Gauging Google's Gaffes

conq writes "BusinessWeek has a piece looking at some of the recent faux pas of Google and what implications they might have. The articles's conclusion: They should hire a chief marketing officer to avoid such gaffes. From the article: 'Recent missteps that have whipsawed or irked investors include the inadvertent release of sales projections and an agreement to censor its own search results in China. Then on Mar. 8, Google used a vaguely worded blog on its site to disclose a settlement of as much as $90 million in a case concerning click fraud. That came days after the company said the case was without merit and told investors the impact of click fraud on advertisers is immaterial.'"

Comments

Panty Bind

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Recent missteps that have whipsawed or irked investors...

I think statements by Google have made it clear that they will not be playing the normal Wall Street Game. What's really going on here is that because of this, Wall Street is getting its collective panties in a bind. I for one am enjoying the show. Google should just keep doing what it wants and ignore the people in New York who seem to think they can't be ignored...

Re:Conspiracy

[master_gopher]

The mistakes made as a result of not having a chief marketing officer are to be expected - but not so much as the mistakes made as a result of being a company of human beings. More important are the policies themselves (Re: China, etc) which have much more real effect on the company's users and shareholders than their marketing division does.

Google's Philosophy: a love and hate relationship

[keilinw]

Gone are the days when Google was just a tadpole startup company with little more than a unique name. Over the years, the company has proven its worth time and time again with technology advancements cool new features. Until very recently I too was a hardcore Google fan... I was in love with the company that vowed to change the world, and succeeded.

We're all familiar with the recent news about Google's policies on privacy, finance, and the Department of Justice. And, it has admittedly made a few mistakes. But who are we to argue? Isn't the company successful? Aren't they doing what the set out to do -- change the world? In a nutshell: YES... I may be disappointed that Google does things a little differently than I expected, but isn't the end result that I have cool new and "free" technologies... and isn't their stock still work a lot more than their IPO days?

All of these thoughts are SOMEWHAT comforting... but I've started to develop somewhat of a love / hate relationship with them. Very recently (a few days ago) I fell into some sort of keyword promotion site over optimization scam. There is a company that wrote code that a person can insert into their websites in order to "show the location" of who's browsing their sites. This code had a cleverly embedded keyword in it that made a vague reference to "MySpace.com." As a result of including such code on my site, I was getting A LOT of Google hits.. and people were asking me how they could do the same thing. I answered by posing a copy of the code on my website... and then I got hit by a Google Site Ranking Penalty... something that I did not know even existed! Now, I am trying to recover my site's ranking and I'm not even sure how to do this.

Prior to this experience I thought Google was great... but it appears to me that much of their company is "automated" and that my site somehow tripped some automated flags and hence automatically punished me... for something someone else did. So, in the end isn't it Google's responsibility to protect the small end user from abuses of their automatic systems?

I personally won't suffer any great loss from my sites loss in status, but its just that -- a loss in status... and frankly its quite annoying. Luckily for me there were a few lessons learned:

1. I enjoy posting on Slashdot more than on my blog because people actually read it.
2. I know know how to avoid Search Engine Optimization Errors.

So, there you have it... that's the story of my love / hate relationship with Google.

--Matthew Wong
http://www.themindofmatthew.com

Google Print

[bcrowell]

Google Print is a good example of this. I'm participating in it as a publisher, and it's been a mess. They've gone through so many conniptions trying to avoid getting sued that it's crippled the program. Nobody uses it, because it doesn't show up in normal google searches anymore.

Please, they sold out to the Chinese

[RedHatLinux]

to make money for their stockholders, because that what they are required to do as corporation.

Remember folks, Do No Evil is a marketing slogan, not legal contract.

Re:Please, they sold out to the Chinese

[That's Unpossible!]

Sold out to the Chinese? How so? They aren't preventing Chinese people from getting to google.com, China may be, though. All they did was add servers in China that make trade-offs: you get better, faster access to our site, but we filter some results (and tell you about it).

they are required to do as corporation

Typical ignorant statement repeated ad nauseum by Slashdot socialists. It's wrong on so many levels. You guys like to think that a corporation is legally required to do whatever it takes to make a profit, and you're flat out fucking wrong about that point. But you just never let it go. One of these days you should take Economics 101.

Remember folks, Do No Evil is a marketing slogan, not legal contract.

Actually it's a mission statement, which most companies have. Theirs is just succinct. Good and Evil is black and white. Operating your servers in China is a shade of grey. They never said Don't Be Grey, they said Don't Be Evil. Just because you have a problem with something doesn't make it evil across the board.

I think the China move was a smart one, I don't have a problem with it. Then again, I seem to be one of the few that can look past the B.S. and see what they actually did -- added some services for Chinese users, while leaving existing services alone. If that's evil, call me Darth Vader.

Re:Google's Hiring

[LunaticTippy]

My mother is working for google marketing "unofficially."

I sent her a new computer with a firefox homepage of her shiny new google account. She is seriously computer illiterate and already she has fallen in love with it. (she used to have mail.com - ugh!)

Now she wants all her friends to use gmail. It's kinda cute.

Regarding click fraud...

[Josh teh Jenius]

What I can't understand is how it is legal for Google and Overature to continue downplaying the effects of click fraud.

Here is one such effect: I recently spent $150 on an advertising campaign, without finding a single sale (I usually get 5-10 for $150). Later I found out why: an ex-employee who had since become a competitor already knew all of my "favorite" keywords, and was working diligently to click every ad he could find. But what happens when someone applies a DDoS-technique to click fraud? At what point would Google and Overature have no choice but face this issue head-on?

Using only IP logs and a date stamp, any "PHP-for-dummies" graduate could eliminate 90% of click fraud overnight. With the amount of data Google has, I simply *have* to think they already know the average time "between clicks" for any given keyword/ad placement anyway, and how often the same IP will "normally" click on the same ad. Anything outside those "norms" should go unbilled. It's not as if Google is facing any variable costs per click (nominal at best).

I don't want to believe that Google and Overature are "evil". However, I'm not really sure what alternative makes sense. Consider: Google and Overature currently have the power to (1) bill clients whatever they want (2) settle lawsuits with more ad credits and (3) use "leading technology" to justify absurd market-caps, only to turn-around and plead helpless to stop "click fraud".

Be 100% honest for a second: if *you* were in *their* shoes, would you run to the press and say "something must be done!" or would you walk directly into an attorney's office and ask flat-out: "How much should I take before I retire?".

Eh, I disagree with TFA

[TubeSteak]

Analysts and marketing gurus say that when it comes to communicating with the public and shaping its image, Google has some growing up to do. "It's inevitable that at some point [Google's technological edge] is going to be neutralized, and online search is going to become a Pepsi-and-Coke market -- that's when marketing becomes much more important,"

Except... Google is (currently) like Wal-Mart. You can't afford not to do business with them.

I don't think it's inevitable at all. As long as Google's results are relevant, there is no incentive to switch. Google makes sure you've got no reason to switch, by introducing a million and one free extras to tie you into their web.

G-mail, Google Talk, Google Chat, Google Calendar, Google homepages, Google maps... and they're still innovating.

Re:Google's Philosophy: a love and hate relationsh

[keilinw]

Actually I don't see a problem with Goolge penalizing for using dishonest techniques... and quite frankly I'm happy that they did because I got to learn something new... and I have something interesting to write about :)

You are right, the only people who really have a "beef" with Google are the stock brokers, web site operators, and anyone whos privacy might be at stake...but in the end, I still love the company.

Matt Wong
http://www.themindofmatthew.com

Re:Conspiracy

[farble1670]

Public corporations can have many goals, and profit is usually one of them -- but there is no law requiring this.

people invest in for-profit companies to make money. it's not a law (duh), but that's the whole purpose of a for-profit corporation: to make money. if corporations, as part of their marketing (read: propaganda) make you believe that they have some other interest in mind, well, it worked on you. i have no doubt there are some people on google's board of directors that believe in the free exchange of information, but those people do not control the direction of google. it's survival of the fittest and darwin in action. if those people did control google, google would go out of business. the path of maximum profits and doing the "right thing" may overlap sometimes, but not always.

what really cracks me up is that things like ipods and OSX have become almost a political philosphy to people. folks, it's a PRODUCT. you've been brainwashed into thinking that it defines who you are and what you believe in. well, the end result of your "beliefs" is higher profits for a few people at Apple Corp. i'm using Apple here, but the same thing applies to google. there's nothing wrong with mutual benefit. who cares if google is making a profit it it helps you? i agree, but please let's not pretend that google is some friendly group of people that have our best interests at heart.

Those controlling Google can easily argue that they have a goal to maximise profits, but that their means to achieve this requires reducing short term profits in favour of greater long term profits.

yes, so?

Stop with the chief officers already

[Ed Avis]

Let me see... in the past few days BusinessWeek have suggested that Apple's recent security problems mean they should hire a security czar. And now if Google have public relations 'gaffes', obviously the answer is to hire a chief public relations officer. It's pretty clear how to create new BusinessWeek editorials:

- Pick a company X;
- Suggest the company has had vaguely defined 'problems' in field Y;
- Therefore, X must hire a chief Y officer!

I look forward to many more of these editorials linked from Slashdot in the future!