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Does Google favor its own? (BlogSpot)

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Been joining several SEO contests in the last couple of years and only recently did I noticed that Google seems to be giving favors to its own products and services.

Take for example YouTube. When it was not yet bought by Google, you don’t see videos in the search results. But now, just look at the Google search results:

Google Youtube

So, let’s just say that Youtube video for the keyword “thriller” is appropriate in the results. Why not put videos from Revver or Metacafe too? Why just YouTube? Does Google have a preferential bias towards its own? Looks like it.

How about Blogger? Just this afternoon, one of my workshop participants, Joaquin Vocos, used Blogger instead of WordPress.com for his blog. A few hours later (about 3 hours), he was already ranking in the Google search results for his name.

Joaquin Vocos

The other blog posts and pages that had his name published on an earlier date on WordPress.com are nowhere to be found. All of the results are coming from BlogSpot.

The lesson — if you wanna be indexed very quickly, use BlogSpot. Because Google loves its own. But don’t you think it’s a little unfair?

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Written by
Abe Olandres

Abe Olandres

Editor-in-chief

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and is considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines.

View all posts by Abe Olandres →

92 Comments

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Trinidad Muddiman · 16 years ago

Opposite to false belief, liposuction cannot make your unwanted fat disappear just like that. Undergoing plastic surgery may be an ideal option for most. Of course, that does not mean that if your skin is not where you want it to be that there is no hope for you. Your best bet is to gain more awareness through research.


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nimo23 · 16 years ago

While you need to balance everything if you choose Blogger then, it’s fine do your SEO techniques like with WordPress.

Related Article:

The truth why they left Blogger
http://bennixcomputertips.blogspot.com/2010/10/truth-why-they-left-blogger.html


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Scolex · 16 years ago

how about a custom domain name hosted in blogger.com?


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Home made 3G booster · 16 years ago

What does a fat topic got something to do with google. ^^^. They really are in favor of blogspot I should have chosen blogspot than wordpress.


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SEO blogger · 16 years ago

its still misteriously


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Gabriele Rappold · 16 years ago

The first thing you must understand is that there is no physical exercises that can reduce fat from a specific parts of the body. When you burn fat for energy, as during an aerobic activity, fat loss will occur systemically, i.e., from all over the body. But since fat distribution naturally varies from person to person, depending on inherited genetic factors, some people will tend to lose abdominal fat faster while others may lose fat at say hips or thighs faster. So do not compare your abdominal fat loss graph with others.


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Mark Wong · 17 years ago

yes, i agree.. google loves google..
and some people using it for their SEO advantage..


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qarla · 17 years ago

It’s fair I think. I’m not an anti WordPress or what. Heto pa pansin ko, lakas ng algo ng blogger. Kahit may nauna na nagpost sa akin na blog site with the same content tapos hindi blogspot gamit nya, una pa rin ako sa engine nila. Tapos nagbigay pa ng pr 3 yung google sakin in 2 months. Nakakaloka! Buti na lang nag CD-blogspot ako hehe


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JE
Jerome Baladad · 18 years ago

just read this 2007 today (12/08), and i’ve always noticed Google has consistently given top preference to its subsidiaries/affiliates…..that’s also why I’ve kept my blogsites in “blogger.com” even though i’ve moved just recently most contents found in those sites to “wordpress” (which blog service i noticed recently to be more user-friendly)….but what more can i say about google? it’s just being very business-like in its behavior just like other huge businesses out there! & this is actually, being strategic! ha ha ha!

best – Jerome


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SEO j0ny · 18 years ago

Yeah, as much as I love Google, sometimes it’s hard to take them seriously as a “resource” when they so blatantly put their own products in front of everyone. And let’s not even talk “don’t be evil”…


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Wanabidabida · 18 years ago

that was true. i tried to post about friendster skin on my newly establshed blog.. for a newbie like i rank 12 on the serp.. not bad.


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jeff · 18 years ago

I just created a blogger account last week and made a post. Lumabas lang ang site ko sa google search engine after 2 days then ngayon, wala na ulit! Why oh why!!! Google have you failed me?


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mick · 18 years ago

Perhaps google just trust blogger more because it has no broken links, perfect formatting and design perfection in their eyes.
My blogs always do better on google then on Yahoo or msn.


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Caspian Graca Da Silva · 18 years ago

hey, well of course google will enter a direct video link from youtube on the google search, because that is part of their company, it’s fair enough in my opinion…

of course there are other public video databases, but there is always the chance of freudulent content, google’s mass of staff try to keep upto date on all content and make sure it’s correct and accurte, but the magority of that will be within it’s own database.

i don’t wanna cause a stir or anything but, google in general always keep in mind about the freedom of information, and it’s their main goal, even all the pirated content that is put on google, google got in a bit of trouble for all this, but they’ve been fighting to try and get videos of tv shows and movies on youtube for free (for us, using thier great skill at advertising, with out anoyence)

and video’s are only one example of what google does.

i wouldn’t compare google to microsoft, never, sure alot of microsoft’s staff are completly inocent of any branding and corporate sponsership, but there is a basis that staff have to work upon, and microsoft always force thier own premotion above the point of the product. :P

nice to read the blog, hope to hear from ya.

– Caspian Graca Da Silva


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Cesar Noel · 18 years ago

It’s not a surprise if Google favors their own products.


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RJ · 18 years ago

Wrong! Google Search does not favor any Blogspot, or Blogpots, blogshot or whatever! Gaining a good ranking on google search depends on the traffic your site is receiving, probably that guy’s old wordpress blog didn’t get so much traffic.

And speaking of traffic, your blog should be defined clearly in terms of keywords. I own a wordpress account, and by the Grace of God, it’s really getting a lot of hits because every post is being tagged accordingly.

Google is not favoring YouTube, it’s part of an upgraded feature of Google search that allows YouTube videos to be included in the search results. YouTube has the largest collection of videos.

Lesson: Use blogspot? NOPE! WordPress is way better than Blogspot! Try it.


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CallCenterVet · 18 years ago

It’s a rather obvious thing. You use google search… ofcourse their stuff would come out first. Resistance is futile!


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Christian DeVera · 18 years ago

If SEO matters to you, go with Blogger. If it doesn’t, go with WordPress. If it sorta matters to you, create a mirror Blogger account that points to your main site.


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Miguel · 18 years ago

And now, Knol. Goodbye to independent blogs as informative sources?


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nel animo · 18 years ago

google monopoly


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arpeelazaro · 18 years ago

that’s why i’m sticking it out with blogspot. though not as many themes and features compared to wordpress, blogspot is easy to learn. maybe if they have a premium blogspot service, I would gladly upgrade.


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Goe D · 18 years ago

You are right on pointing out that big “G” is prioritizing their own backyard first before his neighbors. This is not new to me, I’ve seen this happening to one of my website. For example, the website that I am developing (social site for filipino – digg like site) – I was getting index by Google and getting 8K last month but now I am getting 5K and most of them when you search for keyword “ebenta” you are getting youtube videos link from my site. But the sad this is the link is not from my site but from youtube – Sad :( so when you search for example “ebenta video” on google, you are getting bunch of video link from my site but none is pointing to the site. This is just an example.


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Eugene · 18 years ago

I guess for the Google-favoring-YouTube hypotheses, I think Google somewhat favors YouTube but not to the extent that people think they do. I guess people just really favor YouTube over Meta cafe, Revver, Vimeo, etc. that it seems Google overly favors YouTube. Agree? Disagree?


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Eugene · 18 years ago

Search Google for “happy holidays from revver” for a counterexample. Or “minesweeper the movie”. (The result on the first is ironic.)

I guess for the Google-favoring-YouTube hypotheses, I think Google somewhat favors YouTube but not to the extent that people think they do. I guess people just really favor YouTube over Meta cafe, Revver, Vimeo, etc. that it seems Google overly favors YouTube. Agree? Disagree?


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Eugene · 18 years ago

Here’s a counterexample: search Google for “happy holidays from revver”. It doesn’t return a YouTube video as the first result, but it ironically returns a Meta cafe video. Hehehe.

I guess for the Google-favoring-YouTube hypotheses, I think Google somewhat favors YouTube but not to the extent that people think they do. I guess people just really favor YouTube over Meta cafe, Revver, Vimeo, etc. that it seems Google overly favors YouTube. Agree? Disagree?

(Ack! Repost… Overly sensitive Akismet… tsk, tsk)


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Eugene · 18 years ago

Here’s a counterexample: search Google for “happy holidays from revver”. It doesn’t return a YouTube video as the first result, but it ironically returns a Meta cafe video. Hehehe.

Another counterexample: search Google for “minesweeper the movie”. It returns a College Humor video as the top result.


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Eugene · 18 years ago

Here’s a counterexample: search Google for “happy holidays from revver”. It doesn’t return a YouTube video as the first result, but it ironically returns a Meta cafe video. Hehehe.

Another counterexample: search Google for “minesweeper the movie”. It returns a College Humor video as the top result.

I guess for the Google-favoring-YouTube hypotheses, I think Google somewhat favors YouTube but not to the extent that people think they do. I guess people just really favor YouTube over Meta cafe, Revver, Vimeo, etc. that it seems Google overly favors YouTube. Agree? Disagree?

(Ack! Repost… Overly sensitive Akismet… tsk, tsk)


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EU
Eugene · 18 years ago

Here’s a counterexample: search Google for “happy holidays from revver”. It doesn’t return a YouTube video as the first result, but it ironically returns a Metacafe video. Hehehe.

Here’s another counterexample: search Google for “minesweeper the movie”. It returns a College Humor video as the top result.

I guess for the Google-favoring-YouTube hypotheses, I think Google somewhat favors YouTube but not to the extent that people think they do. I guess people just really favor YouTube over Metacafe, Revver, Vimeo, etc. that it seems Google overly favors YouTube. Agree? Disagree?

(Ack! Repost… Overly sensitive Akismet… tsk, tsk)


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AN
AnnaE · 18 years ago

Perhaps he should’ve tried creating a Blogger.com and a WordPress.com site for “Joaquin Vocos” on the same day, and then compare the two in the SERPs.

Then the test would be fair.

Similar url, exact content. Then compare the two.


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Gail · 19 years ago

If you look at it at a business perspective, it does favor its own. Google is a company, a business. Why should it highlight results from competitors? That would be like giving profit to competitors on a silver platter. They’re probably just protecting their assets and profit.

But then, I think another good question to ask based on this is the credibility of the results. Makes you wonder if Google is still a good measure of a site’s authority on a subject, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t it also make it easier for spam blogs to rule the Google SERPs? They would be able to rank higher than established blogs not on Blogger just because they used blog platform that Google owns.


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normanski · 19 years ago

they are prioritizing their own of course! and I view it as spamming their own search results.

The evil empire strikes again.


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Macnerdzcare · 19 years ago

kung napapansin din ninyo. mas madaling ma-index yung mga post sa newly created blogger account compared sa content ng paid hosting na website.


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JC John SESE Cuneta · 19 years ago

Google and any other company at that will surely favor their own products over the others especially when it comes to ‘public’ services like Search Results.

That is the sole reason why I am not dropping Blogger/BlogSpot, and why some of the blogs I am asked to manage for other people/groups, I strongly suggest Blogger/BlogSpot – it is well configured and coded to be search engine bot/index magnet.

I haven’t experimented much with Spaces and Live search, but seems to be similar. And anyone on WordPress.com are better off using Live Spaces, Blogger/BlogSpot, or get/run their own blogger platform of choice like b2evolution or wordpress.

I will even choose LiveJournals over WordPress.com when it comes to free-blog hosts. It’s all about “freedom”, wordpress.com is too limited. Or get MovableType, also great (I’m using it as well for some blogs, self-hosted MT.)


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rod · 19 years ago

i told you its the darkside


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Abe Olandres Editor-in-chief · 19 years ago

@ Eugene — you will never find a a video from Revver on top of the SERPs. Google will only show videos from Youtube. As for image search, yes Yahoo! is also biased towards Flickr (sometimes too biased IMO). But I don’t use Yahoo Search.


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Ordnacin · 19 years ago

so who’s willing to fund an antitrust suit against Google ? Preferably with adsense money :)


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Dexter · 19 years ago

This proves that my Comment on your last post is true, that blogspot ot index first rather than wordpress.com when it comes to Google.


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Eugene · 19 years ago

Just being the devil’s advocate here.

1. It’s possible that the other video websites are just not as SEO-friendly?

2. The vast majority of people link to YouTube videos anyway so YouTube gets the link juice.

3. You can complain against Yahoo! too for preferential treatment of Flickr photos in their Image search.

4. It’s quite possible that Blogger blogs are just SEO-optimized for Google (like having direct pinging capabilities, auto sitemaps, etc.)

On the other hand:

1. Even if Google returns results from Revver, etc., it will still show video thumbnails for YouTube results. This is arguably unfair, but this is useful to the users. Other video sites should probably have SEO-friendly video thumbnails.


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JP Loh · 19 years ago

Maybe more people really linked to the original video clip. Maybe it’s easier for them to index machines that are closer to them (their own).

This speculation needs more study and tests. IMO, one blog post that makes too many assumptions doesn’t cut it.


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Mikko · 19 years ago

Agree with you.

Google has a PageRank of 10, hahaha. It could be usual reaction of a big company, to favor its own.


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boddah · 19 years ago

Yes i agree with that. Google is biased with its own services. I’m originally a Dailymotion boy – used to upload real estate videos for a site of mine on Dailymotion for more than a year now, and just uploaded some of those vids on YouTube months later. Now if you search them using Google, my recent YouTube uploads comes first, and that same video w/c I uploaded on Dailymotion a year ago is located on the 2nd page. But, if you use the same keywords on Yahoo search, my Dailymotion video comes first then followed by YouTube. Good thing I uploaded on both sites. :)


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Tips For Bloggers · 19 years ago

There is a great possibility that Google favors its own (e.g. blogger and youtube) but assuming this trend continue, it’ll be a problem with Google in the long run.

What makes Google successful is the quality or relevant results they return to their users. Should they decide to mess up with their user oriented system, users might as well look for other more credible search engines.

Great Pinoy Blog! :)


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Shinrai · 19 years ago

well,it is their search engine after all. Probable result is that they index their own properties quicker since its in their own backyard already. FYI. I used a wordpress blog and got top results for my company name in a couple of hours too.


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deuts · 19 years ago

Google, again, it has always been google. It’s very biased.


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BrianB · 19 years ago

Yep, Google needs a competitor.


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Jeffrey · 19 years ago

I used to be a complete Google fan, but with the recent dubious Google tantrums, it made me hope for other competitors such as Yahoo and MSN for their services to go truly go head to head with the Big G.


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