Salon owners optimistic about future without Google, as tech giant threatens to leave Australia

Small businesses say they’re happy to give search engine Google the flick, as the tech giant threatens to withdraw from Australia.

Hair salon owner Kelly Prestia with client Sophia Wilson at Toni & Guy in Bondi in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. Picture: Britta Campion

From Kelly Prestia’s Sydney hair salon on Bondi’s bustling beach front, the battle between tech giant Google and the Australian government over content seems far removed.

The mother of two, who has cut hair from her salon for almost two decades, knew where she stood on the global clash over what was, in her words “just a search engine”.

“It’s not the internet, it’s just a search engine, Google has had the monopoly for so long people believe it is the internet but it’s not,” she said.

Ms Prestia, who runs Toni & Guy in Bondi Beach in the city’s east, was one of several salon owners who said they felt optimistic about a future without the search engine, according to a survey by the Australian Hairdressing Council.

Several hairdressers cited mounting costs associated with optimising search engine rankings and the site’s monopoly on reviews as stressors they could live without. The survey comes as Australian small businesses find themselves on the frontline of the David and Goliath battle after Google threatened to withdraw from Australia.

“It’s a monopoly — Google ratings are a great tool but they can also be a curse,” Ms Prestia said. “Especially during COVID, when it’s very restrictive in the amount of people we can have in the salon and making us do check-ins, it’s just another added pressure.

“You can get fake reviews; it’s such a worrying factor from an owner’s perspective … it’s a thing that’s hard to get rid of whether it’s true or false.”

She said Google search rankings were always “on the forefront of our minds” as a vital way to reach new customers.

“We have to be aware of it. A lot of money, time and energy goes into SEO and Google ranking, it’s a big expense,” she said. “If it was split and there was power spread across multiple platforms, it would be a better, more competitive market. Google is not the be all and end all.”

She said a year of stress and uncertainty — closing her doors for the first time in 18 years during lockdown — had taught her that change was possible in all aspects of life, including how consumers looked for information.