Is Google's late update schedule good or bad for a future I.P.O.

Is Google losing it edge with users.

[CCowboy]

Will this all these late updates or slow roll out of Google's new index hurt or help any futrue IPO.

Yahoo is going their own way very soon.

Which one will you invest in?

[percentages]

Back to on point - Any forthcoming Google IPO success will not be determined by what it does today, but what it is capable of doing in the future. This judgment will have to be made with due regards to competition.

Today Google is #1 in the search engine market, I personally don't think Google is the best SE, but I will admit it holds #1 position for popularity.

Without its alliances with partners, Google doesn't look so attractive. Take out Yahoo (likely to happen) and AOL, and Google is only on par with its major competitors.

Now look at how the majority of people find and utilize search engines and Google drops several pegs. MSN is found because of the IE dominance....and nothing is really threatening that! Yahoo is popular because of the additional portal services....nothing attacking that either.

Google's popularity is largely because of word of mouth and simplicity of use. Anyone can generate the simplicity of use, most can generate equally good SERP's, so Google's future success is largely based upon word of mouth.

Word of mouth is incredibly important, but can be swayed quickly. I have personally added several thousand users to Google, I'm sure other webmasters/SEO's can say the same or better.

At the same time we can take these folks away from Google. A simple newsletter to my clients tomorrow morning stating that Neilson says MSN is the fastest growing engine will convert huge numbers of them to use MSN.....just as we dragged huge numbers of them away from Yahoo/Inktomi results to Google a few years ago.

So to answer the question raised....any Google blowout as far as SEO/Webmasters are concerned is a major influence on its future popularity and therefore on its IPO value.

The results on sj/fi currently show my sites very favorably, however, I don't like this type of instability and that would encourage me to seeing Google's future as short term....hence I wouldn't want to buy IPO shares.