Weaning off Google
by Randall McCarley
October 8th, 2007
I have made the switch from Google to Yahoo! as my default search engine. You may notice I have changed the site search function on this blog over as well.
While I think Google offers great products their ethics are wanting and I just don’t want to support them any more than I have to. There’s a good list of Google alternatives at Gevil.org if you are interested in reducing your reliance on Google.
You will notice that I have left Google Adsense up. While I take issue with some of Google’s policies I am still a businessman first. Until I find a service that comes close to pulling the same revenue I get with Adsense I won’t change that over. There’s a difference between making a protest and being stupid. Unfortunately YPN does not stack up in this arena.
However, I am happy to report that Yahoo! Search is proving to be much more reliable than Google’s. I’ve been hearing reports that Yahoo! has a higher satisfaction rate and can now see why - it just works!
While this was a personal choice for me I’d like to encourage you to try some other search engines as well. Here’s the big ones to look at:
There are some smaller and niche search engines you may want to try out as well:
The real issue at heart here for me is building the free internet I want instead of capitulating to the demands of a monopolistic empire. With more than 50% of the market share for search alone, Google is using its size to bully websites into falling in line with ‘policy’ - no matter how hypocritical the new policies are when stacked against Google’s mission statement, webmaster guidelines and public image.
My protest is a small one. I’m hopeful that this message will reach you and inspire you to try something different. If Google’s market share gets affected they will have to address their policies. I’m hopeful Google will go back to being a great service provider and their attempt to architect, engineer or police what the masses want online will stop.
Thank you for your support!
Update: Thanks to this great post by Ben, I have checked out a couple Adsense alternatives and settled on BidVertiser for now. That makes this site one big step closer to being Google-free!
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