A Google Killer?: The Search Business Model That Gives The Sites They Index A Fair Cut

The way the search business currently functions (and has since the dawn of…Google) no money exchanges hands between the search engines and the sites they index. Just about all web sites and the companies running them allow all search engines the same access to their data – the web sites clearly benefiting from the traffic driven from popping up in search results and the search engines benefiting from search ad revenue. The way the search business is modeled at the moment – a virtual free-for-all – we have yet to find a search engine that’s really come close to Google-killer status.

The notion that search engines should be paying these sites for the rights to index their copyrighted content has been raised before. News sites in particular have taken issue with Google in the past for extracting blurbs from their content – giving web users the ability to get the answers to their questions solely from the abstract in the search results without even having to click on the link. In these instances, Google has more or less “stolen” their content and, more importantly, their ability to make money off of it.

So what sorts of solutions are being proposed? And what sort of search business model would it take to beat Google? In an interesting article by Mark Cuban back in May on Digital Media Wire he toys with the idea that big players like MS or Yahoo can offer sites big money to block Google – to ask to be removed from the Google Index.

“Mahalo.com thinks it needs to support the 25k most common search terms in order to be successful. What would happen if MicroSoft or Yahoo or a MicroHoo went to the 5 top results for the top 25k searches and paid them to leave the Google Index?”

Certainly a different way to approach things and it just might work if the companies behind these Top 5 search results are willing participants in this great Google-killing venture out to degrade their index (and if the money was right). But isn’t that a sort of short term fix? Aren’t these top search terms and top search results in flux? Would a one-time payout be alluring enough to pull these companies away from a top traffic driver (and continuous money-maker) that has been so dependable for so long?

Dumbfounder believes the logical direction for the search business model to take is that these web sites comprising popular search results and giving the search engines their inherent value should receive payment from the engines in the form of shared search ad revenue. For example, they should be paid based on the clicks they receive in organic search results – receiving a cut of the ad revenue the search engine is receiving on that page…and in general making everyone happy that the search engines exist (beyond driving them traffic…and stealing copyrighted content).

Is this a Google-killing concept? Well it does offer a bit more of a more two-way search business model in a time when everyone – particularly media companies – are figuring out a way to better monetize their web presence. This model also addresses the copyright issue in a fair and scaleable manner of pay-out. As folks become more and more fascinated with the idea of a Google-killer (note: Cuil buzz and blow-up), the idea of a shake-up such as this in the search engine business is getting more likely.