It will potentially be the first time that the effectiveness of the product is impacted by the disclosure. It depends on what the factors are in Google's algorithm, of course, but having to disclose them potentially opens up Google to a whole lot more webspam. If that happened, they would need to fall back more heavily on the "difficult to fake" (eg. reputable links) factors rather than the "everyone can fake" (eg. optimal pattern of keywords on page) factors.
In practice it may negatively impact on the quality of search results, even though in theory their algorithm including more "difficult to fake" factors should result in it being more durable.
Not only this, but I'd think their current, exact ranking algorithm would rank pretty high on their list of important trade secrets to protect.
If a competitor gets ahold of their exact ranking algorithm, that's a huge piece of the formula for building a search engine that is as good as Google Search at finding what someone's looking for.
Absolutly correct, but there is also much more too this, there is page layout and look. There is speed of results depended on ability to trawl and return answers. There are complimentary platforms holing to their ecosystem. There is information they have access to only known to google from past searches or alternate platforms. There are masses of manual non algorithmic overrides. There is simple inertia of typing Google into the address bar for many.
Yes giving up the source algorithm would be a loss. Google have seen this coming for years and have been building the moat so even this information shared wouldn't really help a competitor take any significant chunk of their business in the short to medium term.
Sure it is; Google could stop doing business in France, and direct all traffic from France to a landing page saying that the French government has imposed restrictions they're not willing to comply with, so they're choosing to stop accepting traffic from France, and that you might consider contacting your government representatives if you want more information.
In practice it may negatively impact on the quality of search results, even though in theory their algorithm including more "difficult to fake" factors should result in it being more durable.