The Man Who Killed Google Search

A 2019 "code yellow" over weak search revenue is presented as the start of Google making search results worse to chase growth targets. Internal emails released in the Department of Justice's antitrust case show Ben Gomes, Google's head of search, objecting that search was "getting too close to the money" and saying he was deeply uncomfortable with engagement hacking. About a year after the code yellow, Google made Prabhakar Raghavan, then head of ads, head of search and moved Gomes to SVP of Education.