Google is Not a Search Engine

It’s an advertising machine.

Where does Google get 97% of its revenue from?

Ok, I know I said I hate piecharts. But they only really work when the data is dramatic like this.

[via The Industry Standard]

Posted in Data Journalism, Graph, Simple.
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9 Comments

  1. Jacques DeMolay
    Posted August 5, 2009 at 11:32 pm | Permalink | Edit

    An entity’s revenue stream doesn’t necessarily define what it “is”. You might as well say a TV network is not a TV Network, since their revenue comes almost entirely from advertising. By this measure, a government is a “taxation machine”. (thought I basically agree, in addition to being a freedom-preserving or freedom-limiting machine.

  2. Posted August 6, 2009 at 10:24 am | Permalink | Edit

    erm….if it wasn’t a search engine, it wouldn’t have the advertising revenues so….er….

  3. Posted August 17, 2009 at 2:56 pm | Permalink | Edit

    A ton of their ad revenue comes from non-search ads – it’s from display/text ads on other websites in their content network.

  4. Posted August 17, 2009 at 4:54 pm | Permalink | Edit

    I agree that Google is now more of an advertising machine than a search engine. While it certainly is a little of both, clearly it’s billions in revenue are not necessarily a result of its search engine prowess, but it’s ability to become a leading brand in online advertising.

    It’s products are good. I use Google search and gmail all the time.

    But, as an advertising machine, I believe that Google has become a crappy advertising machine. More importantly, I believe it has become completely Amoral Advertising Machine.

    If the word “fur” appears in a post, Google serves fur ads, even if the post is clearly anti-fur.

    If “puppy juice” were a product (it’s not), Google would surely serve ads for it on any post that mentioned puppies. I don’t make this claim lightly:

    See http://furisevil.org to see puppy skin for sale by Google’s clients.

    Google has little regard for the political or humanistic leanings of the readers of any given site, and seems to have no interest in improving accuracy.

    Case in point, the HuffPo blog of the Chief Operating Officer of the Humane Society of the United States features Google ads for fur.

    http://furisevil.org/?p=1140

  5. Alex Zuzin
    Posted August 17, 2009 at 7:44 pm | Permalink | Edit

    Nice chart! :)

    To all who commented that the perspective here is skewed – the source of revenue does in many ways define what something “is”, despite public or private statements to the contrary. The government is indeed a taxation machine, and more – it’s squeezed between vox populi and special interests precisely because of the way it gets funded.

    Ditto for Google – systems never function in a way that seriously undermines their sustenance. Faced with a hypothetical choice between result quality and advertising revenue, it will only bend that far against its own good.

  6. David Oglebee
    Posted August 24, 2009 at 5:48 am | Permalink | Edit

    No. It’s the worlds biggest advertising agency.

  7. BowleggedEmu
    Posted August 25, 2009 at 1:13 pm | Permalink | Edit

    Oops. I used Google to search for your site!

  8. Posted December 8, 2009 at 2:11 pm | Permalink | Edit

    I agree with Justin Brock.

  9. Posted July 18, 2010 at 12:08 pm | Permalink | Edit

    haha, google began as a search engine, now it is a sucking hivemind of advertisers. If Wesnoth contained Google ads (not only search), japanese Master of Monsters ads would pop out (as Wesnoth mentions original Master of Monsters for SMD as inspiration). So, yes, Google is a sick hivemind of advertisers. :(

4 Trackbacks

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    [...] HT: Information is Beautiful [...]

  3. By TechnoTalk315 » Digital Labyrinth on August 31, 2009 at 3:58 am

    [...] *Sidetracking… Google Revenue* [...]

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