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?

[Compworld]

Not going to happen. They will continue to seek out more ways to bring in more $$$ and screw more of their following, webmasters until it is to late to turn around and check their course. I think it is all uphill for Google now, and no one can stop it. The two founders are now blinded by obscene amounts of $$$, so there is no turning back. Google by Yahoo or MSN is in its near future. At least then, the company will be run better than it is being now.

CompWorld

[kaled]

The acquisition of Applied Semantics may have been an early symptom rather than the cause of their problems.

When a large company runs into trouble, typically if you look back 6-12 months you'll notice that they bought up one or two companies in related fields - usually at inflated prices. Often it seems to be motivated by the sort of "see - must have" mentality of two-year old children rather than sound business practice.

Kaled.

[Tomseys]

yeah, google used to be great

its depressing

[HarryM]

There have been a lot of posts claiming that Google is just chasing the money. Googleguy made a clear statement on this back on page 6. It was in the past tense but probably (hopefully?) reflects the current attitude.

It's true that a search engine has to make money or it won't be a viable service after long ... I think the thing that set Google apart was that we tried our utmost to align #1 and #2 from your list, so that improving things for users would also be good for Google as a business.

He was referring to:

1. making money
2. providing a wide variety of search results to satisfy all types of users (i.e., being perceived as the best SE in the business)
3. etc.

BeeDeeDubbleU,

Your going to have to get in line. :)

[Hissingsid]

FWIW I think that GG is a very honourable hard working guy and I'm sure that he takes a real interest in what we say, and feeds this back to the relevant people.

He's one of the oarsmen pulling in time with all of the other hard working and talented people employed by Google Inc. Its the guy who is hold of the tiller who is steering them a bit off course. Hopefully the stinging criticism that has been levelled at Google will hit the mark and we will start to see a balance in emphasis.

Best wishes

Sid

[Brett_Tabke]

A fun thread with alot of good points made. Lets wrap it up.

[jayq]

well they still can find info better than any other se

[Jakpot]

Google Under Siege - Fair or Unfair?
So what is the conclusion?
What's the end game?

[Freedom]

I'll take a stab at it:

Although one's opinion of Google seems to be directly related to one's own rankings, Google has strayed from the Mission Statement that made them popular in the first place.

Gmail, AdSense changes (without notice), drive for greater profits and their war on SEO has provoked the antagonism of webmasters. Although neither side is "innocent," if there is going to be an olive branch extended between Google and professional webmasters, it will have to come from Google first.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I think that you may be overstating the weight that Google puts on webmasters opinions. Do they really care what we think? I believe that all they are interested in is what the general public (i.e. their clients) think of them and they are in the best business in the world for being able to measure this.

Unfortunately webmasters cannot afford to discard Google. My stats suggest that they are still really the only game in town when it comes to search engines and in the short term, webmasters cannot really influence this. Google need only get concerned when the mainstream press begin to rattle their cage.

We may suggest that they are "under siege" but I would question whether this is of any real concern to them.