The Googleopus

Timeless Googling
Millions of users are interested to find accurate and prepared information in order to satisfy their personal interests, research and profound knowledge. As internet search engines offer such information in raw or structured results, they serve as best source for the common people. The idea to serve information people are looking for has already existed in a raw form through the simple idea of the internet (Arpanet)(1), but it becomes most popular and important during the era of the internet boom in the late 90s. Until the official dotcom death in 2001-2002(2), the large providers of internet search engines are able to capture the whole market potential through their own services.
Afterwards, the market of internet search engines is being rebuilt completely as the major providers of internet search engines begin to struggle on their own as their supportive co-companies are drawn to oblivion. Smaller start-up companies such as Google are able to profit from this changing market: They are more and more noticed by the public and become popular on their own – it is a new hype to „google” on the web. This new kind of fast and easy access to pure information is simply compared by the visitors to the slow and mostly unstructured larger rewarded providers. As result, Google begins its own rise of power(3).

The Googleopus
Google modifies its existence from a university-project to one of the large players in the internet search engine providers. A new company is formed, and new branches are sought up into the company’s portfolio.
Various new search options for images, newsgroups, and catalogs are made to become Google’s services. New information systems such as the software installments Google News™, Google Toolbar™, Google Deskbar™ aid the user to search more simplified through their own computers at home or at work. Almost every year a new branch of services rises to become a new standard for exclusive internet research like the smart-shopping service Froogle™, the online-community Orkut™ or the email service G-Mail™.
Google spreads out its arms like a magnificent octopus while the company and its affiliated sub-companies are perfectly on the way to manifold themselves in their market area – including the expansion to and inclusion of new market areas, too. This is accomplished by presenting Google and its affiliates as the best(4), while other competitors are seen as inferior to „Google’s Standards” (5) by Google and its visitors, customers and consumers.
This step causes an impact into every sub sequential area of the individual life of Google’s customers – and most importantly on Google’s non-customers. Google’s omnipotent presence in nowadays media allows the company to draw these „Google’s Standards”(6) to almost every internet-related topic. The idea to conduct tests and optimization of the websites to meet „Google’s Standards” before applying for inclusion of a website in their index is ridiculous. The freebie entry into their index is nearly impossible as the PageRankâ„¢ system filters websites too often. Nevertheless, this variant of setting up an informal doctrine on how webdesigners are expected to construct their websites has been implemented successfully in the past – and will continue even higher in the future, too.
The acceptance of Google’s search engine by the customers’ and consumers’ majority is Google’s validation to direct people to do exactly what Google expects of them. The magnificent octopus has become similar to a large monster hiding like an ice berg below the sea level – with only a small part visible to the public. The rest of Google and its affiliation machinery is being hidden from the public eye as Google set up a structured process to continue its seemingly endless growth of the corrupted and commercialized Googleopus.

Hunt for the Googleopus
There are various methods to stop the continuing growth of Google and its affiliates. As first step, you should not rely on the PageRankâ„¢ system as it might hide more useful results through a lower search index rating on i.e. page 35 instead of page 2.
To review the results on the first 3-5 pages before following any links should be imperative for every constructive search using Google’s services. As example, the search for the word „mirror” draws millions of results on Google. What kind of information do you expect within 18.9 million results? Either newspapers or news-services, ftp mirror servers, information about creating mirrors for your bathroom, or something totally different? And more importantly is the question: Can you imagine the results for „mirrors” instead of „mirror”?
This rising problem of manipulating the visitors and directing them to specific results is made possible by Google’s PageRankâ„¢ system. Several websites are created to fit these „Google’s Standards”, but the number of lower PageRankedâ„¢ websites increases since a continued update of these websites through its webmasters or editors is hardly possible for i.e. non-profit or private organizations and people. The websites which are administrated by either a specialist or receive aid by a special optimizer team or company are able to score higher through Google than these lower PageRankedâ„¢ websites. Another way of stopping Google’s growth is to keep their profit low by not following Google’s sponsored links or the faked result pages as these are nothing else but paid advertisements. Instead, the use of advertisement- or commercially-free search engines which do not rely on Google’s or their affiliates’ information systems even might give you more useful results than Google.
The most radical method is not to use Google’s services at all. By proscribing Google’s services through the majority of their visitors, customers and consumers, the Googleopus will shrink more and more – it will join oblivion. A classic method which is very common to avoid Google and other internet search engines is to move to a library and research by hand in the non-digital words.

Alternatives to the Googleopus
Certain information systems are offered by universities, libraries, and other public institutions which provide the users with more specialized and accurate information than Google’s paid-for-viewing advertisement results. Since these services arise out of small project groups or publically sponsored non-profit organizations, the quality of the results is estimated to be higher than Google’s results. Additionally, these specific services offer themed results. While searching for information about „mirrors”, you can already filter the results through a pre-selection of all sources to supply information about either newspapers or either technical data about servers or either the manufacturing of mirrors, too.

http://keithlynch.net/timeline.html – Keith Lynch: Simple timeline for the development of the current internet
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Dotcom%20death – Free Dictionary
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/google – Free Dictionary
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Google.html – Berkeley Univ.: The best Search Engine
http://www.internet-marketing-research.net/google_site_search.php – IMR: Google’s Site Search Mechanism
http://www.vrmarketing.net/google_tips.htm – Corey Rudl from VR Marketing