Texas Opens Inquiry into Google Search Ranking

The antitrust inquiry disclosed by Google late Friday is just the latest sign of the complicated exam facing the company as it enters its unstable position. Since its beginning in a Silicon Valley garage 12 years ago, Google has gone from a quickly start-up to one of the world’s most influential businesses with annual revenue approaching $30 billion.

A spokesman for Texas Attorney General Abbott confirmed the investigation, but declined further comment. The review appears to be focused on whether Google is controlling its search results to make competition easier. The order of those results can make or break websites because Google’s search engine processes about two-thirds of the search requests in the US and handles even more in some parts of the world.

That dominance means a website ranking high on the first page of Google’s results will likely attract more traffic and generate more revenue, either from ads or marketing sales. On the other side, being buried in the back pages of the results, or even at the bottom of the first page, can be financially dangerous and, in extreme cases, has been blamed for destroying some Internet companies.

Google says its a search formula to recommend websites that are most likely to satisfy the needs of each user’s request. If it didn’t keep its users happy, Google argues that people would not be satisfied and switch to other search engines offered by Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp or Ask.com.