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This Cesspool We Call the Internet

...as Google CEO Eric Schmidt Puts it.

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By · October 11, 2008 · 71 Comments

Eric Schmidt

Google CEO Eric Schmidt called the Internet a "Cesspool" Wednesday in reference to the quality of content and the amount of false information residing on it. This according to AdAge is a subject he spoke about with an audience of magazine executives at Google’s campus, where an annual industry conference was taking place.

Schmidt stressed that "Brands are the solution, not the problem…Brands are how you sort out the cesspool." 

I couldn’t agree more.

In response to an inquiry for advice about appearing more popular on Google, Schmidt told the magazine publishers, "We don’t actually want you to be successful…the fundamental way to increase your rank is to increase your relevance."

Branding and relevance. Hmm. Could it be that proving your content to be relevant  could increase the credibility of your brand, or "the authority" perhaps? Would it be safe to say that reader engagement is a reflection of relevancy as well? If more people become involved in a discussion, is that not a sign that it is more relevant? This sounds familiar.

OK, I’ll come right out and say it (yes, I’m going to bring up Bankaholic yet again). Take Bankaholic, the financial blog that was just sold to Bankrate for $15 million. Part of the reason Bankrate bought it was because it ranked well in search engines for hot key words the company was going after.

Johns Wu, the guy that sold the blog has acknowledged that user engagement was a huge factor in its success. It’s obviously relevant if it’s creating a good amount of discussion. And it’s ranking well. The name Bankaholic works as a pretty solid brand as well (some have speculated that this was also another factor of the purchase).

Schmidt is absolutely right. The Internet is a Cesspool of garbage, and relevancy and brands are the way to filter out what’s good. It’s no different than it’s ever been. Think about classic print publications. You’ve got trusted magazines and sleazy tabloids. You were always taught not to believe everything you read. The same principle applies online, it’s just that the amount of content is much greater (on both sides of the spectrum).

When discussion is taking place, relevancy is easier to pick out, and brands represent authority. Authority and engagement. Those are the keys to success, and that is the reason why new media is still a legitimate source of information despite people gaming the system to try and take advantage of it in unethical ways.

It Doesn’t Stop with Content Sites

Let’s look at the concept from a broader business standpoint, because these principles don’t only apply to content sites. They also apply to eCommerce businesses or even the web aspects of traditional brick and mortar businesses. I don’t care if your site only leads to selling products on eBay or Amazon, you must have ways of establishing your authority, which creates trust with potential customers. A blog or even “expert articles” that give tips and advice can be a good way to accomplish this. When a customer senses that the people running a site know what they’re talking about, they are more likely to purchase products from that site.

You can use blogs to engage site visitors and you can also integrate Web 2.0 type apps. For example, Best Buy has just launched an "enterprise-Twitter"-style application called Mix aimed at employees. Similar tools can be available for customers that will create an interactive environment that helps build a bond with customers, often prior to the sale. Anything that can help you develop a dialogue with your potential customers is going to help inspire trust.

A recent survey found that 81% of consumers don’t trust small online businesses. Authority and engagement are ways to overcome this. For more on earning customer trust online, see my seven steps for small businesses. How do you earn trust from your customers? What methods do you employ to engage users? How do you gain authority in your niche? Share your ideas with the rest of us. Engage!

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There are 71 Comments. Add Yours.

  1. Dear "Mr Google CEO"

    We are sorry that you cant get your "manicure" done this week or go to a fancy resort for the weekend due to your stocks "fall from heaven" but trying to take it out on the web or webmasters is wrong and you know it. 

    You guys purposely screwed up websites PR and rankings so that those "web dollars" would get deverted to "adwords" but as you can see it didnt help any and you only showed your true colors and googles.

    You might want to ask if that "golden parachute" is still available as that stock and the lifestyle you where so accustomed to is slipping away really fast…

    Love Always

    Just Greedy

  3. Great article. Point to be noted about not only quality content but relevancy of the content,

  4. Whatever happened to Microsoft being the evil warlord?  Why is everyone beating up one person who works for Google and calling it THE gospel.

    Of course the internet is a cesspool.  A cesspool of everyone’s opinion, just like the corner bar on a Thursday night.  Or the cesspool we still call the nightly news. At least with the internet you can get three or three hundred opinions and use YOUR brain to make an informed decision instead of having some talking head tell you what to think.

  5. Guest
    Reply

    wondeful? cesspool? perception perception perception……………

  6. Guest
    Reply

    Being right is just part of it. Applying what uou know is right to your own business is also  important.

  7. Guest
    Reply

    what is a brand?

    Its a way of charging $300 for exactly the same shirt that costs $2 except its got a ‘brand’ name sewn onto it.

    A brand is an internationally well known company and therefore must be trusted above any mom and pop business. Enron is such an example.

    The economy is in a revolution and first against the wall will be ‘brands’ and all its scamsters who support them.

  8.  As a directory owner I see a lot of submissions from many sites. Don’t rely on a bot, like some. At least I check each submissions to insure they are usable, and offer a good user experience. 

    Even though Google thinks directories are irrelevant, some of us do try to keep our little corner of the cesspool clean. And do what we can to help maintain quality and relevant content.  

    And just like Google charges for keywords, I charge for position in the directory. I need to put food on the table also. 

    Like any good store owner I like to think the content of my site is quality and work to maintain it.

    And ok I don’t have venture capital to build brand, but it doesn’t mean the quality is less. In some ways its better because I have passion and commitment.  I don’t live by the algorithm, with me its all personal, I see, I touch, I use, the human experience.
     

     

    • G’day,

      You do a good job to, I use it regularly for myself and clients =)

  9. If we did not have search engines, website owners would not be playing the content creation and linking game in order to be found in them.

    The incentive to create content for content’s sake is one of the big reasons why the web is a cesspool.

    We had the dotcom bubble. We are currently seeing the wreckage of the credit bubble. In the future, the gurus with 20/20 hindsight will be analysing the web content bubble.

    Less is more. In the long run, quality will beat quantity.
     

  10. You lot REALLY need to STOP the page whizzing down to the bottom. We all know there is a comments option down there. All you are achieving with this flash nonsense is CLIENT IRRITATION. This a shame because your contents is worth a read now and then. Wise up – its worse than those pop-over/under things that drive customers away quickfast and yet PLAGUE the commercial pages. When will THEY ever learn eh?

  11. Google should not judge ANYTHING!

    Who appointed Google as judge???

    That is NOT Google’s function at all.

    If someone wants to find rubbish.com, than Google should search it out and display the results – Period!

    Google has NO right or function to say what is good or bad on the net.

    It is MERELY a Search Engine and should NOT be anything else!

    Maybe we should all ignore Google and NOT use Google anymore?

    Then Google would itself become a "cesspool" and also "rubbish"! LOL

    • For all of us to stop using google is like i tell other people we dont need to drive cars or buy gas but try walking everywhere you go.  The truth is the web has been a rubish dump for a long time with misleading ads and material that we would not show our kids but that is old fashioned i guess.  I feel like what google is talking about is very true, and hey they are nothing but a search engine, just try and spread that rubish around without them and one more thing they are free to use if you wish to do so and as long as the #1 search engine is free i guess they dont have to list any site if they choose not to.  I recently listened to a web video feed from another search engine on how we can get by without google but the one thing i remeber is the name google must have been mentioned a dozen times in ten minutes so i guess you are right if you dont mind walking every where you go and using your mail box to access millions of people everyweek you dont need google.

  12. laserbrain
    Reply

    Of course the internet is a cesspool. You have anybody and everybody with internet access saying whatever they want just by pounding on the keyboard. You have webmasters throwing up websites riddled with BS information in hopes for an adwords click. Not to mention the idiots that employ viruses, scrapes, cloaking, spamming, and the like. By calling the internet a cesspool I would have to agree. Actually I think the Schmidt’s description is quite humorous. Google certainly has their hands full filtering through all the garbage in order to present their users with good, credible, reliable, and unique information.

  13. He calls the internet a cesspool but he does not offer insights to quality content providers. I don’t think he is serious about cleaning it up, avoiding questions about how publishers could improve their ranking with Google Search.

  14. It is Google itself that thrives on the cesspool of the internet.

  15. It’s a cesspool because Eric Schmidt says it a cesspool. If he called it Utopia 3 billion people will think thats true. The problem with the internet is it’s a community of followers. The leaders make money, start trends, and everyone else follows. If google wanted to change the system all they have to do is keep their opinions to themselves, let people make up their own minds. What would the internet look like if everyone didn’t think content or links is the way to a number one listing on google. You would see more originality.

  16. I think the cess pool itself is not the internet, but like any other medium it’s the content and users that spring up from folks that make rhe world a cess pool in many respects as  the real world…the internet just becomes another usefull tool to expoit just like those offline do..except you can do it cheaper.

    You have main stream businesses still being more concerned with corporate image than they are about staying in business…when your business is failing sometimes you better be ready to do things to save it which means utilizing areas of this cesspool to try to save your business…

  17. ‘All politics is local’ also applies to your branding~ your internet marketing is ultimately no better than your end game, your consistency of delivery of the final product~ if there are any discrepencies between your internet presence & your end delivery, then your product will not be trusted in the future….the internet is just ‘local’ on a grand scale….lots of people forget that!

  18. You have main stream businesses still being more concerned with corporate image than they are about staying in business…when your business is failing sometimes you better be ready to do things to save it which means utilizing areas of this cesspool to try to save your business…

  19. Can’t we just format the Internet HD and start over? ;-)

  20. Blog entry
    It wouldn’t be right to open Webster’s Dictionary and find the word Bird before Animal. That’s what is wrong with most search engines. You can PAY someone to get your site ranked higher than their competitors. Then they come back and PAY someone to get a ranking higher than the original. Those who PAY get a better ranking. Like slipping the greedy door man $100 to let you into the $5 night club. Alexa rankings, Google rankings all can be “played with” or altered based on how well you can build your site to be Search Engine friendly. If a web site sells antique brass it makes no sense for them to become an expert on optimizing their site, or PAY to have an expert optimize or TRICK the search engine into ranking them higher. They should be ranked on their expertise of antique brass. It makes no sense to polish and shine the brass to be other than antique just so a search engine will rank it artificially higher. Google is wrongly skewed to favor those who know SEO rather than those who know their product. When will they rank a site based on the content alone? Then we all can remove the widgets on our sites and return to making the best antique brass available.

  21. It is Google itself that thrives on the cesspool of the internet. this is sure

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