For those who have not yet heard the news, Google has recently threatened the Australian government that they will abolish the country’s ability to use the search engine if forced to pay news media outlets to host content under a new media bargaining code.
This code would force massive tech companies such as Google and Facebook to pay news organisations license fees to use and share news media content. Google has fired back at this proposal, threatening to remove Australia’s access to Google search.
But what does this mean for small businesses?
If Google search is removed from Australia, this can have a major impact on small to medium businesses in Australia (that rely on Google to make their phone ring), considering that Google dominates 94% of all searches in Australia. “Using the employment measure of small business, there were 2,065,523 small businesses in Australia employing less than 19 people, accounting for 97 per cent of all Australian businesses by employee size.”
Ranking highly in Google search results does not happen by chance, and hundreds of thousands of small businesses that have invested in digital marketing services will attest to this. Those tools we now rely on may well become redundant. Google My Business (GMB), Google Ads, Google Search Console, Google Analytics and Google maps may all potentially be impacted.
Are you prepared?
If you are a current client of Goop Digital, you are in the best possible position to face this potential shift in the digital world. Our websites, while built to perform exceptionally on Google, are also optimised across all search engines including Bing and Yahoo. At Goop Digital we provide all our clients with an annual rankings review with tips and suggestions on how to better market yourself in a digital world. Bing only has a 3 to 4 percent share of the search market in Australia, we have never included this in our search report we provide to our clients. If your business is worried about your digital presence and keeping your head above water through this potential change, please get in contact with our specialist team today by emailing [email protected] and we will provide you with a rank report on how your website currently performs including Bing.
See below for what Google has to say on the issue at hand: