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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?
I'd like to add though, that Florida was the coffin-nail. This was when I personally felt betrayed.
As for those who claim this was necessary to kick out the spammers - this is pure nonsense.
Why?
Because I left my site largely unchanged, and it regained its original positions when Google finally backtracked on that disastrous algo, which looked purely commercially motivated.
There was no value in the Florida experiment, it lasted too long, and caused a lot of damage - internecine damage. I lost thousands, my business nearly folded, and Google lost an enormous amount of goodwill.
There has never been an explanation for Florida. It was absurd.
If I were running Google I would consider the following as priorities which would need careful balancing. (Search Engine side of the business only.)
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. keep the algo as simple as possible to cope with the ever increasing number of sites and processing required
4. ensure the algo works well in sites of all languages, not just English
5. minimise opportunities for people to spam serps
6. move away from periodic updates to continuous updates, thereby spreading processing and presenting the freshest results
7. minimalize expensive manual intervention
8. minimize delays in keeping regional databases in step
9. keep webmasters content
10. avoid bad PR
Keeping webmasters content is clearly difficult. A considerable number of posts in this thread seem to come from webmasters who are singlemindedly commercial and are irritated when they see a broad spectrum of search results to the detriment of their own sites. The problem is not Google's hubris, but certain webmasters' hubris.
Avoiding bad PR is also difficult. There is a natural antipathy to any organisation that is perceived as dominant.
I must admit as the owner of a non-commercial multi-languge site I'm happy with the way Google is going. Who loves ya, baby! :)
Just wish I could say the same about Yahoo... :(
"What is the root of it all?"
MONEY...
Agreed, but this implies a naivety among posters (like myself) who understand the need to make a profit, but still uphold other values.
Maybe it's a European standpoint - I don't know? :)
I'm only a small businessman, but great businessmen / corporations are characterised not by greed, but by an underlying philosophy to provide a great service, and do well. If you get these right, work in good faith, and aim for quality, the money will come.
I don't run my business looking solely for money! I need a certain amount, but my main aim is to be successful (there is a difference, still I think, from a European standpoint.)
If my business is successful: is admired and respected, and grows, I'll die happily. If it also brings in a fortune - I'm certainly not going to turn it away, that's the real icing on the cake!
From my standpoint, and it's only that of an individual, Google has been aggressively pursuing the icing for the past 6 months or so, whilst the underbaked cake collapses beneath it.
Feel free to enter the above into the 'Worst analogy in the World competition 2004' :)
I'm only a small businessman, but great businessmen / corporations are characterised not by greed, but by an underlying philosophy to provide a great service, and do well. If you get these right, work in good faith, and aim for quality, the money will come.
It's funny how at one point webmasters are happy and talk about how much they love Google, some even called them God, but soon as something goes bad for you in Googles search engine you have to go and cry wolf!
Don't get me wrong because IM not defending Google, just sick and tried of people saying one thing, than saying something else later.
All by the way glad to see Googleguy getting into this one.
[edited by: robotsdobetter at 3:09 pm (utc) on April 11, 2004]
I used to be one of the biggest Google advocates out there, telling my online friends with popular sites to switch to AdSense and telling anyone that Google was the best search by far when it came up in a conversation.
Since April 1, my position toward Google has flipped 180 degrees. The overnight changes to the AdSense program that personally cost me about 2 x the average US household income has changed my tune. Now I tell people to get away from AdSense because it cannot be trusted or relied on as a revenue source, and I don't say anything positive at all about Google. I only wish there was a decent competitor I could advocate for, because I am so pissed off at Google.
For me, it all goes back to the AdSense changes, but I'm sure there are others for whom the other issues Brett mentioned are the source of anger.
What the list Brett made plus reasons others have cited shows is that Google has given many reasons for people to get angry with them recently. It may not effect their market share and revenues today, but when you build this much bad will out there karma will ultimately smack you upside the head.
This also plays into the fact that Google has hit the point in the media cycle where the media wants to tear them down. The media in the USA goes through cycles where they build something or someone up, and then they tear them down. Think of any number of fads, musicians, politicians, etc -- Howard Dean is a perfect example. Why do they do this? Because there are interesting stories to write about people/companies on the rise and on the fall, but not so much at their pinnacle.
The media is so eager to begin the cycle of tearing Google down that they try to play up the benefits of crappy search engines like Mooter that try to do too much thinking for the user.
Add to this that Google itself is now creating a whole bunch of loud, dissatisified stakeholders such as AdSense publishers, Mom and Pop online shop owners, privacy advocates and others.
What Google will find is that, like a cancer, this dissatisfaction will spread out from the disgruntled stakeholders to the public, the media sharks will pick up on it and it will grow into a nightmare for Google.
If a competitor is smart, and swoops in with something like "the way it used to be", Google will be seriously damaged. Some questions are: are any of their competitors smart enough to do this? Are those companies even flexibile enough to adapt to an opportunity and sieze the moment? Are they even paying attention? Sooner or later, someone will. If it isn't Microsoft or Yahoo, someone else will sieze the opportunity.
Is Google wise enough to head this off and find a way to make peace with their angry stakeholders?
Google may not see the effects of this right away. Heck, their revenues may even grow a while before their (unintentional?) attacks on the loyalty of their stakeholders come back to bite them.
If Google thinks it can't happen to them, then they are only fooling themselves. Microsoft may be able to withstand such a process, but they are the exception, not the rule.
The problem with this logic is that SEO's who "game the system" now includes those who previously ranked in Google by writing good, clean sites for the searcher not the SE. They must now revert to those tactics to get traffic from Google.
That hasn't been my experience. For the keywords and keyphrases (some quite competitive) that I monitor, the top-ranked sites don't change a great deal from month to month.
Maybe "those tactics" need to be used in some categories, but "gaming the system" doesn't appear to be a requirement across the board.
My personal dissatisfaction with Google started on April 1, with the AdSense changes.
This kind of makes my point... I also got hurt with the new adsense "discount pricing". In addition, my site lost the two top ten SERP positions that brought in as much traffic a day as the next five search phrases back in November and I am yet to regain them. However, I would only argue against Google when I think is warranted.
IMHO, SERPs, Google's editorial policy and even GMail seem reasonable. I can't fault them for trying to make money. It is not like they are a non-profit.
This reminds me of being in a debate team back in seventh grade and attacking this girl merciless on everything that she brought up. Afterwards, I realized how foolish it was to do so. You got to pick your fights.
The answer is: UNFAIR
a) Florida?
IMHO, the Florida update and some (not all) of the subsequent algo changes were a bold step (if not a flying leap) towards changing the face of the internet. Although allanp73's comments were well thought out and presented, I think many of us have mistakenly taken these changes as a personal attack rather than as what they are.
Years ago, when SEO began to formulate, webmasters discovered that they were able to push their sites to the top simply by repeating key words which were relevant to the sites they were building.
Over the past few years, and in response to the manipulations of the SEO community, search engines have tried several methods to put a stop to these practices by using filters, penalties, PRO and anything else they could come up with including black listing.
Clever web professionals took these moves as a challenge and found even more ways to beat the system.
The result is a complete mess out there in the wild and wooly cyberworld.
A huge hunk of what can be found on the internet is rife with hidden text, hidden links, ridiculously repetitive copy, cloaking, mirror sites, doorways, link farms, thousands of nearly identical sites which lack content, keyword-keyword domains, computer generated pages, etc, etc, etc.
IMO, the Florida update was just the first step towards forcing us to clean up our mess ... and I have no doubt there is more to come. If anyone wants to remain a player, they will have to clean up their act or be lost in the nether regions of the internet forever.
I wholeheartedly support Google in their efforts to clean up the web, curtail spam and find the best algorithm possible.
b) big - just bigness (everyone loves to pick on the big guy)?
Yeah ... everyone loves the underdog but nobody likes huge corporations or the power they wield. Its all part and parcel of growing up.
c) poor management?
d) public relations dept?
I would say yes, poor management together with a sadly misguided public relations department who must have been nodding off last November. Google's mantra seems to have been lost in the IPO scramble.
Having been in marketing and sales with close ties to PR for the better part of 30 years, I was flabbergasted by the lack of communication from Google staffers in regards to recent events.
What may have become the best PR move of the century actually served to vilify them due to what was perceived as a "surprise attack" on the SEO and webmaster communities.
Everyone (well almost everyone) wants the web cleaned up. All their PR people had to do was shove Sergy and Larry in front of a bunch of reporters one week before the Florida update and explain what Google had planned. They would have come out smelling like a rose. Webmasters and SEO'ers would have been forewarned and the public would have been singing their praises. Instead ...
If I were the CEO for Google, I would fire the entire PR department and then myself!
e) competitors planting seeds of division?
Perhaps. But I think they brought most of the backlash upon themselves. Once again, I'd blame the PR department.
f) all of the above?
Mostly ... Yep!
The Gmail outcry is huge.
It will die a natural death. Let it be.
Google could previously get away with not disclosing the revenue share to publishers because they had our trust. They don't have that trust anymore because they have abused it.
Another thing Google has been deceptive about recently and in the past is claiming that they don't hand edit results. That is technically true, but in fact completely avoids the fact that they manually penalise sites all the time. There goes a bit more trust. [I have no problem with hand editing and I don't understand why this should be a bad thing]
There is a big difference between positive presentation and deceptive spin, and I feel that Google has overstepped the mark.
Yet we are still expected to trust them not to abuse the Toolbar and gmail information collected. That might have worked 12 months ago, but not now.
The point I am making is that Google is no longer the webmasters' friend and trusted ally on the web. They are now the big corporate monster that controls our income. That is why there is so much more complaining.
