I want to love Google - I really do. But I just don’t see how it is possible with what they have been doing in recent years. Google has always been a company that relies upon hype - but lately they have rarely delivered anything that is worth using.
Have you ever actually used their products? About 98% of them absolutely suck, pretty much the best products they currently have are Gmail, FeedBurner, and Google Reader. Even search sucks - I’m seeing more and more junk searches appears each and every day. Gee, I wonder why? Could it be because of Google’s lackluster handling of spam sites?
Ah yes, Google’s handling of spam deserves a post of its own - but let me say I honestly believe Google loves spam. Have you ever filed a DMCA with them for Adsense or Blogger? Most the time they don’t even do anything. They visit the site, spend 2 seconds there, and they leave. Then they type in some information, send a pre-written e-mail, and basically give you the middle finger. That same exact thing happens even if it is a blatant splog run by some douche spammer. In fact, about two weeks after the last time I filed an Adsense DMCA with them I got the classic “we see no infringement” BS. So I went onto the URL I gave them and oh my God - my article was right there along with 50 articles from sites like WebProNews, CNN, Problogger! I honestly cannot wait until Google and their lawyers get their asses handed to them in court for the crap they pull.
The other issue is, like I said before, most of their products absolutely suck. The only reason anyone uses the darn things is because “it was made by Google.” Google could fart and people would go to sniff it “just because it was excreted out of Google’s ass.” Stop making new products just because 2 anti-Microsoft people want them and start making your current products better so you please your existing customers. Maybe that is why they have been buying so many companies lately? Are they finally realizing most of the products they develop are horrible?
As each days passes I personally feel like Google is slowly separating themselves from their customers more and more. This rant isn’t about the PageRank stuff - this is about Google in general. Their business is going downhill - they are trying to do way too much and they are doing a bad job of it. Sound familiar? It is the same thing Microsoft did in the 90s and early 00s. Without a doubt they will start pulling themselves together just as Microsoft did. I give it 5-7 years before the old Google returns. You know? The old Google - the one that didn’t release crap products, actually dealt with spammers, and talked to their users.
Please subscribe, or else I will cry. Do you really want to make a programmer cry?
October 26th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Don’t forget the PR spanking they’re giving everybody. They took my PR5 and left me with a shitty PR3
October 26th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
I’m probably the only person who thinks the PR drop in the end will be a good thing. I suspect they are changing the algo around a bit so you need more good, quality links to get higher. There were just so many blogs getting PR 7 and 8 because they had trillions of low quality links.
For example, a good front page on Digg almost guarantees hundreds of links. Maybe only 5 of those links are actually good - the rest of them are garbage. Despite that, sites that made it to the front page still saw pretty nice increases because of the sheer number of backlinks they received. I suspect that doesn’t hold true anymore.
October 26th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
As far as actually hating Google for just the PR thing - I think they should come out and actually say why they are doing it. Even saying something as simple as “we are doing to to prevent spam” or “viral marketing made unimportant sites rank too high” wold work.
October 26th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
Actually here’s another idea for them… why not simply make it impossible for the public to view a page’s PageRank? Personally I don’t think it really serves any purpose to be able to see that kind of information, and if anything all it does is cause more gaming of the system.
October 26th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
What? You mean you don’t like Google Sets?
October 26th, 2007 at 6:11 pm
Well that’s kinda pointless - but I’m talking more along the lines of Google Talk or even Google Blog search. G Blog search could be sooo much better with a few extra things - but for some lame reason they wont fix it.
October 26th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
[…] the way, if you’re wondering why I left this PR update out of my little Google rant - this is why. I didn’t want to look like an idiot if everything went back to normal . I […]
November 2nd, 2007 at 7:10 pm
I can’t believe the second paragraph.
Google is unstoppable. It’s like the 3rd or 4th wealthiest company in the world right now. And I could not live without it.
Their tools suck? Google Earth kicks ass. Google Analytics is fabulous. FeedBurner is amazing. They have a great calendar too. Ever heard of Gmail? And they are all free. And no other search engine compares, by the way.
Sure they are not perfect, but who is doing better? You talk alot of bad about Google, but what is the alternative? Nothing is as good for the price. Nothing.
Were you drunk when you typed this? If not, then you must just be a counter-culturist by nature.
Best regards…
PS: It’d be pretty funny if some asshole Google programmer read this and disabled your FeedBurner account.
November 2nd, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Personally I think Ask and Yahoo kicks Google search ass any day of the week. Whenever I search for something on them I get the result I’m looking for right away, whereas on Google I regularly have to refine my search at least 3-4 times before getting good non-spam results.
As far as their tools sucking - blog search - News - Toolbar - Talk - Desktop - are all pretty horrid products, IMO. And that’s just to name a few.
I agree with you that Analytics, Feedburner, Earth, and Gmail are quite amazing - but they need to stop coming out with new stuff every 2 days and improve their existing products.
Things like Google News would be awesome if it stopped aggregating junk sites and went back to only aggregating majro news sources like CNN. Google blog search would be a real alternative to Technorati for me if it worked… at all.
Google Toolbar would be alright if it didn’t cause so many issues. Every single time I’ve fixed a computer that had toolbar installed all I did was uninstall it and guess what? Problem solved.
And how the heck am I counter culturist? Because I happen to hate some of Google’s products? Am I supposed to like every single thing they release “just because it is by Google”?
November 3rd, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Viva La Revolución!
Feedburner and Gmail are useful for me. Analytics? If you actually use a real analytics tool you’d figure out that Google Analytics is a piece of trash, and there are better free products out anyway. Ever seen Microshits new analytics? It’s far above Google.