Raise your hand if you remember Scroogle.
For those of you who need a little refresher, Scroogle was a web
service that enabled Internet users to search Google anonymously. The
service was wildly popular in its heyday, boasting 350,000 daily search
queries and ranking in the top 4,000 websites around the world.
Scroogle blocked all Google cookies and eliminated log files for
searchers. Then, in 2012, everything came crashing down. A sudden
barrage of search requests by Google combined with an anonymous DoS
attack nailed Scroogle’s coffin shut.
By February, Scroogle was no more.
Then, on November 28, 2012, Bing resurrected Scroogle – sort of. The
Microsoft company launched a full-scale war on Google Shopping by using
the domain “Scroogled.com” and a tongue-in-cheek reference to the brand.
Bing has even released YouTube videos as part of the overall attack
strategy.
Fighting Google on its own turf. Ouch.
Why is Bing after Google Shopping, Anyway?
Microsoft would have you believe you’re getting royally “scroogled”
by Google Shopping. Right in time for the holiday season, Microsoft has
come out swinging against Google & Co. in a mighty big way. The
company has lashed out at Google before, but this new campaign is
downright dirty.
Let’s start with the YouTube videos. This is undoubtedly an underdog
power play – pretty brazen to post these attack ads directly onto a
Google-owned website. The first video ad
is deadly serious; it’s one of those “scare-you-into-switching-to-us”
kinds of spots. The ad displays a page of Google Shopping results for
toy dump trucks, and the narrator ominously asks the viewer to figure
out which results are paid listings.
“Easy,” he chides. “They’re all ads.”
The most shocking part of the spot is the tailor-made definition of
“scroogled” – the new Google practice of selling their shopping results
to the highest bidder. Yikes. Microsoft really has the claws out in this
one.
The second ad Microsoft uploaded
to YouTube tries (rather unsuccessfully) to tap into the whole “funny”
angle – perhaps a play to gain some viral traction. The ad features an
overacting couple discussing the dishonesty of Google Shopping results
while cooking dinner. What I found interesting about both ads was that
each repeated the catchphrase “for a more honest search, try Bing.”
Frankly, this sounds a little loaded coming from Google’s biggest
search engine competitor. Bing’s setting forth the idea that attention
should be drawn to May 31, 2012 – that’s when Google Shopping changed
its listings to include only paid results. In an SEC disclosure, Google
justified the change by declaring, “after all, ads are just more answers
to users’ queries.”
Bing held its fire until Google had completely rolled out the change.
The switch went full-scale back in October, and Bing was there waiting
with an ad campaign designed to make you blush. For your viewing
pleasure, here’s a screenshot of the homepage of Bing’s new Scroogled website:
Image 1:
The website is a smear campaign of massive proportions, but all the
facts on the website are right on the money. For example, the sidebar
features quotes from official Google correspondence in 2004 and 2012,
and the difference is marked, to say the least:
Image 2:
At the time of this writing, the website has been live for roughly a day. It’ll be fun to see how long it stays that way.
Part of a Bigger Problem?
Bing is, of course, doing this for publicity. Also (obviously) the
ulterior motive is to persuade search engine users to switch to Bing.
Although their intentions are less than honorable, the ad campaign does
shed light on Google’s shady practices when itcomes to its shopping
platform changes.
But let’s back up for a minute.
When I searched deeper for this article, I found a CNET guest post
by none other than SEO extraordinaire Danny Sullivan. In his post, he
pointed out that Bing has been doing the exact same thing that it’s
blasting Google for.
Really.
When Sullivan searched the term “lego death star,” he found Google
Shopping at the top of the page. Here’s a screenshot of what he found
when he searched for the same term on Bing:
Image 3:
But wait, it gets better. When I searched for the same term in
Google, I found the same results as Sullivan. However, when I searched
the term in Bing, the “Bing Shopping” vertical was nowhere to be found.
So what’s that all about?
I call foul. Bing’s attempting to call Google out for something it’s
been doing itself for quite some time. The real issue here is not Bing;
it’s the relative legality of all-paid Google Shopping results appearing
inside the organic listings under the guise of found content.
My opinion? Google has every right to display ads wherever it
pleases. However, it’s rather ironic that G makes such a fuss about
webmasters utilizing the “nofollow” tag and labeling private ads when
the search giant itself sneaks unlabeled shopping results right into the
organic SERPs.
Label it Google – just call it what it is.
Nell Terry