USAA – they include both the logo widget and the 4 letters in a tiny space.
Yahoo! – they use inconsistent favicons across their sites & use italics on them. Some of the favicons have the whole word Yahoo in them while the others are the Y! in italics.
If you do not have a favicon Google will show a dull globe next to your listing. Real Favicon Generator is a good tool for creating favicons in various sizes.
What favicons do you really like?
Which big sites do you see that are doing it wrong?
Brands vs Ads
Brand, Brand, Brand
About 7 years ago I wrote about how the search relevancy algorithms were placing heavy weighting on brand-relate signals after Vince & Panda on the (half correct!) presumption that this would lead to excessive industry consolidation which in turn would force Google to turn the dials in the other direction.
My thesis was Google would need
To increasingly promote some smaller niche sites to make general web search differentiate from other web channels & minimize the market power of vertical leading providers.
The reason my thesis was only half correct (and ultimately le to the absolutely wrong conclusion) is Google has the ability to provide the illusion of diversity while using sort of eye candy displacement efforts to shift an increasing share of searches from organic to paid results.
Shallow Verticals With a Shill Bid
As long as any market has at least 2 competitors in it Google can create a “me too” offering that they hard code front & center and force the other 2 players (along with other players Mortgage Protection Telemarketing Leads along the value chain) to bid for marketshare. If competitors are likely to complain about the thinness of the me too offering & it being built upon scraping other websites, Google can buy out a brand like Zagat or a data supplier like ITA Software to undermine criticism until the artificially promote vertical service has enough usage that it is nearly on par with other players in the ecosystem.
Google need not win every market
They only nee to ensure there are at least 2 competing bids left in the marketplace while dialing back SEO exposure. They can then run other services to reirect user flow and force the ad buy. They can insert their own bid as a sort of shill floor bid in their auction. If you bid below that amount they’ll collect the profit. Through serving the customer directly, if you bid above that they’ll let you buy the customer vs doing a direct booking.
Adding Volatility to Economies of Scale
Where this gets more than a bit tricky is if you are a supplier of third party goods & services where you buy in bulk to get preferential pricing for resale. If you buy 100 rooms a night from a. Particular hotel base on the presumption of prior market performance & certain channels effectively disappear you Have a couple browsers which are used have to bid above market to sell some portion of the rooms because getting anything for them is better than leaving them unsold.
“Well I am not in hotels, so thankfully this won’t impact me” is an incomplete thought. Google Ads now offer a lead generation extension.
Dipping a bit back into history here
But after Groupon said no to Google’s acquisition offer Google promptly partnere with players 2 through n to ensure Groupon did not have a lasting competitive advantage. In the fullness of time most those companies die, LivingSocial was acquire by Groupon for nothing & Groupon is today worth less than the amount they raise in VC & IPO funding.
Markets Naturally Evolve Toward
Promoting Brands
When a vertical is new a player can. Compete just by showing up. Then over time as the verticals become establishe consumers develop habits, brands beat out generics & the markets get. Consolidate down to being heavily. Influence & controlle by a couple strong players.
In the offline world of atoms
There are real world costs tie to local regulations, shipping, sourcing, supply chains, inventory management, etc. The structure of the web & the lack of marginal distribution cost causes. Online markets to be even more consolidate than their offline analogs.
