What Will Happen If The Government Becomes An SEO?

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

Here’s an interesting concept I haven’t considered:

What might happen to the value of mortgage.com or credit.com or health.com when the government launches the equivalent government portals co-sponsored by whatever relevant multi-billion dollar corporations pitch the idea to a congressman from their district?

Can the U.S. government drive down the value of .com websites using SEO? If you consider that being in the top 3 of any SERP the premium location for any business, based on the fact that the overwhelming lion’s share of clicks go to those three positions, then whoever holds those positions will be the proud owner of Boardwalk and Park Place. With lots of hotels.

Imagine a world where .gov sites pop up quickly and take over the top position in the SERPs for the highest value keyword searches all because a group of wealthy businessmen lobbied the government to set up a website and partner with them on the distribution of their products. Would Google aid and abet such government-sponsored predatory competitive practices? And if they can do it with .gov, can they also do it with .mil and .edu, both currently government-sponsored TLDs? Are we headed to a world where the top listings of any search you make will be government sites or government-backed websites?

What will happen to SEO then?