Should we be worried that bit by bit, Google seems to be providing it's own content rather than helping people find other people's content on other sites. Less and less like a search engine..

Eg search 'population australia'. The top resulst if from www.google.com/publicdata

Search 'cinema chatswood'. Top result is 'ShowTimes for Chatswood' brought by Google.com.au/movies

There are a few others too that I'v eseen that I can't quite recall. Anyone got any other examples or think this is a bit worrying?

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Happening more and more and I expect it to continue. They'll likely go for any good niche, at the end of the day all that traffic that google receives is there traffic so really they can do what they they like. Pity the competition is so weak.

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Sometimes it helps to look at it from the end user perspective instead of our usual webmaster one. I think these changes by Google are awesome.

The "cinema Chatswood" search is a really good and interesting example. If I click through via the show times for Chatswood NSW link, it gives me a listing of all the movie times for all the cinemas in that region on the one page.

Let's change the search term a little and type in Hoyts Chatswood instead. You get something similar this time but only the show times for Hoyts cinemas in this region and not competitors.

I know if I'm looking for cinema times, I want this information quick and I don't want to have to dig around multiple pages and wade through cinema club offers and give away my email address etc etc when looking.. which is the experience you get on a lot of cinema websites.

Who's goes to the cinema these days anyway?

...

'weather + GEO' is another example.

WorGeneral - no question it's pretty cool but who's to say that Google have got the best opinion on the forecast or are most accurate with cinema times? The original Google algo is kinda based on a system of democracy with inbound links being considered as votes.

This makes sense - over time, people's votes will decide which is the 'best' result to show.

But now Google are doing away with this system and unilaterally deciding their own info is the best on the web regardless of how many people agree.

Hadhad, this isn't about Google learning from others to get an edge. It's about them doing away with the normal requirment to rank and just popping their info right at the top.

Slippery slope...

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Votes made sense in years gone by but we all know how easily these "votes" can be rigged in our own/others favour which is why we see the changes to the algo and why it considers more than just the quantity of backlinks a website has.

Personally I think pagerank should never of been divulged publicly and this problem of selling/buying links to rank would not of been the large issue it is today.

It doesn't really matter what the original algo was anyway, everything evolves (for the better) and Google is probably at forefront of companies bringing consumers new and fancy tools like maps, local listings, street view and so forth, so it's hardly unexpected to see them make new additions to the SERPS like the movie times.

There was similar dismay when Adwords was introduced and now that's considered part and parcel of the search engine.

Anyway, who says Google has a requirement to rank other sites at the top in the prominent position and not their own? Although it's a large company, I wouldn't accept anyone telling me how to operate my own websites and I think that should extend itself to Google as well.