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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?
Considering Gmail isn't even available yet, there is little public outcry. Just a few techies beefing. As for future consumers, if they don't like the privacy implications of Gmail they can just use something else. And, I see little evidence that the searching public is ditching Google in droves. Unless Google's market share is dropping, they are hardly "under seige".
I think there is a major misunderstanding at Google and even with the majority of people when it comes to what is a SEO. They both equated SEO with spam. In fact the truth is the SEO is all about relevence. The goal of the SEO is to bring relevent traffic to a site. If the traffic is not relevent than their products won't sell. As a SEO I work with hundreds of clients and I teach them how to make there sites easier to navigate, more rich in content, and more obvious (this means good titles and link names) for the user and search engine. As well I showed them how to build links in order to build business relationships and improve their sites visibility. At one time Google rewarded these practices as it should. Instead of continuing to embrace this type of SEO it heavy handed filtered it out. Google killed the very sites that made it's serps high in quality.
I think Google should feel some pressure for its own good. Possibly it will consider correct past mistakes. If Google fails, it will be due to hurting the very people who championed it in the first place.
No Bret, hubris - its as simple as that.
I agree. GMail is a huge mistake, I can't believe that any company would do that.
Things like Florida and Austin upset us here, not the "real" world. GMail potentially undermines the whole concept of email privacy and hence potentially affects *everyone*.
Privacy is a big issue these days, if the Google PhDs lived in the real world they would have realised that. Not only would I personally never sign up to GMail, I would never even *send* an email to a GMail account.
It's a very, very stupid idea.
Google flew too near the sun.
Plus, I suspect that Google is trying to get in the news for IPO reasons. The pace of headlines has been breathtaking, and I assume the visibility is planned. It figures that if you keep issuing press releases and looking for attention that not all of the attention is going to be positive.
I still want the “old” content is king Google. That’s why I started using it and recommending it. Now, for my personal needs, I often see what Yahoo! is saying.
I haven’t broken down and replaced G with Y on my favorites bar, but if I see one more directory of directories when I do a search, I might!
[edited by: Ozdachs at 9:54 pm (utc) on April 10, 2004]
And, I see little evidence that the searching public is ditching Google in droves.
I disagree. Maybe they are not ditching Google in droves, but this thing has spilled over to "Joe Surfer" arena. Many surfers I know have commented on their inability to find what they are looking for compared to "before."
But do you have any actual statistics showing that Google's market share of searchers has gone down? If not, then Google isn't under seige.
