Google Under Siege - Fair or Unfair?

[Brett_Tabke]

The Gmail outcry is huge. The Local search outcry is growing. The number of negative Google stories out there is a surprise.

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?

[GoogleGuy]

"In the end for everyone, having 3 major players in the SE world will be awesome for everyone."

I agree. More competition = everybody works harder = better quality results for users. That's the best way forward in the future to me.

[BigJay]

Harry M & Google Guy,

I think the #2 and #9 are essentially the same. you cannot please all the people all the time, there is only 1, #1.

However, that #1 position should be a darn good one. As a webmaster myself, I'm not upset with not being ranked high, just as long as the sites ranked above me are "at least as relevant".

So as long as the SERPs have the most relevant site ranked high, then the webmasters who complain, are just being greedy.

There's my 2 cents.
BigJay

[hutcheson]

Definitely agree. And it's not just trying to flog Google to work harder. Different groups bring different perspectives, try different approaches, implement different solutions, solve different problems, filter different jewels up out of the muck. I'd like to see the day when it's again worth checking out two different search engines to find useful sites.

[IITian]

>In the end for everyone, having 3 major players in the SE world will be awesome for everyone.

Just like network TV? Where people realized that they were getting almost exactly the same news and spin from all 3. I hope that not only are there more indie major search engines in the USA but also in other parts of the world in order to have diversity in the presentation of information on internet. Currently the top executives at MSN, Yahoo and even Google look all the same to me, with similar backgrounds and world perspectives.

[John_Caius]

Google's image problem is a common byproduct of becoming the market leader in an industry - you feel that you have to offer something new to maintain your position at the head of the field. Sometimes offering something new causes the company to forget about its core qualities that attract 99% of the customers. Coke did it when they tried to change the flavour. British Airways did it when they tried to change the tail designs.

Google's list [google.com] of advanced search functions is truly impressive. However, dissatisfaction is with what they started with [google.com] - that is to say an empty page with just a box that you could type words into to get a list of results.

99.9% of the general public still don't realise that there's more to Google than this. A recent article [news.bbc.co.uk] on Nielsen's research revealed that 60% of people search on a single term, 80% on one or two terms and only 3% use speech marks - probably the simplest 'advanced search feature' there is. Yes, the numrange search is an impressive feat of algorithm design, but what proportion of searchers is actually going to use it? Certainly the increased market share gained from special search features isn't going to compensate for loss in share if the basic search falls behind the competition.

If I were doing strategy for Google (you can contact me by stickymail ;) ) then I'd be saying "find out where the bulk user dissatisfaction is and get your PhDs on to addressing that, rather than developing great but niche features. Remember where you started - that's where your future success will live or die."

[hitthedeck]

Florida - Google averted the revolution, but some have forgotten to put away their pitchforks.

"I'd say Google has one fear and that will be Microsoft in a couple of years"

If a week is a long time in politics then 2 years is an eternity in search. If that is all google needs to worry about then someone at Googleplex deserves a big fat raise.

[decaff]

Brett...

Very difficult to quantify all that is going on at Google with all of our (marketers/webmasters/seoers/users) reactions...Using your list that started this thread..

a) florida?
>> With Google working to expand their capabilities/technologies and incorporting new technology purchases and methodologies (Applied Semantics)...changes are bound to happen..and with every change there are reactions...a search engine should always strive for absolute revelance...but a search engine has to continue to adapt new approaches to "attempt" to stay abreast of the growth of the internet...as a whole...extremely challenging problems that Google is working to solve and integrate into its offerings...and with the mindset at Google they have no choice but to continue to develop new approaches and technologies...it's in their blood..

b) big - just bigness (everyone loves to pick on the big guy)?
>> Big is easy to pick on...broad market exposure and a likely target for anyone's complaints (regardless of the actual source of those complaints)...taking the high road is not necessarily the way of business online when everyone is your competitor...

c) poor management?
>> Management is going to be a big issue when a company is as big and pervasive as Google...and with the entreprenurial/problem solving imprints of the founders trickling down through the organization at Google...managing a whole culture of innovation is going to be very difficult indeed...especially with a pending IPO and all the "standardized" methodologies in place for achieving IPO and the aftermath...

d) public relations dept?
>> I got a taste of incontinuity here with the recent AdWords problems...2 of my clients campaigns completely zeroed out for 2 and 1/2 days....back and forth with the Adwords Forum here and AWA (very helpful in this crisis) and email/phone support revealed two distinctly different messages regarding the "bug" that was pulling down sectors of the AdWords Servers...with the impending IPO and the directives coming through from the legal/pr department and any PR firm hired to manage this epoch event..."no negative" PR is the rule of the day...

e) competitors planting seeds of division?
>> Classic Microsoft tactic...attack the market with flowery ads and ongoing rhetoric about releases/product offerings and benefits therein...and then pull the marketplace apart from the backend to "insert" their offerings...or destroy the marketplace in the minds of the public so that "they" have the only solution...great that we have the "Open Source" movement...this will always conquer proprietary market tactics in the long haul...
f) all of the above?
>> Bits and pieces of each of the above....and my explanations don't even scratch the surface...

[hitthedeck]

"1. making money"
was always the answer.

GG,
Does Google's Top 10 give you headaches? Especially when the beast has so many heads.

For what it is worth your Top 10 has been as sound as a pound.

[GoogleGuy]

IITian, I almost said something about having 20 major players would be better. I think there's a ton of room for different companies in different niches, and it's good to see different philosophies and the approaches that come out of that. Kartoo/Mooter/Grokker hit different UI aspects, Teoma/Vivisimo lean toward different ways of clustering, Yahoo espouses PFI as an insurance policy to guarantee crawling, Feedster/Moreover and a ton of others lean more toward blogs or news, Eurekster is trying search+social networking, Turbo10 has got customization of which databases to search, Nutch goes for the completely open-source approach, Dipsie is evidently trying to crawl into forms and the deep web, Kaltix was playing with personalization. It's a really interesting time, and I'm glad that lots of companies are tackling different parts of search.

[HarryM]

John_Caius,

Remember where you started - that's where your future success will live or die."

I see no evidence for that. If you don't change with the times, you're dead. Think IBM and the opportunities lost to MS. Think shipyards. Think rust belts.