Tuesday, April 23, 2024 at 10:52 am
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In a newsletter article, technologist Edward Zitron notes that Google’s search engine was once the crown jewel of the Internet, but one executive’s takeover led to its spectacular downfall.The Man Who Killed Google Search.”
In 2019, Google’s advertising team raised a “code yellow” alarm due to a decrease in search revenue growth. This led to a battle between the advertising team led by Prabhakar Raghavan and the search team led by Ben Gomes. The ad team wanted to prioritize growth metrics over maintaining search quality. Gomes countered, arguing that “growth is all Google thinks about” and that they shouldn’t compromise user experience just to increase engagement.
Using leaked emails and previous reports, Zitron says, “Raghavan’s relentless pursuit of ‘commercial inquiries’ turned Google Search from a neutral arbiter of information to an active purveyor of profit-driven content—a betrayal that sowed the seeds of betrayal.” Search is destroying the giant.”
(I’ve been using Perplexity more than Google lately.)
Earlier: Get the oldest Google search results first