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Ed Zitron wrote a piece called The Man Who Killed Google Search<\/a>. It details how Prabhakar Raghavan, Google’s former head of ads, led a coup so he could run Google Search, and how an email chain in 2019 started a cascade of events that would lead him to put it on the ground said<\/p>\n Everyone in the SEO\/SEM space is talking about this article and I went back to SEO on fire. If you haven’t read it yet, you should<\/a>.<\/p>\n I will include some posts from Ed Zitron:<\/p>\n In February 2019, Google’s ad and finance teams called search a “code yellow,” because revenue was slow and people seriously weren’t asking Google enough questions. Ben Gomes, then head of search, refused to make Google Search worse for profit.<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/KyoaKptQpN<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Ed Zitron (@edzitron) April 23, 2024<\/a> <\/p>\n Gomes managed to get Google help through code yellow, but Raghavan asked for more, saying Ben hadn’t increased the queries enough. Gomes sent a letter to say he was “deeply, deeply uncomfortable” with the ways Google wanted to grow search.<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/VZbr79yyRx<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Ed Zitron (@edzitron) April 23, 2024<\/a> <\/p>\n Prabhakar Raghavan may be a computer scientist, but he joined Google in 2012 as a manager, working directly under CEO Sundar Pichai, a former McKinsey man. Raghavan is a class traitor who deliberately ended Ben Gomes, who worked on the research for 19 years.<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/2HAKZbBdOd<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Ed Zitron (@edzitron) April 23, 2024<\/a> <\/p>\n Prabhakar Raghavan is a professional failure, a man who has fallen into the top job in software, and since becoming head of search in 2020, Google has become an ultra-profitable and increasingly less useful Raghavan is a villain.<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/lGwWApvYhq<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Ed Zitron (@edzitron) April 23, 2024<\/a> <\/p>\n Anyway, here’s Raghavan from a few hours ago saying that the new operational reality of search is that they’re going to have less time to do stuff! <\/a> pic.twitter.com\/u6PRu2PTv0<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Ed Zitron (@edzitron) April 23, 2024<\/a> <\/p>\n More context from a former search engineer who shares a little more context about how things got a lot worse for search technologically<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/wknLjTRGik<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Ed Zitron (@edzitron) April 24, 2024<\/a> <\/p>\n Here are some of our many industry posts on this:<\/p>\n Heroes, villains, code yellows and more -> Emails released as part of US v. Google show how Google’s finance and advertising teams led by Prabhakar Raghavan screwed up search to make more money for the company.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Thread is a dark window into the world of growth-focused tech, where Thakur\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/44q9d5tu7Y<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) April 24, 2024<\/a> <\/p>\n To be fair, it’s been a long time since I felt like we were in the darkest timeline. pic.twitter.com\/3E13xSi6as<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Keith Goode (@keithgoode) April 24, 2024<\/a> <\/p>\n This article from @edzitron<\/a> seems to have identified the dynamics behind Google’s quality degradation.<\/p>\n He makes some leaps and assumptions in painting Prabhakar Raghavan as the villain of the story; I think there are likely to be several villains. But, I think you have done the right thing… https:\/\/t.co\/1ljJ7WDr8u<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Chris Silver Smith (@si1very) April 24, 2024<\/a> <\/p>\n Extremely biased, but still fascinating. Also the fundamental truth that the founders of Google are trying to isolate organic search within a bubble of false academia is failing. Managers and lawyers, who have all the real power, are much more interested in cash.<\/p>\n \u2014 Ammon Johns\u265e (@Ammon_Johns) April 24, 2024<\/a> <\/p>\n SEO – Read this article. It has everything:<\/p>\n \u2022 Fantastic narration \u2014 Garrett Sussman \u2615\ufe0f\ud83d\udd0e (@garrettsussman) April 24, 2024<\/a> <\/p>\n And much more, to see this way<\/a>.<\/p>\n I’m still digging after two days, so I apologize for not digging more\u2026<\/p>\n Discussion in the forum a X<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\u2022 A wild take on a Google villain
\u2022 Validation of your wildest SEO conspiracy theories (ads and search quality)
\u2022 Believable subtext to an ongoing Google narrative about the death of SEO https:\/\/t.co\/Y7cUrVtEjX<\/a><\/p>\n