A great guest post was written on Tech Crunch yesterday asking whether search engines should be regulated.

Do you think Google has too much power? Many websites receive 25-50% of their unique visitors from Google, something which can disappear overnight with an algorithm change or be manually changed at any time for any reason Google sees fit. Generic .com domains can help a bit here, however the impact from even a small change in search engine position can be devastating for most businesses. Google reserves the right to close your publisher account for any reason or no reason, leaving you unable to purchase paid listings. There’s no set of guidelines on quality scores or traffic quality and how do we even know Google isn’t intentionally scoring people lower to keep more revenue for themselves? Why can’t domain owners know what percentage of Google’s revenue they’re getting from clicks their parked domains generate? Are you worried about how much Google knows about you?

After hearing all that, care to change your mind? I have to agree with the guest poster on Tech Crunch. Almost everyone relies on search engines nowadays to find what they’re looking for. Is it wise to let one company determine what 75% of Internet users find when they do a search? Is there even an incentive for Google to return reliable results — wouldn’t it be better for their bottom line if people had to look around for what they wanted and hopefully end up clicking the sponsored ads more often? Google’s frequent algorithm changes and ever-increasing algorithm complexity have made top SEOs a valuable commodity. The people who need search engines most (small businesses and individuals) don’t have the money to hire top SEOs which can run anywhere from $300-$1000 per hour. Google is now ranking big brands higher in the search results solely because they’re big brands (and maybe because they provide Google with the large majority of it’s revenue through paid search).

Thoughts?

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1. Bing Users More Valuable
2. Finding End Users for New Domain Name Extensions
3. Social Media’s Effect on Search Engines