So, from the perspective of a business analyst, you are saying that Google has no incentive to ensure the quality of their search results because they don't receive any additional money from the people who use it?
That sounds like very short-term thinking to me, and Google is a famously long-term thinking company.
OT your line of reasoning reminds me of Excite when they were considering using Google's results. "[Google] was too good. If Excite were to host a search engine that instantly gave people information they sought, [Excite's CEO] explained, the users would leave the site instantly." [1]
No, of course they do, but only so you'll come back and can be shown more ads. And "incentive" is quite literal: ads are Google's main (only?) revenue stream. If they don't get eyeballs, they have no inventory of product to sell to their real customers.
Look, I'm not saying this is good or bad. But it is what it is.
Well, you're saying "it is what it is," but you're only providing arguments, not evidence. I think rryan has presented actual evidence in the form of how Google is structured.
I can see that, but you're making the fundamental mistake that just because something is plausible that it is actually happening. There's enough moving parts here that arguments are not sufficient.
So, from the perspective of a business analyst, you are saying that Google has no incentive to ensure the quality of their search results because they don't receive any additional money from the people who use it?
That sounds like very short-term thinking to me, and Google is a famously long-term thinking company.
OT your line of reasoning reminds me of Excite when they were considering using Google's results. "[Google] was too good. If Excite were to host a search engine that instantly gave people information they sought, [Excite's CEO] explained, the users would leave the site instantly." [1]
[1] http://cdixon.org/2011/05/16/accurate-contrarian-theories/