Search is supposed to be Google's main function, right? Aaron Harris , co-founder of Tutorspree, is here to shake things up and bring to reality all those who think that Google is a search engine.
Aaron Harris, in a blog post, presented the results of a Google he conducted from his office in New York. Specifically, his search was for “auto mechanic.” Harris analyzed what appeared in Google’s search results and estimated how many pixels of the page were dedicated to displaying organic results rather than ads.
He estimated that only 13% of his screen was showing organic search results. Harris wrote that the rest of the 13-inch screen of a MacBook Air he was using was showing other Google products: 29% was AdWords, 14% was the navigation bar, and 7% was a Google Map with local results.
On his blog, Harris shared his thoughts on what he discovered:
Google is creating a new version of the search engine that made it big. This time, however, it's a search engine exclusively for the Google product garden. If you try to appear in Google results in any way, you've lost. The chances of you ranking somewhere relatively good enough to garner traffic are almost zero and getting smaller.
In another test with the search term, “Italian Restaurant,” Harris estimated that only 7% of his screen was organic results. On mobile, he found things were worse. When someone searched for “Italian Food”: 0% were organic results, until they scrolled down 4 pages of searches to find the first one.
Indeed, it seems Harris is right. Google's results contain a ton of ads that ultimately justify its ever-increasing revenue. We all knew it, but we needed a Harris to confirm it.
