The changing face of search results

It used to be that searching for a product or service on the internet would throw up small innovative companies, you would find new options and ideas and the small business could compete with the largest on an equal footing but it seems to me that times have changed. I can only speak for my area of garden fountains and water features but its becoming harder for the small business to compete for organic search placings amongst the proliferation of large companies and the resources they bring.

All is fair in competition if equality of opportunity is the starting point but changes to Google search algorithm over the last couple of years has seemed to favor big organizations, as I write this the top five places on search for the term 'garden fountains' is dominated by large businesses, at number one is E bay followed by a string of large online retailers essentially selling exactly the same products, the only difference being the masthead and occasionally small price differences.

Its becoming obvious to me that if this trend continues the only way for small business to get their products onto the first page of search results will be to sell at reduced prices to the larger retail chains or to pay for listings on eBay and Google ads.

We will continue to promote our website to bring you the best prices and customer service we can but it is an uphill struggle competing with the larger resourced retailers.