If Google Removes URLs From Search Results, Who Exactly Stands to Benefit?

PALM BEACH, FL – Last week I ran a story about Google’s obvious intent to remove URL’s from search. The story was titled “Google Determined to Remove URLs from Search Results; Replace with Breadcrumbs” and published on October 18, 2019. It was a follow up to “EVIL: Will Google Do Away with Domain Name and Extension Entirely Anyway?” There has been wide reaction from both the SEO and Domain community on the coming change and it warrants added thought and hopefully, added pause by Google before it is implemented as it will affect Internet users not negatively, and tremendously, in my opinion.

This is a good example of why some people believe that Google is extremely bias and self-serving in the direction of its efforts towards its own products and services. If you look at the image in the below Tweet, and just study it for a moment, you will realize what the motive is very likely to be, and it is not what is best for the user or to unclutter the page. It’s Google psychological warfare game with people’s minds.

The below Tweet is embedded more for its image, than its comment, although its comment is interesting by itself. Stare at the image for a few moments.

Search engine users will look at the results and lose the ability to decide based on the URL itself, whether they should visit the web site. It will create a situation where it simply won’t matter what the website is called or what the URL is that the site uses or whether it is operating on Hotwire.com or Hotwire.flights.

Google will remove this factor from the user’s subconscious consideration process as it will be so inconvenient to figure it out before visiting each site, that users will learn to disregard it (at minimum in search), and it shouldn’t take very long, maybe just a year.

This is fundamentally what Google wants – they don’t want users to think for themselves. They want ‘control’ of users thought processes. They want users to rely on Google to make the decision for them, like how people tend to subconsciously disregard phone numbers and rely on the convenience of their mobile device to store the phone numbers for them, subconsciously removing the need to even ‘remember’ things. Researchers who conducted a worldwide study found that more than 51 percent of Americans would suffer “immense distress” if they lost their mobile device.

Let’s not forget that Google owns Charleston Road Registry Inc., the company that operates at least forty-six (46) new gTLDs, URLs they spent and will continue to spend a tremendous amount of money on. Forty-six URLs which could take 50 years to mature if left to mature on their own in a market that has historically preferred to trust legacy TLDs. If Google could get people to not worry so much about the URL; if they could speed this process up some; if they could take it away, remove it from the equation, this would benefit who exactly?

John Colascione

About The Author: John Colascione is Chief Executive Officer of Internet Marketing Services Inc. He specializes in Website Monetization, is a Google AdWords Certified Professional, authored a ‘how to’ book called ”Mastering Your Website‘, and is a key player in several Internet related businesses through his search engine strategy brand Searchen Networks®