Being accepted into Google

[PhilC]

Yeah, it's ironic. Without websites (us), they have no business. The ultimate power is with the websites, though. We can close an engine down anytime we want to. If all websites used the robots.txt file to ban a particular engine, it would have to close down. Of course, it would take some serious organizing so it's not gonna happen - but we do have the power.

[piramida]

the same way as if all search engines unite and ban websites. in your scenario, search engines will get no sites (unless of course they <edited by PhilC - flame> simply ignore your robots.txt). in second scenario, smaller websites will get no traffic, with major portals taking over the web.

[PhilC]

Originally Posted by piramida

the same way as if all search engines unite and ban websites.

yeah, right.

[John Scott]

All you'd really need is to get a few popular sites to exclude a search engine, and have a high profile boycott of that search engine.

Like any boycott, the actual number of people boycotting it doesn't matter - it's how much noise the boycotters make.

[John Scott]

Come to think of it, some search engines died even without the benefit of a boycott....

[PhilC]

AV died (well, almost) through word-of-mouth spread dissatisfaction plus word-of-mouth spread satisfaction with Google. But Google isn't gonna die yet because most people are satisfied. But you're right John - it just takes noise.