What Do You Hate About Google?

[dannysullivan]

I've just posted my 25 Things I Hate About Google (http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060313-161500) article. Agree with my picks? Got your own?

For those about the love, also see 25 Things I Love About Google (http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060313-161501). And what to share your own loves? Try this forum thread, What Do You Love About Google (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=10515)

[ArmchairCritic]

Interesting list of reasons to hate Google. But there are reasons to endure the pain of avoiding Google altogether: Mostly their lack of transparency in an editorial policy. They have agreed to support Chinese censorship. What other restrictions have they implemented? Will they tell us? how will we know? I suspect that they will comply with corporate or political requests for censorship to gain business, and not tell the users to keep the business. This conjecture is further based on Google's reluctance to publish a commitment to the way it will store and use gmail data.

The cost of these Google practises are damaging both to the search engine integrity and to the society that seems increasingly to rely on it. The added cost of our implicit consent of the policies by continuing to support google and not to demand these changes is far worse.

[Beginner]

Gosh. This is a brave post. Hot the heals of not-quite-agreeing with on else thread (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=10419) I find your blog post too interesting to ignore!

I don't disagree with you on the web count tallies matching up. There's just no way that gripe would make my top 25 list. I can't believe how much it annoyed it!

I disagree with the following:

.com serving different results from the country-Googles (As a Brit in the UK I want UK bias results, I can see how you'd dislike that though).
I like caching (I want to click on the cached results in the best match for my query is offline).
I want Blogger to remain free (there are enough free blog sites out there already at least with Blogger Google has tighter control.
I'm not sure whether you can 'fix' a philosophy (you can disagree with it, but you can't order it fixed).


I agree with you on AdSense. It's out of control. Google are encouraging spam sites and rewarding them. It's going to get out of hand. Google's also too prone to gutting AdSense sites without warning. I know of someone who made less than $1 a day on AdSense on a family site and who, without warning or announcement, simply had their AdSense halted. Google claimed that there had been false clicks (at less than $1 a day?). There hadn't. The family wouldn't know what click fraud was, all the knew was that Google had accused them off it and with the account dead there was no way for me to investigate.

[GoogleGuy]

If it helps, I've been pinging people about several of these. It actually helps to have some of these thoughts called out by someone else so that I can point to it.

[BradBristol]

Google has been so damn successful, I just hate that...

#2
I dislike how smug the googlites are, especially that Matt Cutts guy. (anyone that has two sets of double t's in their name is more than a little strange, if you know what I mean...)

#3
I dislike the fact that google has ignored every request I have made for a research grant (I am only asking for 1million) so I can research how to spam their engine better.

#4
I dislike the fact that google ranks other less relevant pages above mine in the SERP.

#5
I dislike the fact that google will not remove all those SPAM pages that are positioned above my pages in the SERP... Even after filing dozens and dozens of spam reports on each and every one of them.

#6
I dislike the fact that even after I have written google hundreds of times each year, telling them how they could do a better job at search (by listing my pages higher in the SERP), they have never responded to me, not even once.

#7
I dislike the fact that google tries to help out the little guy. I mean the way they did their stock IPO and Froogle offering to list your RSS feed for free, who do they think they are? Why don't the boys at google act more like Haliburton, a real American Corporation???

#8
I dislike the fact that google has started talking to webmasters. People like that Matt Cutts and his buddies going around telling everyone about good SEO in google, I can’t believe it, it makes me ill just to think about it.


I could only come up with seven (Ok I added more).... the mind altering substance started wearing off.... ;)

Oh Ya, I almost forgot, I really really hate... http://www.google.com/ig

[Marcia]

They have agreed to support Chinese censorship. No, they have NOT! They've agreed to participate in the vital economic growth of the Chinese people and bring them a fine source of information and commerce with which the people can connect with the rest of the world.

What I HATE about Google is not them, but all the people who think they know all about what Google should and shouldn't do. Everybody is an expert - and if they're such experts why don't they raise some VC of their own and wow the world.

What other restrictions have they implemented? Will they tell us? how will we know?Restrictions on spam and how people know is when their sites drop into oblivion. They don't have to tell - actions speak louder than words.

Another thing I HATE about Google is also not them, it's all the people around who decide to depend on Google traffic and think Google owes them a living and then whine and blame Google when THEIR OWN business plan doesn't work for them.

[ewc21]

Obviously, Google could not please everyone, just like MSN or Yahoo! SO it is not surprising the hate and love lists keep on stretching longer.

One thing though is that before posting these lists, make sure you fully understood how the business works and do not trust hearsays or any awful posting found in the discussion forums.

[dannysullivan]

I disagree with the following: .com serving different results from the country-Googles (As a Brit in the UK I want UK bias results, I can see how you'd dislike that though).
Just so I'm clear, I don't care if Google automatically skews the results on google.co.uk even if I do NOT change to see "pages from the UK."

I'm in the UK. I know most people will automatically be redirected to co.uk, and many won't change to .com. I also know many will benefit from having the results be skewed, since they won't do it themselves.

But if I tune into Google.com, that's where I find it strange to have the skewing happen anyway. As far as I'm concerned, Google.com is the international channel that many people all tune into from various locations. Having it broadcast different results is inconsistent, I feel. But that's my take, of course :)

[sem4u]

As an SEO I dislike the focus that Google's algo has on links....but at the same time I can see why this is done...just take a look at Yahoo! & MSN's results to see the difference.

AdSense on poor and scraped sites. Why do they allow ads to run on these? Why can't each site be approved first?

I would like to see 'related searches' as well. Hopefully it would teach users how to search with more specific phrases.

[DarkMatter]

I hate Google because it's the best, fastest way to learn about topics that I am completely unfamiliar with.

[Marek]

Hate is too strong of a word... but I dislike the following:

- you get different results for the same key phrase from different locations. I realize that it is a technical challenge to keep everything synchronized... but I still dislike it.

- you can’t easily remove your own pages which are outdated or you just don’t want them in the index, even after submitting a request to Google. G should provide something like a "reverse" of their Site Maps program (which I love). E.g. I submit a "Reverse Site Map" and G uses it to remove those pages from the index and cache. Simple.

- Same with removing unwanted cached content – this is difficult – that I hate.

[Carlos Chacón]

Three major things I hate about Google:

1-The way they manipulate the SEM industry.
2-The way they’ve changed the Internet first objective; free information to everybody.
3-How they’ve been feed their business on the last years.
:mad:

[bradw2k]

No mention of Google's implementation of political censorship? No, you "hate" Google because Blogger is free!

[dannysullivan]

Well, I did mention that in point 25. But of course, I dislike that. It could easily have been number 26. There are many more things I could also have added if I wanted to spend even more time, but after a bit, it just felt enough. I wasn't trying to say these are the top 25 things I hate but rather these are 25 different things I hate and wish they'd fix, to better illustrate why I find it tiring they're heading in even new directions with this type of stuff hanging.

[dd2]

One of the reasons one gets back so many useless results is that Google looks only within a "page" or Web site.

Let's say you are looking for a product that has 5 features you want. You don't want to rely on a phrase because different vendors may combine those features in different ways. But if you use the simple AND function, you will get pages of products that don't interest you simply because, on a single "page", each product listing has one or more of the words you are looking for.

With a proximity search, however, you can significantly narrow down the search.

So instead of searching for A+B+C+D+E, you would limit the search to A+B+C+D+E with x words of each other, within x sentences of each other, withing x paragraphs of each other, etc.

I know it not only can be done but is incredibly useful because I used a software product almost 20 years ago that had exactly these kinds of searches (in addition to the standard Boolean searches).

[PhilC]

I disagree with your example of your first hate, Danny. Expanding the query from 'mars landing sites' to 'mars landing sites earth' expands the number of pages that can be matched - it doesn't reduce them. Most of the matched pages don't contain all of the words, so adding an extra word would produce a larger set of matches.

[simons1321]

How they don't number their search results.

Ever try to manually see where you rank in the serps and have to count and scroll at the same time with up to 100 results on the page????

Easy if your in the top ten, but if youre #68 then its a pain.

multiply that by 20 - 50 keywords and you'll go nuts half way through.

Thank god for greasemonkey scripts! :D

[SOLIDUS]

I've never had any real problems with google.

I'm an avid Gmail fanboy and I use the personalized google homepage.

Although there are a few things that annoy the living daylights out of me.

1. GMail is still in "beta"... Whats up with that? How can email be in beta?
This also makes signing in a bit difficult at times.

2. Spam. I dont have very much spam. (Thankfully) Although I have to many
phishing attempts. (roughly twice aday.) And for the spam that does get
through, how can I make a custom blacklist?

3. My RSS feeds on my homepage works only 60% of the time.

Those are my only problems, if you can really call them that.

I think Google is doing a good job. (Some things could be done better
of course, but what cant?)

[konno]

What do I hate ? :confused:

Well what I dislike is the fact that after three months, I am still trying to explain to Google that thier Analytics CPC data is not being atttributed to the right hole in Analytics, and that thier Analytics CPC Data report is of no use to anyone if it don't work ! :mad:

I've just e-mailed support again today to ask when this will be fixed and told them I don't want the standard "our engineers are working on the problem" answer that accompanies most replies nowdays.

I'm beginning to wonder if I am e-mailing a bot or something, as many of the answers seem to be pre-formtted. :eek:

Pete
Sydney AUS

[Guillaumeb]

No seriously this is insane !!!! Can't Gmail just stop to automatically add useless people in my Address Book??? This is killing me. Just because I have an email from blahblah@blahblah .com gmail will add it to my contact list...is google trying to be smart or something? Give me a break...

[Guillaumeb]

Google Mars (http://google.com/mars) huh??? can't they just finish Google Earth first?? ... This wanna-be-cool attitude is ridiculous

[dannysullivan]

Expanding the query from 'mars landing sites' to 'mars landing sites earth' expands the number of pages that can be matched - it doesn't reduce them
Nope, adding a word reduced the overall set, or at least it should. Each word means that you have to get a page that contains ALL of the words.

In other words, if I enter mars landing sites earth, you're saying Google does this:

mars OR landing OR sites OR earth

You can even do this (http://www.google.com/search?q=mars%20OR%20landing%20OR%20sites%20OR%20e arth), and you'll see you get 2.39 billion matches.

Remove the ORs, and Google falls back to the default behavior of an AND query, and the count drops to the millions.

I'll prove it in some other ways. Go back and do this:
mars landing sites earth (http://www.google.com/search?q=mars+landing+sites+earth). See the count, 1.8 million? Now click on Advanced Search, and you'll see this (http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=mars+landing+sites+earth&hl=en&lr=&safe=off) . All the search terms appear in the "Find results with all of the words" box. Google's looking for ALL the words, not some of them.

Or try this. mars landing sites (http://www.google.com/search?q=mars+landing+sites). Go to the bottom of the page. See the "Search within results" link. I think we can agree that if you want to search within the results for pages that contain a particular word, unless that word is on every single page, you should get a lower count. So let's do it. Click the link (http://www.google.com/swr?q=mars+landing+sites&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&swrnum=1010000) , you get this:

There were about 1,010,000 Google results for mars landing sites.
Use the search box below to search within these results.

enter [earth] into the box, and back you go to more results than the original set, 1.8 million. Heck, hit search within again (http://www.google.com/swr?q=mars+landing+sites+earth&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&swrnum=1800000) , and you get told explicitly:


There were about 1,800,000 Google results for mars landing sites earth.
Use the search box below to search within these results.

Now do this:
+mars +landing +sites +earth (http://www.google.com/search?q=%2Bmars+%2Blanding+%2Bsites+%2Bearth).

That should be exactly the same as a search without +, finding all words, with one key exception. Doing that will disable the stemming. It's possible that stemming and alternative matching, on by default with Google, could push the numbers higher. Possible, but I've done various things with the words individually, and this doesn't look like the result of stemming. Plus, if I do this, ~mars ~landing ~sites ~earth (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=%7Emars+%7Elanding+%7Esites+%7Eearth), I'm explicitly forcing the synonym (http://www.google.com/help/cheatsheet.html) lookup, and the number jumps to like 30 million.

Now it could be that explictly calling the synonym lookup expands even further than the default stemming. But I'm still confident in the problem because I've seen the behavior in the past with Google, asked specfically about it and was told it was a bug.

The bigger issue is who cares, really. And I'll quote what I've been telling the Diggers, many of whom have raised the same issue you have in this discussion (http://digg.com/software/25_Things_I_Hate_About_Google) (and a fun one. even my name gets criticized :) ):

On the counts, my point for highlighting it is that I'm sick of people poking at Google about it. Look at the link I made to Scoble. He yammers on about it. Others have done so for years, as well. They do, because the figure's not accurate. Usually, I respond to those complaints with a "this is not a unique Google thing. this is in fact a thing that search engines have had problems with back to AltaVista." In fact, I linked to that history in my point yesterday.

But you know -- these critics have a point. If you're going to put out a number, it ought to bear some relation to reality. If you say there are 11 million matches, where do you get off saying that only 800 or so are non-duplicates? Where do you get off reporting MORE matches for a restricted set. The answer is wean yourself off putting out numbers that few notice but those that do use for the wrong reasons (such as to try and "prove" points based on counts, see http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=299 for more on that). Alternatively, drop the counts if they really are just meaningless.

I'm not saying that the counts are an issue with searching. I'm not saying I can't do an OR search or anything like that. I just picked an example that shows where the counts go up. I could have used any similar series of words. They should NOT go up. The are indeed doing an AND query. I know this is a bug. They've told me this. If you go up further in this thread, you'll see GoogleGuy commenting that he's glad I've highlighted some of this points. This is one of those points. He knows the counts shouldn't do that, but no one cares enough to fix it. Fine, then just get rid of it rather than waste space on a meaningless number that just causes critics to poke at you.

In short, this has not been an issue I've been critical of until now and actually have expended a fair amount of time defending Google on. But why should I or anyone? Just fix the darn numbers, either by making them accurate or removing them. Why leave yourself open like this. I hate they leave themselves open like this.

and

maxD, you might also see http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=2811, where GoogleGuy explains more on this. In that discussion, the question was why doing an OR search might give you less results in some cases, when it should give you more. It's the opposite of what I described. The thread covers how this is something stretching back to 2000. Explanations from Google:

"It's one of those things that we could probably revisit, but on the list of things to do, there always seem to be more important things above it."

"Why haven't we gone back to rework the results estimates code for some of these esoteric corner cases? Frankly, if you include all the other people who have asked me about this, the list would probably be:
- Gary Price
- orion
Very few people have shown an interest, so it hasn't been the highest priority."

I agree. Few people care about this. But among those few are often critics who will poke at Google and use this as a handy example of a Google "lie," despite the fact that counts at other search engines may have similar problems.

I've done more than my fair share of defending Google on this point. That's why it moved to my "hate" list. Many of the people in this thread who think they're poking at my inaccurate, unfair gripes. Let me tell you, I've done far, far more poking at real unfair gripes against Google over the years. I can understand the concern many of you have and more. And that's why this type of point annoys me. They know it's a problem, but they've let it fester because they've had other priorities. Like what? Making a web page creation tool when we've already got a glut of those?


and

These counts are largely unnoticed by anyone, I totally agree. They make no difference to the quality of results. But the inconsistency leave Google open to attack. And actually, they are noticed by some important people, such as US Supreme Court justices. See http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060119-060352#11, where the US Attorney General used counts on Google to "prove" his point. Even if the Google counts were accurate, they wouldn't have proved what he thought, as I explain in that write-up. But it's more than a few tech heads who are looking at those figures, too.

[PhilC]

My mistake. I'd long assumed that the default results included pages that contained any of the words, or maybe a certain percentage of the words in a phrase.

Incidentally, I get 4.95 million results for 'mars landing sites earth' today - a bit up on the 1.8 million results of yesterday.

[adamostrow]

As an AdSense publisher, one thing I hate about Google is the lack of transparency in your slice of ad revenue. We use channels to track the money being made on different parts of our site (great feature) and sometimes I can't help but wonder why a certain channel drops from $1.00 CPM to $0.15 CPM when we made no changes at all to the content. If Google needs an extra penny to meet earnings estimates, what's to stop them from lowering their payouts to publishers for a few days?

[joeduck]

A great post Danny. I feel *a bit* for Google which is now reeling from many attacks, some of which are simply a product of success. But that goes with being the 800 pound gorilla of search territory.

My beef relates to the fact they've created two conflicting, competing, unhealthy info environments:

1) Made for adsense sites have proliferated to absurd levels, and have replaced thousands of superior sites due to search quirks and Google's refusal to seriously screen new adsense accounts.

2) Support for algorithmically downranked sites is effectively non-existent leading to a lot of abuse in SEO industry and - contrary to what Google seems to think - MORE online junk and problems as confused webmasters try to second guess the problems. Search confusion breeds confusing content.

If they don't hurry up and create a robust environment where people can pay for quality help I think webmasters, who are often the "first line" as new adopters, may sour on the support for Google that helped make them what they are today.

[projectphp]

Not to quibble Danny, but there is one more explanation: filters on specific terms.

A filter often has this effect of more relevant pages for an additional word, and adding a few words may make some of those pages relevant again, or rather not trip the same filter :) remember the old "mortgage -asasdasdas -asdasasd -adasdasd" after the Florida update that returned the "real" results?

During that time, I had a client that had ranked number one for a long timefor a multi word term that had one major keyword in it. e.g., it was [descriptor descriptor keyword]. After Florida, they were nowhere to be found. But, if you added another word to that search, they were back at number one, e.g. [descriptor descriptor keyword australia]. If you took away the keyword, they were number one, e.g. [descriptor descriptor] or even [descriptor descriptor australia]. But add the keyword in, and they never ranked on the first brazillian pages.

So, I can think of at least one way this makes sense, and I don't think the old "all words on the page" is true for a variety of reasons, including offpage stuff.

It is possible, IMHO, for there to be more relevant pages, according to the Google algo at least, for a four word search over a three word search.

[grahamandgrahamphoto]

You hit all the right points. Great pieces. What I hate about Google is the growing expense of AdWords, and the onerous DRM rules of the Google Video store.

Graham

[investing101]

I've just e-mailed support again today to ask when this will be fixed and told them I don't want the standard "our engineers are working on the problem" answer that accompanies most replies nowdays.

I'm beginning to wonder if I am e-mailing a bot or something, as many of the answers seem to be pre-formtted.

They're all very busy at Google headquarters: http://www.wimp.com/googlejob/ After all their required playtime and eating, there just isn't that much time left for doing things like answering e-mail.

--Joe

[MikeDammann]

I really hate blogspot and all of the garbage it brings along with it, the made for adsense blogs, the clickfraud, the mentality of those who can't pay $5 a month for hosting or even $8/year for their own domain.

[joeduck]

I hate this misleading canned note from support when people ask about algorithmic downranks:

“Thank you for your reply. We apologize for our delayed response.
Please be assured that your site is not currently banned or penalized by Google.”

It should read as follows:

"Thank you for your reply. We apologize for our delayed response.
You are screwed".

[AndrewN 41]

I've been trying to get anyone at Google to fix this problem.

If the incoming email is encoded as the MIME type 'base64' it bypassed all spam filtering
and gets unpacked into HTML when you view it. It completely bypasses any filters as
the sender/domian is always different. No matter the hundreds of this type of email I mark
as spam it still gets through.

At over 30 a day, everyday, I'm considering ditching gmail as too expensive.

[Chris_D]

Hate is a strong word.

But I strongly dislike misinformation.

For example, Googles webmaster guidelines state:

Don't use "&id=" as a parameter in your URLs, as we don't include these pages in our index. http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html

Thats a pretty clear and definitive statement.

However, there ARE pages with URLS which include the parameter “&id=” (ampersand id equals) included in the index. Look at some of the URLs currently returned from these searches:

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=site%3Aaddons.mozilla.org+%26id%3D
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=mambo+%26id%3D&btnG=Search

I'd prefer that Google clarified under what circumstances pages whose URL string contains “&id=” are excluded from the index. Are URLS excluded where there are more than two occurances of "&id=” in one URL?; more than three occurances?; or some other criteria?

Otherwise maybe consider amending the statement in the webmaster guidelines to something like:

Don't use "&id=" as a parameter in your URLs, as we MAY NOT include these pages in our index.

Changing URLS to comply with this Google guideline is not a trivial matter - but changing them to comply with a guideline which is misleading (when you can find URLS in the index despite the statement) could be a huge waste of time and money.

[tonerman]

I have written two threads on the topic of Expanded Match. In addition, there was a vote by forum members in one of them regarding Expanded Match and no one on this forum voted to keep it like it is today. It wastes advertiser's money, reduces advertiser ROI, deprives the advertiser control over how their money is spent, and destroys the original value Broad Match offered when first introduced.

The standard Google answer is "Well, use phrase match or exact match if you don't like broad match with expanded match." That is not a solution because trying to match the traffic Broad Match offers with exact match or phrase match is simply not practical in terms of tiime required or results.

So if you want Broad Match Mr. Advertiser you have to be willing to absorb the financial waste Expanded Match creates for you. Call it a "premium" for making your life simpler as an advertiser.

I challenge Google Guy to respond to this issue. I can't believe he is not aware of the opposition to Expanded Match on this forum. Tonerman

[econwriter5]

25 fine points, and I think 22 should be closer to the top. Google should be more prepared with its product offerings, and when it isn't, the company appears childish.

The list made me think of the Google Story by David Vise and Mark Malseed, and how the company has grown so quickly that it's outgrowing its mission statement. The book was published before the Chinese fiasco took center stage, but it still offers insight into the Google's thinking in pursuing the Chinese market. There is certainly a debate about providing search vs. bowing to censorship, and Google's fight with the US government over releasing information has people wondering why Google will submit to China and fight its own government.

Keep in mind that customer service was never part of the Google plan. Google wants to make all information free to everyone. In the Google world, that doesn't exactly translate into excellent customer service. It means finding avenues to dissimeniate information that no one has considered.

The list seems to point out that Google has caused more problems than it has solved, which makes me wonder if that isn't the point.

What would Google be if "perfect search" existed?

[Alan Perkins]

Remove the ORs, and Google falls back to the default behavior of an AND query, and the count drops to the millions.

I'll prove it in some other ways.You don't need to prove it. Google actually documents it (http://www.google.com/help/basics.html#and):By default, Google only returns pages that include all of your search terms. There is no need to include "and" between terms. Keep in mind that the order in which the terms are typed will affect the search results. To restrict a search further, just include more terms. For example, to plan a vacation to Hawaii, simply type vacation hawaii.The problem in this case is that Google reports the number of results it considers relevant, not the total number of results it found. You can verify this for yourself by querying the same words in different orders - you often get different numbers of results, whereas applying the pure "AND" theory the number of results should always be the same.

Adding the word "earth" to the query increased the number of relevant results:
mars landing sites: 2,100,000 results.
landing sites earth: 7,690,000 results
mars landing sites earth: 5,330,000 results
earth landing sites mars: 5,390,000 results
landing sites earth -mars: 4,880,000 results
mars landing sites -earth: 409,000 results
You can surmise that the number of pages that actually contain the words earth, mars, landing and sites (on the page and/or in links to the page) is >= 5,390,000, and that the actual number of reported results for each of the above queries reflects Google's impression of the number of relevant results for that query in that set of pages.

[Yourslice]

Things I hate about Google!

I have worked with internet sites for 7 years and I have seen so much spam in that time it is unreal. I have worked for companies and tried to show them the errors of their ways, only to find that Google not only accepts their ‘Spamey’ ways but puts them in the top 10.

I have since left these companies behind me as I cannot work with companies that create a hundred sites a week that are full of Overture or advertising ‘top 10’ ads with no unique content.

I now build and create my own sites. They all have unique content and little advertising on the pages. One third or less of all pages I make have any advertising on them.

I try to give good advice to all the users that come into my sites and they can ask questions. I always try to get the answer to their questions if they are not available on my sites.

I try to abide by the rules that Google sets out, yet still I find spam sites from old companies I have worked for above the sites I have done.

Example:

I have a site that has over 190 pages of unique content.

It has over 80 independent reviews.

It was launched with 100 pages as the Google rules suggest.

It is easy to navigate.

I got the idea from the BBC as their news team said there was a need for this kind of site.

It has been reviewed by magazines and directories and given 4 or 5 stars out of 5.

I have been indexed by Google and we are there if you do a search for the website name. If you search for anything relevant to the site content (for example by using keywords) we do not even come up in the top 200. Yet in the same search my old boss comes up with one of his 1,000s of spam sites that the BBC was criticising for not being useful in any way.

I have always believed until now that Google was there to make a difference and give good results. What happened?

I will still do what I do as I do not condone what spammers do but it is very disheartening when you spend 4 months making a good site and the next 12 – 15 months making it better only to find the more unique relevant content you add the more you disappear in the search results.

I have just cleaned up some of the coding and added 50 new reviews to one of my sites. I will be uploading my upgraded site this week. I would love to be able to go to some of the Spammers I know and say ‘see it does work’ and you have to put the time in not just look for the quick buck. I hope the work that I have done and this will make a difference to my position and in turn restore my faith in Google.

[tonerman]

Things I hate about Google!

I have always believed until now that Google was there to make a difference and give good results. What happened?

I will still do what I do as I do not condone what spammers do but it is very disheartening when you spend 4 months making a good site and the next 12 – 15 months making it better only to find the more unique relevant content you add the more you disappear in the search results.

I have just cleaned up some of the coding and added 50 new reviews to one of my sites. I will be uploading my upgraded site this week. I would love to be able to go to some of the Spammers I know and say ‘see it does work’ and you have to put the time in not just look for the quick buck. I hope the work that I have done and this will make a difference to my position and in turn restore my faith in Google.

How is your site doing on the other search engines? Yahoo, MSN, etc. Hope this isn't going to far off topic to ask. You obviously have an excellent site. The comparison between Google and the others would be interesting. Tonerman

[pg07]

I posted screenshot on my blog: http://personomies.com/google-altering-organic-search-results/. It seems that now google modifies the organic results based on your search history....

Am i the only one who noticed this? If this is true, well I hate the fact that they did not communicate about it.

[Chris_D]

Hi pg07 - welcome to SEW Forums.

By definition - personalised search is - well - personalised.

It is pretty well documented:

Personalized Search orders your search results based on your past searches, as well as the search results and news headlines you’ve clicked on. You can view all these items in your Search History and remove any items you’d like.
http://www.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=26651&topic=1593

If you don't like it - don't use it. Log out.

[pg07]

For some reason, I thought that the personalized search only applied to search history, not that it would actually modify the results.

Thanks for the correction.

[Yourslice]

In MSN we go up and down the top 30. Most of the time we are in the top 20.

Yahoo is generally the same as MSN

If you did a search on the BBC (the web) we were in the top 20 till recently. But that’s probably because I have been updating the site and I have not uploaded anything for four or five months.

[ChristianMatschke]

I have always wondered why Google doesn't set up a quality-control process involving the millions of users who get sick over obvious spam results on a daily basis.

I am not talking about sites that make fair use of search marketing and optimization practices (you do want to tune your car to the type of road you drive it on, don't you?). I am talking about search results that immediately stink when you see them. I have come to "hate" Google (well, the word IS too strong, but there you go...) more for not finding effective means to address the problem than for the actual bad results.

Why not invite users to report foul entries on the serps in an easy(!) way? Why not develop and implement a smart way of processing and evaluating this information? Aren't there enough experts on knowledge management, quality management etc. in the world (and its universities)? Is the expected ROI really too small?

[I, Brian]

I've just posted my 25 Things I Hate About Google (http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060313-161500) article. Agree with my picks? Got your own?

For those about the love, also see 25 Things I Love About Google (http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060313-161501). And what to share your own loves? Try this forum thread, What Do You Love About Google (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=10515)

The key concern is that the right hand of Google AdSense is being used to power what many would call "spam" sites, while the left hand of Google Search then tries to find ways to automatically devalue them in Google Search.

The result is that Google Search quality IMO has been in decline for the past couple of years, and there's now far too emphasis on the "importance" of a website, as much as the "relevance" of the pages being searched for.


2c.

[Algernon]

Two things

1. That I can't find any useful reviews for consumer item thanks to all the spam indexed.

2. That they don't answer their emails.

[Yourslice]

Hi

I have to agree with Algernon.

The sites that we have built with reviews and best buy tables never do well in Google for their main search terms. But the Spammers do its very disheartening. :mad:

[Yourslice]

Also what’s with this new contact us you can not put enough information in it to explain why you think there is a problem. What was wrong with just having an email address?

[Nintendo]

Am I the only one here who hates the way the site:domain.com search has been screwed up on Google.com for a few months now, but is correct in the datacenters???

Not to mention there so screwed up that seven billion sub-domains of SPAM had no trouble geting indexed with in a few weeks of the domains geting registered.

[its4real4u]

I really don't like this... If I advertise my site on Adwords, then the least I could expect is for the page impressions on Adsense to equal the clickthrus on Adwords.

They NEVER do.

and.. I Hate it.

[FreeAgent]

The one thing I really hate about Google is how poor their search results have become due to the massive amount contextual affiliate spam sites. I have personally stopped using Google because of this problem, and I know I'm not alone.

I hope AdSense revenue is making up for the loss of more and more searchers everyday. :rolleyes:

[jimbeetle]

Good, as this thread's still active I'll throw in my 2 cents.

From a SERPs point of view, a search should not return results from the same site as separate listings if the only difference is use of a subdomain or differing TLDs or ccTLDs. For example, this search for the London Evening Standard (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=London+Evening+Standard&btnG=Google+Search) should not return the same site in the top two positions.

There was a recent paper (of course, can't find at the moment), that described examining the rightmost element of the URL before the TLD or ccTLD in order to filter results from the same basic site. Seems simple.

From a site managment point of view, I just can't see why G can't recognize a 410 status code. It would make all the "Why can't I get these pages that I deleted gone from Google's supplemental results?" questions moot. Please Google, treat a 404 as a 404 and a 410 as a 410.

[thegypsy]

NOTHING....

Google is one of the 3 main reasons for what I do for a living. The other 2 are Yahoo and MSN.

Where would I be without them..lol

[g1smd]

Jimbeetle you should try a search for Armani if you want a really good example of that.

[HeadCheese]

I just had my AdSense account cancelled, without warning, without explanation. I had made a paltry $120 in four months, or the equivalent of $1 a day. I figure if Google denies $120 to 10,000 people every month, it saves itself $14,400,000 a year.

I'm so angry and disappointed, and my only recourse is blogging (http://governmentcheese.ca/blogofcheese/2006/09/25/google-adsense-is-a-scam/) .

Elizabeth (The Head Cheese)


I agree with you on AdSense. It's out of control. Google are encouraging spam sites and rewarding them. It's going to get out of hand. Google's also too prone to gutting AdSense sites without warning. I know of someone who made less than $1 a day on AdSense on a family site and who, without warning or announcement, simply had their AdSense halted. Google claimed that there had been false clicks (at less than $1 a day?). There hadn't. The family wouldn't know what click fraud was, all the knew was that Google had accused them off it and with the account dead there was no way for me to investigate.

[Wail]

I just had my AdSense account cancelled, without warning, without explanation. I had made a paltry $120 in four months, or the equivalent of $1 a day. I figure if Google denies $120 to 10,000 people every month, it saves itself $14,400,000 a year.

I'm so angry and disappointed, and my only recourse is blogging (http://governmentcheese.ca/blogofcheese/2006/09/25/google-adsense-is-a-scam/) .

Elizabeth (The Head Cheese)

Elizabeth,

I feel your pain. Something similar happened to me and all I could do with post about it here on SEW (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=11229).

I think there may have been robotic traffic on my site - but I wasn't the cause. Its very frustrating.

[HeadCheese]

I suspect, although I have no proof, that I was done in by a former friend who knew that repeated clicks could get me banned. If only Google had told me the offending IP address, then I would have gotten my web host to block it. But alas, Google is only concerned with keeping money in its own pocket.

Thanks for your sympathy.

Elizabeth

Elizabeth,

I feel your pain. Something similar happened to me and all I could do with post about it here on SEW (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=11229).

I think there may have been robotic traffic on my site - but I wasn't the cause. Its very frustrating.

[Rank and Smile]

Although this isn't SEO related, it is a Google issue that bugs me...

I don't know if it's because I'm using an older version of Safari, but every time I try to enter Gmail through Safari, Safari crashes. Safari is great for *everything* else, but not Gmail...so it would seem to be a Gmail issue rather than a Safari issue.

[gprakash]

Every Systems have Drawbacks.
I found that google is user friendly giving related search results. but some times it is not so . having bloger sites,span sites in list.

DrawBacks
1. Index are not updated often.Internet is growing. so every website in this globe must have chance to produce good content

2.Page Rank is not to good to estimate a webpage popularity.Example Jack started a website named futuredesigns.com. at first three month page rank will
be zero.So even though jack request a weblink from Jin . jin will not permit it bcoz PR0 Will affect them. and also link related website will allow our vistior to walk through competitor site.Does Google will link search engine sites?

Finally no Good quality websites must be rejected

[jimhedger]

I am dismayed at the culture-shift that has happened at Google over the past two years.

In some very meaningful ways, Google is much more open than they were in the past. That is good. Folks like Matt, Vanessa, Adam and even Shuman are extraordinary spokespersons and (in my experience anyway) extremely well intentioned, good people.

In other, more important ways however Google is a closed shop that, from time to time, makes choices that betray its own ethical standards.

This month's case in point is the absurd 0.02% detectable click fraud figure cited by Shuman. (Google's 0.02% Spin Solution (http://www.sitepronews.com/archives/2007/mar/7.html)) As I say in the article, I am not going to accuse Google of lying here but I am going to suggest they are trying to spin the direction of discussion. If click fraud at Google really is a tiny $2.1 million problem, there is obviously nothing to discuss. That is a spin worthy of the current White House and should carry equal credibility.

Obfuscation: mystification: the activity of obscuring people's understanding, leaving them baffled or bewildered - wordnet.princeton.edu (hat-tip to define: Google)

My problem is, Google is not the White House. At least Government information is subject to Access to Information legislation. Google's is not. There is no real protection for advertisers (or AdSense entrepreneurs).

This isn't to suggest that Google has slipped and become totally evil. It most certainly has not. It has just gotten bigger and its people are confronted with increasingly difficult choices.

In some cases such as Google's compromises regarding Google.CN, these choices can be discussed rationally by the community. Google has been fairly open about its decision making process and has invited human rights groups to Mountain View to discuss issues involved. Users do not need to agree with a decision to know their views have been heard, considered and treated with respect.

Given the complexity of most corporate culture, that's far
more than most brand-names offer their consumers. Even so, Google's influence is too important in too many areas for them to issue mistrustful statements like the 0.02% claim. I hope it is not a trend.

[giseleg]

I noticed that Google does not list ASP pages properly. They seem to spider them, but they are indexed without using the META tag description. My home page and my forums both had the ASP suffix. I changed my home page now so that it doesn't and my rankings still suffer because they haven't detected the change yet...


gisele

[giseleg]

The key concern is that the right hand of Google AdSense is being used to power what many would call "spam" sites, while the left hand of Google Search then tries to find ways to automatically devalue them in Google Search.

The result is that Google Search quality IMO has been in decline for the past couple of years, and there's now far too emphasis on the "importance" of a website, as much as the "relevance" of the pages being searched for.


2c.

Yup, these are called "links farms". The ads are supposed to match the content with AdSense. Instead, the AdSense ads ARE the content.

Gisele

[isharli]

Our continued low ranking in Google is mortifying. There is garbage ranked above our site...how does one deal with that discrepancy?

[MikeDammann]

according to whom do they suck? You, the competitor?

[isharli]

The sites are link farms and sites with little content. While I am obviously biased, there is no comparison

[Nagle]

The fundamental problem Google must face is whether they're a search firm or an ad agency. Trying to be both creates a fundamental conflict. If they go too far in the ad agency direction, someone else will knock them off with better search.

Buying DoubleClick was a big move in the "we're an ad agency" direction, and if they keep Performics, they've gone all the way.

It's sad, really. They were profitable when they were #1 in search and search-related ads were a minor feature. If they'd just stayed with that, they'd still be a great company.

Remember the collapse in banner ads, where everyone had unwanted banners all over the place, prices went through the floor, and nobody clicked on them anyway. Search advertising is headed that way. When Google ad blocking goes into Firefox, you'll know it's over.

[chadb]

Okay,

Google is cool, b/c I can get on the search engine to use it for not knowing how to spell something, or if I draw a blank clue on a subject I am seeking information for, a reasearch paper, or porn lookups lol j/k!!

But as we are growing more busy in our daily lifes and we need to stay as productive as possible. Not really have the inter-phase and deadly accurate information to assit me through out my day is what is frustrating. I would like to be able to use a standard similar to google.com but local. Right now there are just a few search engines that can offer that and are in the early stages of becoming vast and efficient. For example, through me not having the local search that I needed in 2002, I built fastjaxx.com and I am currently working on this inter-phase to get my point across and solving a great economic policy: economies of scale and scaracity.

Majority of everything else on google.com is great!!!

[Pyros]

Google is a joke, really, but no one seems to have the temerity or stupidity to tell the emperor he is not wearing clothes. Also, I'm guessing that because they are so big and so well publicized, and so dominant, it is easily assumed that it is virtually impossible to imagine an alternative or even an improvement. What I am about to write, however is a very serious indictment. I don't care if Google is a virtuous company. I don't happen to think that's the case, but if it is, it should have no bearing on my assessment of the quality of their service. I think this service is lacking, as I will be shortly demonstrating.

Supposedly, the PR of a site is based on its relevance. Relevancy seems to be largely determined by in-bound links. But the whole system is gamed beyond belief, and, being so gamed, is close to worthless. The upshot is that the current system does not favor those with original and good content. It favors those who have mastered the game, and those people, more likely than not, have deep pockets.

I'll provide an example from personal experience as to how this plays out. Suppose you're in the business of selling health insurance online as I am. This industry, like most, has a limited information set. It would not be especially difficult, therefore, to build a website that was highly relevant to that topic, especially if the focus of the site was brought to a particular niche like California health insurance. So if you have three dozens site which all have equally relevant content, which one actually becomes visible on Google? If the end user wants relevant, quality content, why should anything else matter? Anyway, is the mechanism that Google uses to determine relevancy of content of a particular site to a query really all that good? I would argue that it is not.

There are so many things that factor in to the quality of information. Google is predicated on the idea that popularity matters. And while I can't entirely gainsay this notion, I still realize its limitations. Chairman Mao had a lot of "backlinks" in the 40's and 50's. That alone didn't make him the best leader in the world. In fact, despite his popularity vote, most would probably argue that he was a bad leader. And so it is with the web. Just because a site has a lot of back links, there seems to be no correlation, near as I can tell, with that sites quality. There is only a correlation now with how good the site is at getting back links.

So how does Google sort out whose on top? Funny that they shouldn't reveal their inner workings. But since it's a form of black magic of one sort or another, of course they're not going to do this. If they know relevance better than anyone else wouldn't it stand to reason that by providing their insight in to this matter webmasters the world over should then be able to meet them at this goal. Because they are closed, I draw the conclusion that what's really going on at Google amounts to a lot of tomfoolery.

To the average person, the game is so obtuse that he is forced to pay an exorbitant fee to a guide who will likely go by the title of SEO Consultant. This is profound clue that this system is broken. Google does not deny that they are efficacious. But if all I have to do is provide relevant content, then why should they be?

The reality is that Google is frozen in the past, and as a result the rest of the web is becoming frozen. It used to be that information wasn't so plentiful on the internet. People would happily link to your site if it provided a resource of one kind or another that might be useful. Though there could be money involved up to a point, most people linking here are there weren't thinking about this. Now that moeny is involved, it changes everything including why people link to various places. Linking may have once been a somewhat reliable predictor of something. Now it is not.

People who come to my site are not interested in how many backlinks I have. They probably want high quality health insurance related information, and they want to know whether they might feel comfortable buying from me. Google doesn't really have a good way to assess either of these things at the moment, in my opinion.

It is quite possible to build a website that offers plenty to visitors and still be outranked by a far less relevant site but one that happens to have plenty of other sites linking to it. Even though relevant content is easy to come by these days, the sites that get up there in the rankings are those that usually have a lot of money behind them, not the ones that provide the best information. This is especially so for key words that have big payoffs. As mentioned, it's not difficult to build a site that is super relevant. It is difficult to figure out a way to get 40,000 one-way back links. Guess who has the resources to do this, and guess who doesn't? The average business owner will continue to use traditional forms of advertising because he doesn't have enough time, and in many cases lacks the resources to sort it all out.

But this is how Google would probably prefer it. As I see it, they are more than happy to give a few big companies a free ride on the top of the organic search results (for high-value key words), and to and to offer below this mostly garbage. For variety and relevancy, they would prefer you to consider their sponsored links. But they know that people don't really like sponsored links all that much, so its Google's task to persuade them to reconsider this position. This will be a difficult proposition as long as the organic search results are decent enough. Google only makes money when people click on the sponsored links. Better to increase the possible relevancy of these paid links by decreasing the relevancy of the organic results. Of course a fine balance must be struck lest Yahoo or MSN sneak up and offer better results. Anyone with a brain would realize that this must be what's going on.

It's not difficult to demonstrate any of this. If you look at the fist 100 results of practically any search one notices that quality takes a nose dive after the first page, and sometimes within it. How can this be if there hundreds of millions of results found? Google wants the public to believe that search is so arcane and mysterious that even with their legions of geniuses this is the best they can do. I say this is total nonsense!

This is the best that Google has to offer? The web is now riddled with this kind of garbage, and in no small measure, Google is to blame. How many useless domains have you stumbled upon in the past and seen nothing but Adsense and link lists? It's insanity. There is always some token content that anyone who hasn't recently had a lobotomy knows is useless (but Google has no real way of evaluating actual content do they?). Why aren't more people lamenting this, I wonder? Since Google seems to have unlimited resources these days, why can't it figure out a way to determine the true relevancy of a page? Back links are obsolete now for this purpose. Why doesn't anyone else understand that Google is flawed and broken? It honestly shouldn't be that hard to come up with drastic improvements.

Though I have focused an area of business that I'm familiar with,I have no doubt that what I've described is typical of many industries. Having a good site with tons of relevant content is by no means a sure way to become visible in Google. The best that Google has to offer when someone types in "health insurance qutoes" and I'm sure many other phrases besides is actually pretty bad. Google favors those with big bank rolls able to pay the extortionate fees of SEOs, and they deliberately suppress the relevancy and quality of information to be found on the internet. That's what I hate about Google.

[Canal Rat]

Three reasons I hate Google right now?

(1) There are no direct contact details on their sites or subsites (Blogger, Orkut), so you cannot make an enquiry or report any copyright infringements without joining.
(2) I want to use googlemaps as part of company's website. I've asked the Google search team (who want to sell me something) 3 or 4 times and they have not provided the contact.
(3) Spam. There's too much of it and they do not do enough to combat it. It's only a matter of time before someone sues them for enabling spammers to send fraud emails.

The lesson they need to learn is customer service. They are no longer a "cute start up" and the great search experience they started out with is now the industry standard. They need to get into some pretty standard business practices, like providing customer service.

(I probabably have more reasons, given that I've just moved my blog away from blogger but they're minor)

[Wavy Davy]

I agree with the post above and there are somethings I would like to see with Google but hate? Pretty strong words for a great company - I don't hate anything about Google.

I do wish someone would get back to me about morphing my adWords main account to adSense which has a different log in from the adwords account.

I would also like to move my iGoogle account to a Google Apps account - quite happy to pay the $100 :) but no-one has replied to my email - to err is human but to hate is pretty inhuman

David

[J Clark]

Perhaps I missed it, but I'm surprised that click fraud is not on this list. Granted, Google is not to blame entirely but, if in a year or two, Google continues to gain search share and increase its advertising revenue at the same rate and there is still nothing done...then I will be happy to add a comment "What I hate about Google is click fraud".

Lets be honest here .. Google is the search leader - the evil empire as I like to call it - and is the front runner in terms of advertising revenue, new technologies and 'great' ideas. The difference is all of those make them money. It is becoming increasingly obvious to me that anything that takes away from Google's revenue is never paid attention to. Perhaps that is what I hate about Google.

Oh and one more thing I hate about Google - the expansion of broad match. Yet another instance of decreasing the relevancy and increasing the cash lining of Google's pockets.

[webmaaster]

i dont have any negative feedback to say about google.

[extramsg]

I hate that sites that link to my pages often have higher rankings than those pages. How does that make sense? You can jump through all their hoops, have a valid sitemap, have a good robots.txt, have honest original content and a relatively popular site, and still not be able to make sense of why your pages get low rankings.

And ultimately, there's no one to talk to, no one to complain to, no one to work with. Just the wizards behind the impenetrable curtain. Who runs that place, Dick Cheney?

[expertseobug]

One problem i am facing while using Google services...

when i login thru one account to any of Google service then other service automatically stops working with other id.
e.g. if i logged in to Google Analytics with one login id, at the same time i can't login to Gmail or Google Webmaster Tool with any another id...

any suggestion...

[CompetingNeeds]

1) Above all, I hate Google's arrogance. It's clear to me they believe they are better than their users. They are the "guru" that you need to worship and hang upon their every pronouncement.

2) I hate iGoogle. At first it seemed like a good tool and then I figured out it was really just annoying and pointless and the themes are stale, except for tea house and it's too Japano-kiddie for me.

3) Gmail. Good tool, but I HATE chat and you have to go to the effort of turning it off and changing the view to HTML to get the stupid "chat" box to go away. Don't get me started on those lame-ass windows that pop up every time you scroll over someone's name. I could kill the moron who thought of that. Like, who is so A.D.D. they need that feature? The guy from Memento?

3) Hate it that Gmail forces you to keep your Spam in a nice little pile off to the side, where it draws flies. Like you're going to USE your Spam for something? Why would I keep Spam for 30 days? Maybe because Gmail is secretly feeding you spam? Hmm? Maybe because they don't WANT you to be able to throw away your spam without opening it and clicking on every single square to throw it all away. Maybe they don't WANT to give you the option that it will automatically erase within 24 hours, or instantly if you set it that way. Why won't Google let me choose to delete my spam instantly at my own peril? I wonder...?

4) I hate the stupid colors of the logo Google. I'm embarrassed for them. It's so Puff N Stuff. Lame. Not cool. Out of style. Past the expiration date. Ugly. Fey. Childish, not childlike.

5) I hate the retarded little cartoons and drawings they decorate around their logo with. Who are they kidding? Put in the 666 icon and be done with it. Quit pretending. Paint a Hello Kitty on a Russian ICBM. It's more believable.

6) They suck up all the oxygen in the search engine world. There is not enough competition to keep them honest. They have a vertical monopoly. If Yahoo offered a search engine that I didn't have to view their "news" page, which is like flipping past The View, or something... Yahoo is for girls. And I don't mean women. I mean teenage girls. That's Yahoo's target audience. MSN is for people who know they look dumb already and clearly have no clue how to look things up on Google.

7) In their entire NEW FEATURES!!! section on Gmail, I didn't find one useful tool or improvement.

8) The filters in Gmail are pretty much a joke. They don't filter spam effectively. What spammer is going to type the same exact thing every time? That's all they will filter. I thought they were supposed to be so smart about not giving you spam??

That's about all I can think of right now, although they are full of surprises.

[GAustralia]

Hello Search Watch:

The hate list:

1) Adwords. Google broadmatching the words of a multiword "keyword". So if your keyword is absolutely unique - you are the only one in the world who has selected the keyword - you still have to compete against others even if someone types in your exact multiword keyword. This is evil! You auction for your keyword, but wait, you have to pay more for position against others who are not even bidding on what you are bidding for. There are laws against this. Also, Google likes to give the impression that they are for the small guy - yet this treatment of unique keywords shows that, in this instance, they are for the bigger, better funded players. Also it is a sign of greed.

2) Organic Search: The whole story about links and content - when I see other sites with apparently no links and less content ranking higher than my site.

3) Organic Search: Putting Google Maps in the search results. The same players seem to show in my keyword area on the maps A-J positions - for keywod serviced offices sydney - some of them don't rank well at all in the organic search, some are not in Adwords, some are relatively very small players, one does not even have a website. The first few pages of map links are highly relevant to what was entered into Google. Then the listing goes to a general directory for services for the city such as airport parking, water taxi, golf club, then a few more pages or relevant links, then my site. Google should be smart enough to weed out the irrelevant listings. Also there appears no logic as to the ranking. More fair would be by organic search rank or by rotation. Meanwhile the whole Google Maps block in the organic listings draws attention away from my Adword ad. If I click on the map and zoom over to the location of my business a placemarker does not show up. As my business is listed on page 6 of the map results - only if I am on page 6 will the placemarker show. This will definitely confuse users because Google shows a map including my location but does not show a placemarker for it.

4) Organic Search: the whole story of "beware of link farms." Google please let us see a warning ranking for a site to link with so that we will know we should not link with them. As noted in the posts there are a lot of spam sites high in the rankings with minimal content and trying to sell Adsense - how do they get up there? Their promenent presence in the rankings makes the whole agrument against linking with questionable players questionable. It would be nice to have a link analysis tool to show the good links and the bad links, relatively speaking.

5) Organic: Double listings of sites, one indented

6) Adwords: competing against others who have no offer in the target area when a user enters a city along with key words - Serviced Offices Sydney. Adwords then showing ads for companies who do not have serviced offices in Sydney but in other cities. Sometimes I send these guys e-mails trying to educate them about negative keywords.

7) Organic: I got sandboxed for about 18 months, after initially I was assured by members on this forum that the sandboxing was about 6 months then going to a year.

8) Adword: broadmatch confusion - confused a major and much much larger competitor into thinking that I was using their trademarked terms as part of Google Adwords. They went after quite a number of players in the industry with their high powered law firm - prove that you did not do it or you will be brought to court for damages for trademark infringement! In the end I had to share with them my Adword Report (without the click data) to show I was not infringing. Darned annoying that Google confused them to the point of a frivolous pursuit of my business.

9) Adword. bunches of clicks and no customer contact. I am a bit suspicious about how the user behaviour factors in. Users like to shop around clicking until satisfied. They have no incentive to bookmark a site as Adwords presents a list for them. A user clicks on a site, then they click on other sites, then click again on the site a second (or more) time. Is this second click now a second chargeable click? I suppose Google could limit the charges per IP address in some time period - such as a week - no more than one charge per IP per week per Adword.

10) Adword. Once you are on page 1 looking at the Adwords, then you select page 2 of "more sponsored links", the same Adwords Ads appear with perhaps one different. It is only when you go to page 3 (Google considers page 2)does a new set of Adwords appear. How is this of service to users?

11) Adword. Silly game with Google wanting me to bid more for keywords they label as "inactive." Sometimes I would bid 12 cents on a word. Then they claim it as inactive and ask me to bid 50 cents. In some cases I was bidding $1.30 for a word labeled inactive and Google asked me to bid higher to $6.50 to make it active. That is quite a big jump. Then in one case I got a few clicks at the higher price and tried to put the bid back to $1.30 then Google would not let me. This is in a situation where there are from 0 to 2 competitors showing. I see this as unfair/greedy/manipulative.

12) Organic. As mentioned by others, Google ranking spam sites selling Adsense high. It is a real epidemic. It is of little use to end users costing extra time to search for things. Google likes to note how quick searches are ".25 seconds" for example. That is good. The focus should not deviate from quickly getting users to the information they seek - this goes beyond serving them up results quickly and it is very much about relevancy.

[alex27]

Their Gmail..I don't like the their gmail..very simple just like msn mail...I think they need to change it.

[TicosLandCostaRica]

Let's see...at the end of the May, my website had a PR6 and about 25k daily visits. We then translated the site into English because of the many visitors we had from English speaking countries and the many English speakers in Costa Rica. Lo and behold, PR4 and 2500 daily visitors, atrocious! Any question why I could possibly hate Google? Would anyone know any possible reason for a hit like this?

[alex27]

they don't have messenger like msn or yahoo.