It all began when Danny Sullivan published an article exposing a Google experiment in which it tested Bing. According to Michael Gray of Atlas Web Service, the test, essentially, showed that Bing used the data from Google’s toolbar to duplicate its search results, a move that Google considers “copying.”

Gray went on to explain to WebProNews that the accusation of click fraud is “a little far-reaching.” Although the technology was the same, it didn’t cost Bing any money since there weren’t any PPC campaigns involved. He said that if Google did suspect that Bing was copying them, this method was the only way it would have found out the truth.

So, who’s right, and who’s wrong? Gray believes that both companies are in the wrong to an extent. Based on his analysis, Microsoft was wrong to take the data from the toolbar and use it in their ranking algorithm without testing it further.

Google’s wrongdoing, on the other hand, stems from past events. As he explains, Ask introduced universal search long before Google did, and Yahoo introduced Yahoo Instant long before Google released its version of it. In addition, Gray points out that Google seems to make product announcements at other people’s press events and play it off as a coincidence. Although Google, typically, says that it has been working on these products for long periods of time, some people interpret their actions in each of these scenarios differently.

The timing of this latest turn of events seemed to be somewhat of a coincidence as well since Sullivan’s article was published just before both companies were set to take the stage at the Farsight Summit.

“Google’s playing hardball and they’re a serious, competitive company; they like to hold onto their market share, and they’re not taking things laying down,” he said.

As for the lesson for marketers in all this, Gray said that marketers need to expand their efforts beyond SEO to include other areas, such as social media.

He also pointed out that this situation is “good news for Bing” because it means that Google considers them as a viable competitor.

How do you think this saga will play out, and how will it impact the search industry?

Gray puts SEO on top because, despite the initial investment, he believes it is very cost-effective. PPC, on the contrary, requires a monthly payment.

In addition, Google has made some changes that make SEO efforts even more important. The search giant recently opened personalized search to everyone, therefore making it vital to get the first click. At this point, Gray doesn’t think Google is including PPC results but said it could change.

With those developments in mind, Gray advises others to utilize both organic SEO and PPC. He said, “You should know how to use both… but then, pick your specialty of where you’re going to go.”

The Federal Trade Commission is reportedly drafting guidelines for bloggers who promote products specifically when conflicts of interest are not disclosed to readers. In spite of that pending regulation, Google is raising concerns since its search engine cannot fully discern all paid and sponsored blog posts. The company recently frowned upon the practice at a recent blogger event.

Although paid sponsorships are commonplace in traditional media, Gray says people have the ability to distinguish when it is happening and when it is not. The Internet however is a whole new space in which the sponsorships are not as obvious.

As a result, Google is struggling to figure out how to handle the issue. The company would like to see more user data and multiple sources that verify the post and links. As Matt Cutts of Google said on his blog: “We [Google] take the subject of paid posts seriously and take action on them.”

What are your thoughts regarding sponsored posts? Do you believe it’s wrong?

Matt says, “We [he and Michael] don’t always see eye-to-eye (Nah, really?!) …  but one thing that Michael and I both agree on is that hacking sites to get links is basically pure evil.”

What will happen if you don’t heed this advice? According to Michael, “… your sites are gonna burn in hell.”

This has been a Public Service Announcement brought to you by WebProNews.

UPDATE:
Clearly, based on some of the comments, some of you are unaware that this was intended simply as a fun video. It is a spoof of the Pat Robertson/Al Sharpton PSA about the environment from a year or so ago.  You can go see that video here then watch ours. I thought it was funny…

Backing up just a bit, Twitter purchased Surmize last year and brought it in-house and developed it into Twitter Search. Within Twitter Search, Twitter displays popular hashtags and terms as trending topics in case others want to look at them also. Twitter claims that the search is in real-time, but unfortunately it isn’t always, which is one of the biggest problems with Twitter Search.

What does this mean for the search engines? Michael Gray doesn’t believe that Twitter Search will replace the search engines, but he does believe the engines are looking for ways to utilize it. Google is reportedly talking with Twitter and working on a method to effectively crawl through a user’s tweets.

What do you think about Twitter Search? Do you find it effective? How do you think it will impact the standard search engines?