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It seems Google can't please anyone these days.
What is the root of it all?
a) The Florida update?
b) Big - just plain bigness (everyone loves to pick on the big guy)?
c) Poor management?
d) Public relations dept screw up?
e) Competitors planting seeds of division?
f) All of the above?
It seems to me that Google's PR machinery succeeded too well but peaked out prematurely before the IPO. Idea was to create the image of the next HP, the original builder of the Silicon Valley. Two Stanford PhD students tinker with some tech stuff in a garage and blah blah blah. It was expected to reach a peak at original IPO time when the venture capitalists backing Google would have made their exits with personal island-buying windfalls.
IPO got postponed. Competitors started spreading rumors that Stanford PhDs + neurosurgeon = academic bent. Not good for real businesspeople like you and me with mortal IQs.
Google will change its PR strategy. Original strategy backfired but since their technology is still first-rate, I think they will be able to ride out this.
(Just my rumblings on a Saturday night. You can guess that I am not a marketing guy. ;))
That makes me feel better, Brett. :) Seems like a good time to remind folks that there's other search engines out there and diversification plus keeping eggs in many baskets means that folks should go try to crack other search engines' nuts as well. I was reading a book that had a chapter about Infoseek, and all the utterly insane things that spammers did to show up all over Infoseek for all kinds of off-topic words. It was just wild to read about.
And I know that at least a few WebmasterWorld readers will now smile nostalgically as they recall the adventures they had with Infoseek.. :)
What Google had was the best ever, what they turned into is tomorrows Alta Vista slapping down spam and decent search results all at the same time.
The idea that a site has to have links from an authority site to be valid means that the real meat on the internet will never be found on google again (unless they go back to what was working).
"Go Local" and then try to find a car, or real estate, or insurance and you will see how bad Local Google is, speaking of spam.
Boomer
My take too. The thing is with Gmail using it is *totally voluntary*. It's not like people won't be able to search for websites using Google unless they also use Gmail. If the privacy implications of Gmail bother anyone, they merely need not sign up, and they'll have no problem at all with it.
Very true Googleguy, but until Yahoo went it's own way, Google directly or indirectly provided 80% more or less of most site's traffic. That's been true for my site for at least a year or longer, so in order to continue to grow the business I concentratd on SEO for Google.
The latest updates along with Yahoo's change taught many of us a hard lesson. The problem I saw was along with the Algo changes came slower indexing of sites, so reacting to the changes (if you thought you knew how) was a frustating exercise. I survived by using auctions, but others weren't as fortunate.
Yahoo is now sending about the same traffic as Google, so I along with others am spending more time on the Yahoo forum. Since many can't figure out how to rank with both, if Yahoo contiunes to gain and passes Google, SEO efforts will flow to Yahoo and Google's results will eventually become less relavent.
It seems that Google had too many pots cooking at once and whether by design or through unintended consequencs caused grief to many webmasters and frustration to many searchers.
Just my 2 cents worth. I feel better now
I feel Google has brought on criticism with their decisions, I doubt it's just a case of picking on the 'big guy', or people would have been picking for a couple of years now.
Currently, I'm seeing multiple duplicate(mirror copy including graphics and design) contents from the same site 'awarded' as backlinks and passing PR to each copy page( a PR loop?). It couldn't get worst than that. :)
I don't think Google is so much trying to kill the webmasters and SEO, as it is trying to keep the competition guessing as much as possible.
Right around Florida is where the big G went from high quality, business basing results, to a SERP that probably had good intentions, but didn't and doesn't mesh with what Google was in the past.
On a huge plus side for Google, the majority of my results STILL come from Google.
Yes, absolutely, this has to be their primary defensive objective. And if they ever slip and fail -- and that means let webmasters and SEOs figure out what they're doing, they are dead as Altavista just like, um, Altavista.
The problem was, pre-Florida, too many people had figured out to subvert the results. Now all those people are angry and frustrated.
Hardly a newbie at making money on the net. Regardless, Google offers multiple ways to make money that AV, Info and Excite did not. While it may have been easier to rank, more people are making more money today with Google than they did with the aforementioned memories.
The point is, with Google, you dont need to crack the top 10 serps or the algo nut to profit with Adwords or Adsense, as many with no clue about the nut yield a very good ROI with PPC. And cracking the nut really isnt that hard. There is a really good article frequently referenced here about building a successful site for Google in 12 months. I hear its still applicable. ;)
>it appears like it is a bit of piling on
Definitely, but thats what the press does best, whether its over-hyping the IPO that may never be or ripping them for privacy issues that are or should be the responsibilty of the user. So Google pushes the envelope with gmail and floats a trial balloon that they had to know would get flak. Very simple for Google to make a few changes and have the press once again singing their praises for 'doing no evil'. Meanwhile Google has still forced the competition to improve, whether its email or search.
