Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Great, let's offer something to the US market only and no one else...huh?...dumb or what?
Let's offer the chance for our existing customers/promotion people...to allow their competitors the chance to promote the same and thereby possibly, most probably, dilute their earnings.
Has Google turned itself into the BIGGEST, SPAMMIEST, MOST INSULAR, SELF-INTERESTED money churning machine we have ever seen?
Do no evil? Ok, a quote from their own pages:
[google.com...]
While many companies claim to put their customers first, few are able to resist the temptation to make small sacrifices to increase shareholder value.
So Google, what it is it you are attempting?
I see one, and only one result...even more profits for Google!
What is sad is that in a way I think they have reaslised this - BUT because they are so obsessed with money-grubbing, they can't bring themselves to do the job properly as your quote shows. They KNOW that people will switch search engines because of the crap, yet they can't bring themselves to throw off the scrapers and gamers that will ultimately lose them their user base! How daft is that? How utterly short term. Can nobody in Google see the future if they continue the whay they are going?
It can't happen - wouldn't bet on it. People switched to Google because it was the best search engine. Fast with good results. People switched from Alta Vista (a number 1 at the time) and look what happened to them? Unless Google gets it's act together and goes back to providing a fast search engine with accurate results people WILL switch to a new search engine that does.
The new update I assume is meant to help. OK - I've got a promotion to #1 on google.com (thank you Google), but I'm not sure the updates have worked. My wife spends a lot more time than I do surfing (I spend the time on my site) and she reports no change.
The other problem with the new updates is that all the non-compliant back-button disabled MFA's STILL appear in the right hand column! Shuffling them to the bottom of serps makes no difference if their traffic comes from gaming adwords.
I'd like to think that the future is going to be good for Google, but I have to say that I *do* think they have not only lost focus, but completely lost the plot.
Google...NOT a directory of scrapers.
That's the key.
I do think there is a core of people at Google that realise that quality of search is the reason they are in the position they are today, and throwing that legacy away is like banging nails in the coffin. However, like all large corporations, in-fighting is rife between departments, and I suspect that any proposal to make radical changes that might affect next quarters balance sheet, or the current share price get vetoed or watered down by the bean counting department - even if it means the death of the company in the long term.
I do think there is a core of people at Google that realise that quality of search is the reason they are in the position they are today, and throwing that legacy away is like banging nails in the coffin. However, like all large corporations, in-fighting is rife between departments, and I suspect that any proposal to make radical changes that might affect next quarters balance sheet, or the current share price get vetoed or watered down by the bean counting department - even if it means the death of the company in the long term.
Exactly :)
This may come as a bit of a shock, but there is quite a bit of business that takes place in the rest of the world, though perhaps not in your particular niche. In general terms the US is only 4th in the world in terms of financial reserves, 3rd highest in population, 6th in terms of financial growth, and 4th in terms of land area. The only table it tops is GDP, where it is just ahead of the EU, but if you pitch the US vs the rest of the world, the latter is easily the more significant market.
I agree with Clark that Google's decision to limit the facility to the US is probably just one of logisitics - and I think ASA indicated an intention to make it more widely available. However, minor decisions made by US companies can sometimes take on greater significance because of the bigger problems caused by the US taking a US-centric approach - eg: the Project for the New American Century, which seeks to instil American values across the world (google "donald rumsfeld world domination" for reviews of that particular initiative). The results can be seen, for example, in the Pew Global Attitude Report - [pewglobal.org...] - which says that "the United States remains broadly disliked in most countries surveyed" and "there is considerable support across every country surveyed, with the notable exception of the U.S., for some other country or group of countries to rival the United States militarily".
Having said that, I'm not sure it would be fair to ask ASA to solve those particular problems. Perhaps we should stick to getting the login problems resolved.
Seems what is best for Google Adsense (quantitatively) is largely detrimental to Google as a search engine (qualitatively) ...an inverse relationship.
I've been there, I've done that, I got tired of it, and I left corporate life.
I agree with maxgoldie - I suspect there are serious internal contradictions within Google between its original goals of simply creating a great search engine and its new obligations to maintain growth and "maximize shareholder value".
One manifestation of this is their willingness to accept virtually any site into the AdSense program and their inability to introduce any quality controls with respect to participation.
Amen and Amen
Smart pricing is nothing compared to 50,000 scraper sites showing ads that should only be shown on quality content sites. If that isn't enough they now want us to send them more referrals. Google has pitched a no hitter since going public. Every quarter higher then the last. What remains to be seen is how they react to the content network after they give up the first hit.
