On Larry Page leading Google and other search engine news

Big search engine news this week: Google founder Larry Page takes over as CEO after Eric Schmidt.

Apart from the argument that Page now has the necessary experience to run Google (GOOG), the reason for the switch is not known. The debate has thrown up a few sensible guesses, though.

Although Schmidt has run the company through a hugely successful period, some argue 10 years is enough. Whether bringing on one of the founders of the company as new CEO will bring renewal is questionable.

One thing is certain, making Page the one powerful man at the top, may make it easier to coordinate technology and product development in this big company. It seems co-founder Sergey Brin will be allowed to be the developer he thrives being, without having any formal leadership position.

Page is facing several important challenges:

• He has to develop a coherent strategy for Google’s social media prescence. Google Buzz was a disaster.


• He has to do something to counteract the new belief that the quality of Google’s search results are deteriorating because of spam (regardless of whether this is true or not).


• He has to make a more coherent narrative about what Google is, like in “We are a search engine, not a publisher” or “We are not a monopolist” to stop countries and public authorities from attacking the company (again whether this is true or not).


• He has to make sure that there is room for young and innovative entrepreneurs, avoiding the Yahoo! trap of becoming a conservative copy cat, bleeding talent in the process.


• He has to develop a sensible response to the attempts by companies like Apple and Facebook to close of large sections of the Internet in “closed gardens”, being that the closed networks of friends at Facebook or the apps of the iPhone and the iPad. Android and Chrome may be part of the solution.

Whoa!!! Larry Page To Take Over As Google CEO

John Battelle: Google Inc. said co-founder Larry Page will replace Eric Schmidt as chief executive, a surprise change atop the Internet giant. See also SE Land: Was It Time For A Fresh Face? Thoughts On Larry Page As The New Google CEO. Here is Schmidt’s own blog post. And finally Danny Sullivan: A To Do List For Google’s New CEO Larry Page.

More search engine news headlines

And here are some of the other articles we found interesting this week:

Confirmed: Google Readies “Google Offers” Groupon Clone

SE Land: Google has confirmed that it is preparing a service called “Google Offers,” designed to compete with the popular social buying site Groupon.

Google’s Eric Schmidt: ‘2011 All About Mobile’

SE Land: Google CEO Eric Schmidt, writing in the Harvard Business Review (via RWW), says that Google’s 2011 initiatives are ‘all about mobile.’ In his short piece he explains that geolocation on smartphones enables contexual personalization and a range of new possibilities and user experiences.

Google’s Knol Seems To Be Unit Of Knowledge People Don’t Use

SE Watch: Once thought of as the Wikipedia killer – the site seems to have some spam issues and has not been updated since December 2009, according to reports.

Google NOT ruling out Chrome OS tablets

techradar: Google has been consistent in its assertions that Chrome OS – at least in its first public incarnation – is designed for small laptops and netbooks.

The Web: Why Users No Longer Matter

SE Watch: The powerful have become so powerful — monetarily and technologically — they’ve been able to dictate to us, the users, what functionality will be on their sites. Now they’re beginning to dictate how the web will be used and how it will be delivered to us.



Yahoo switches on OpenID sign ins

techradar: Yahoo has finally gone over to the OpenID system, allowing people to sign into the network with their Google and Facebook logins.

Spain To Google: Anyone Can Potentially Censor Your Index

SE Land: The Spanish Data Protection Authority is treating Google not as an intermediary but as a publisher under Spanish law. That brings with it numerous burdens and obligations that potentially create a massive legal and privacy headache for Google. A similar thing happened recently in Italy where YouTube is now being classified and treated as a conventional TV broadcaster.



Spotify closer to US launch, signs up Sony

techradar: This is great news for European music streamer company Spotify, which has been inching closer to getting its service launched in the US, expanding it beyond its current European reach.

Italy Drops Inquiry into Google News

SE Journal: In Italy, the complaints were about Google News, and specifically the inability to remove articles from Google News without also removing them from the primary search engine site. The Italian Antitrust Authority had been investigating them for this reason, but Google has now officially addressed these issues and Italy has dropped the inquiry.



Google Explains H.264 Codec Drop

SE Journal: Google says that they chose this solely because of its open nature and compatibility with HTML 5 video tag.

Real-Time Search Engine Collecta Hits Pause

SE Land: One could argue that the major search engines’ incorporation of Twitter’s feed in particular stole much of the thunder of specialized search engines such as Collecta, Topsy, Crowdeye and OneRiot.

Google Opens Up Downloads To Iran But Blocks Iranian Government

SE Land: Google announced that after years of not allowing those in Iran to download their software, Google has opened up downloads of their Google Earth, Picasa and Chrome applications.

Bing Terminates Relationship With Publisher Doing Tricky Home Page Switch

SE Land: The site, Make-My-Baby.com, now appears to have gone down. But earlier it was suggesting that people needed a plug-in to use it — one that would install a toolbar and change their search provider and home page to Bing. The site had allowed people to create baby characters. See also: Irony, Thy Name is Microsoft by SEO by the Sea.

Russian search engine Yandex sees huge growth: 43% revenue increase in a year

State of Search: Revenues from contextual advertising grew 45% year-over-year, which is a much bigger growth than the increase the Russian ad market in general sees, that ‘only’ grew by 14%, while the online advertising market showed a 37% growth.

Facebook Halts Phone & Address Sharing (For Now)

Mashable: Facebook’s recent decision to allow application developers to request access to a user’s address and mobile phone number ruffled a lot of feathers over the weekend.

Wow, Google is linking to video competitors!

State of Search: The critics will now be at bit more silent if they read the latest update Google did last Friday on the results for music videos. A search for an artist or song which returns a YouTube video now has links to other video sites and search engines next to the results.

Google’s Java Infringement Refuted

PC World: Analysis: New research seems to point to Google infringement of Java code, but the evidence is also refuted.

Google Turns Groupon Rejection Into Own Daily Deal: Google Offers

ExecDigital: Google Offers will mimic Groupon & LivingSocial, but problems for small business owners emerge as more daily deals materialize.



Google Says Search Quality Improved With New Spam Detection

SE Land: Matt Cutts, a Google engineer working on search quality, wrote at the Google Blog that Google has recently released a new spam detection classifier to help prevent ’spammy on-page content’ from ranking highly in the Google search index.

What is a content farm?

SEO Theory: Just what, exactly, is a content farm? No one really seems to know. Some people point their fingers at Mahalo, AOL, Answers.com, About.com, et. al. and include them in the list of nasties. But what are we to do if we are also included in that growing list?



Google May Let You Blacklist Domains To Fight Spam

SE Land: In the discussion, Hacker News user bradly asks if Google would consider letting searchers remove domains from search results themselves. Cutts replies, ‘we’ve definitely discussed this,’ and seems to hint that some kind of announcement may be on the way.

Attentio acquires 365Research

Press release: Attentio, a European market leader in social media monitoring and research has acquired market research technology company 365Research. Both companies are based in Brussels and all of the 365Research team have already relocated to Attentio HQ.