According to Szoka, even though FairSearch may raise some valid points, you have to be “skeptical” when dealing with policy and antitrust.

“We have to be skeptical any time that competitors are using a regulatory process to try to compete,” he said. “Moreoever, we should be worried not just about Google because, obviously, they are big boys and can take care of themselves, but really about the next Google.”

He went on to explain that FairSearch’s argument against Google is based mostly on bias. However, based on research from Josh Wright, also of TechFreedom, if bias is a problem, and it’s not been determined that it is, Microsoft’s Bing shows much more bias than Google does.

Szoka told us that, if bias is the only way that distinguishes what is and what isn’t competition, there is a problem. Instead, he thinks the analysis should look at whether or not consumers are harmed, and, at this point, he said the complainants have primarily been Microsoft and companies that are a part of FairSearch.

While TechFreedom defends Google on this matter, Szoka told us that the organization’s overall goal was to prevent government intervention.

“In general, competition [and] innovation do a much better job of protecting consumers than government does,” he said.

In response to FairSearch’s complaints against it, a Google spokesperson sent us this statement:

“Most people understand that Microsoft and our other competitors complain constantly about Google, but they also know that Google builds our search results for users, not websites, and that the laws are designed to protect consumers, not competitors.  The fundamental openness of the Internet means that consumers have infinite choices and can always switch to Bing, Facebook, Kayak, or Expedia with just one click.”

Does Google show a bias in its search results, or is FairSearch making inaccurate claims? What do you think?

As Ben Hammer explained to WebProNews, the organization is made up of several companies including Microsoft, Expedia, and TripAdvisor, and it believes that Google is a search monopoly.

“The question that our group is focused on is, now that authorities in the U.S., in the European Union, and around the world have already established that Google has monopoly power in search on the Internet, is Google violating the law by abusing that power in ways that sort of tilt the playing field to itself and basically restrict the options that consumers on the Internet have to find information, and then also get all the benefits that come with competition on the Internet?” he pointed out.

FairSearch began after Google announced that it was going to acquire ITA Software and make developments in the travel industry. Hammer told us that, because Google owns more than 60 percent of the search market share, it should be held to a “higher standard.”

“One of the sort of principles of competition and consumer law is that, once a company gains monopoly power in a market, they have undue influence over everything that happens in that market,” he said. “Only with that kind of power can you then do certain things that disadvantage everyone else in a way that competition and innovation and consumer benefits can be upended permanently.”

Hammer told us that, if authorities find its claims against Google to be true, FairSearch would like to see action taken that stops it.

WebProNews reached out to Google for its response to FairSearch and received the following statement from a spokesperson:

“Most people understand that Microsoft and our other competitors complain constantly about Google, but they also know that Google builds our search results for users, not websites, and that the laws are designed to protect consumers, not competitors.  The fundamental openness of the Internet means that consumers have infinite choices and can always switch to Bing, Facebook, Kayak, or Expedia with just one click.”

Do you agree with FairSearch’s claims? We’d love to know.

Aaron Wall, the author of SEO Book, first broke the news after discovering it in one of his forums. In short, Google apparently violated its own Webmaster Guidelines for paid links as part of a marketing campaign for Google Chrome.

“It was obviously paid exposure,” said Wall.

Shortly after this interview was conducted, Google responded to the incident and devalued its Chrome landing page for “at least 60 days,” according to the company’s Webspam Head Matt Cutts.

In a statement to WebProNews, a Google spokesperson said:

“Google never agreed to anything more than online ads. We have consistently avoided paid sponsorships, including paying bloggers to promote our products, because these kind of promotions are not transparent or in the best interests of users. We’re now looking at what changes we need to make to ensure that this never happens again.”

Wall did tell us that he hoped that, going forward, Google would be more “lenient” when dealing with others since mistakes can happen to anyone, even search giants.

As Bruce Clay explained to WebProNews, the changes Panda brought were significant to the search industry. However, overall, he thinks the quality of Google’s search results have improved. That said, Clay told us that we likely haven’t seen the end of Panda and that it has the potential to get bigger and meaner.

Social media and local search also played important roles in search over the year. Although the advent of Google+ is obviously noteworthy, Clay said that it would become more integrated with search over time, especially in regards to local search.

Going forward, he believes that SEO will become much harder. In addition, he said that SEO, social, conversion rate optimization, PPC, and other search marketing elements will, instead of being separate areas of expertise, will all fall under the broad title of Internet marketing. In other words, SEOs will also have be experts in social media and vice versa.

How have the search events of 2011 impacted you and your business? Let us know.

As Chris Boggs, the President of SEMPO, told WebProNews, the main goal of the letter was to promote a free market approach to the Internet that would allow search engines to provide the best results with limited or no regulation. The organization wrote the letter in response to its members’ needs and the continuing call for regulation of Google.

Although SEMPO has not received a response from the FTC, it hopes that its message was heard. Boggs told us that it is willing to work with government agencies such as the FTC to help them better understand how search engines operate.

Keep watching WebProNews for the latest news in this developing story.

Incidentally, Google just rolled out Google+ Pages for businesses, which makes Brogan’s advice even more relevant. Although the feature isn’t available for everyone yet, Brogan told us that businesses still need to be on Google+ and building their own brand on the platform.

For 5 years, WebProNews has partnered with BlogWorld and New Media Expo, the world’s first and largest new media conference, in an effort to broadcast how new media can grow your business, brand, and audience. Stay tuned to WebProNews for much more exclusive coverage.

Gabe Donnini, an analyst with Chitika, spoke with WebProNews about the company’s research and said that, once they noticed the trend, they actually furthered their study to find out if it was substantial. According to him, the trend actually got worse for Google.

What does this data say about the future of Google+? Is the service dying?

As he explained to WebProNews, Google+ hasn’t offered him anything that he wasn’t already getting from Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and other sources. He said he actually became “bored” with the service.

After publicizing his opinions, Reimold told us that many others have expressed the same feelings. He said the future of the service would really be dependent upon how many users were actively using it in 6 months.

To put it mildly, his campaign was interesting. However, he did get Google’s attention. Although the search giant did not hire him, he believes his campaign was a success. He was interviewed by Microsoft, Amazon, and Salesforce, and, in the end, was offered his dream job from an investment company called SigFig.

Epstein told us that we could expect “interesting things” from SigFig in terms of marketing campaigns going forward.

The show has gotten such a positive response that he is expanding it into a full-time career. After the show takes place on G+, the videos will appear on The Social Skillet. These videos will always remain free, but Allison is also holding exclusive skills classes with costs starting at $20 per lesson in order to help fund the venture.

While they all believe that it is definitely Google’s best attempt at social, they equally agree that there is still a lot that needs to be done to it. For instance, they would like to see further integration of Google products, an improved mobile experience, and better sharing capabilities, to name a few.

Even if Google makes these enhancements, the big question that everyone is pondering is: Will it have the power to control social in the same way that it does search? What do you think?

With this growth rate, it seems that users are impressed with the service. Rob Enderle, the principal analyst with the Enderle Group, told us that he was also “very impressed” with Google+. As he explained to us, the lingering question is whether or not Google+ can continue to impact people in this same way. He believes the answer to this question will, ultimately, be based on if users drop other social networks for Google+.

With competition in the social space definitely heating up, who do you think will remain major players?

“It looks like Google’s trying to bring together a lot of different social offerings that they already have in one place,” he said.

Slawski described it as a “social hub” and speculated that it could be a centralized platform that consolidates multiple social interactions both from Google and other social entities.

How do you think Google will integrate this “social hub” into its overall social strategy?

WebProNews reporter Abby Johnson spoke with Rod Nicolson, VP User Experience Design & Workflow, PR Newswire about Google’s latest algorithm update.

Nicolson says the update effects up to 12 percent of sites and it may be a while before everyone can fully interpret what the algorithm change means.

PR Newswire has seen an impact because of the Google Panda update. Nicolson says PR Newswire has been hit with collateral damage in Google’s war against content farms. The algorithm update has not had a massive effect on PR Newswire but it has been larger than expected.

Nicolson says there is no way that PR Newswire could “ ever, ever” be considered a content farm. He does not see any reason why PR Newswire would be included in a drop in rankings.

PR Newswire has been in contact with Google about the algorithm update and reminded them who they are.

To avoid the situation in the future Nicolson says PR Newswire is doing what every “SEO on the planet is doing, and looking very closely at everything being published and the data about the farmer update.”

Google, however, has over 200 ranking signals that it has also publicly stated. Kasteler believes this number is probably closer to 1,000 signals. As a result, he doesn’t think that people should make such a big deal about site speed.

“The fact that it will affect you is highly unlikely,” he said.

Kasteler goes on to explain to WebProNews that Google still places relevance above all other factors. In other words, if you do have a fast site, it doesn’t always mean that you will rank above your competitors.

“You can have the fastest site in all the world, faster than all your competitors, but you still need to be relevant,” he added.

To summarize his thoughts, speed will not impact your site’s ranking if you do not have relevant content. Speed is an important factor but only after the relevance criteria is met. For example, Mozilla, Google, and Microsoft all conducted studies on pages that loaded quickly against pages that didn’t load quickly. They found a 7-12 percent increase in conversions on the pages that loaded faster. Mozilla, specifically, found a 15.4 percent increase on pages that were only one second faster.

Kasteler believes that because speed impacts conversions and usability, it is more important than SEO.

“Having a fast site is way more important than SEO,” he said.

So, by having relevant content and fast site, everyone wins.