version for photobloggers - with features that WE want - unique for photoblogs

    ReplyDelete
  11. Alex ChituDecember 21, 2006 at 12:18 PM

    And what do photobloggers want?

    Here's what I'd like to see:
    - create an album in Picasa Web that stores all your photos. you can delete them, see the posts that link to them, resize them, apply effects and more.
    - when you upload photos, have an option to upload two versions of a photo: small and large.
    - post by email: image attachments.
    - an easy way to view high-resolution photos embedded in a blog (like in Picasa Web).

    ReplyDelete
  12. AnonymousDecember 23, 2006 at 9:37 AM

    This is a dumb article. This happens for most widely known domain names if you just type it in with out the www. or the .com
    Trying "aol" you get the first two plus pages full of aol.com links.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Alex ChituDecember 23, 2006 at 9:45 AM

    No, Mr. Sam, the post isn't dumb - you didn't understand it. The main point is that Google started to show some "tips" at the top of the search results pages. These tips promote Blogger, Google Calendar and other Google products if your query contains "blog", "calendar", etc.

    I was just saying that these tips are pretty redundant for a query like "Blogger" where there is already an ad for Blogger, a top result with four internal pages and many other results in the top 10.

    ReplyDelete
  14. AnonymousDecember 24, 2006 at 12:39 AM

    russian google does not show any link to blogspot in top 10 results

    ReplyDelete
  15. AnonymousDecember 25, 2006 at 10:13 PM

    I think Blogger is running scared. Wordpress is really making some moves at the moment, and the introduction of paid upgrades gives them a revenue stream. Expect the battle for "newbie bloggers" to really hot up in '07.

    ReplyDelete
  16. AnonymousDecember 2, 2007 at 11:12 AM

    By all hi!!!
    I from Russia. I am sorry for my bad English!!!
    At me the question because of what events occurs increase PR of a site?
    At me on a site PR-2 why so happens...
    http://zarobotay.blogspot.com/
    Whether it influences search???

    ReplyDelete
  17. Alex ChituDecember 2, 2007 at 12:23 PM

    PageRank is calculated for each web page, not just for a domain. To get a higher PageRank, your page needs to have either a significant number of backlinks or a small number of links from important sites.

    More about PageRank
    Also read Wikipedia's entry

    ReplyDelete
  18. BradDecember 27, 2007 at 1:35 PM

    Not anymore

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)