Big Publishers Want Google’s Algorithm to Favor Brands

There is an Ad Age story circulating today that tells of the grumblings of larger, mainstream publishers and the way their ranking is handled by Google.

The article does anything but stay unbiased and the tone is surprisingly direct, at one point referring to Google’s organic search results as an “undifferentiated slush of results”.

Bottom line – media giants are griping that Google is not giving them their dues when it comes to ranking.

Why should their stories get preferential treatment over those of bloggers or other non-mainstream sites? The New York Times argues that, because they have a man on location in a place like Gaza, their website should be placed above the blogger community.

Is that fair? Maybe these entities don’t know anything about SEO. Maybe they’re just not delivering the content that people want.

As Vanity Fair columnist Michael Wolff told AdAge:

Sometimes it’s true that you’d rather get what The New York Times has to say about something rather than a host of bloggers. But more interestingly it’s not always true. And it is in fact less and less true.

Still, it seems as though Google may be listening. Their latest update to their search algorithm does seem to give more weight to established brands, although Google still denies this.