Are Google's Best Days In the Past?

rsmiller510 writes "For a time, everything Google touched turned to gold, but lately a slew of bad press is creating a negative perception about the search giant."

Comments

Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[intellitech]

..does not mean they can't still turn a profit.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[sakdoctor]

Google is clearly lacking in some key areas, most obviously social.

Google is still untouched in search. A core internet technology.
The glorified RSS feeds that are facebook and twitter have no relevance to that market.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Lumpy]

but their search is getting useless. link farms are still not being squashed, and they are allowing SEO scumbags to move results up the list for their clients who 9 times out of 11 dont have anything to do with the topic.

Google needs to do the Iron fist thing on search SEO's and put any SEO trickery or linkfarms at the BOTTOM of all search results. My exclude list for Google searching is getting ridiculously long.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Luckyo]

There is a subset of that thinking in usability (when studied as science). Textbook example is a sport wrist watch. On one hand, you can have one with a lot of features that can be accessed very quickly and a lot of info on the home screen, but requires a lot of buttons to control functions in a usable way.
Other is aimed at "we want something that just works" crowd (usually senior citizens), and has only one big red button and "just works" (and "illumination" button on the side for obvious reasons).

Reality - it "just works" for people who are willing to limit themselves to limited feature set given by the watch. It doesn't replace the one with many "confusing" buttons, and when it does it does it with a lot less efficiency.

Apple's advantage is that hype essentially steamrolls the "but the other features that are clunky/missing?" argument as hype claims that if iphone can't do it, you don't need it. Never mind that USB connectivity to a PC as an external drive, or ability to see email sender's name right from the home screen without having to go through "pretty" menus (to cite two of several obvious examples) have been a default feature in the smart phones for a long time. Apple is that "one button" watch that "just works" - so long as you're willing to accept that to even access and start timer will take you a lot longer that it would on a phone that does it the way "watch with many buttons" does.

And when hype will eventually run it's course and run out, you'll be left out with reality - that apple's version of "one button it just works" usability isn't all that good when you want to step outside those basic boundaries.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[Anonymous Coward]

You clearly don't understand the fundamental problem with "SEO trickery".

Allow me to enlighten you.
Google uses an algorithm to determine the relevance of pages. The problem is that SEO firms have reverse engineered that algorithm to the point where they can manufacture site rankings. As such Google's page ranking system can't tell the difference between a super relevant site, and a site that is lying about it's relevance but has the right answers to all the questions Google knows to ask.

It is similar to how a Rorschach test doesn't work on someone trained in evaluating the test (they know how their answers will be interpreted and can therefore give the answers that will lead the tester towards the conclusion they want to get). Another analogy would be a spy attempting to seduce a mark. Assuming they spy has done his/her reaserch they should know what the mark looks for in a partner and since they're lying they can appear to be the perfect date, while an honest person would likley have some flaw that compared with the fictional persona of the spy will seem less desirable.

There is no solution to that problem. At best Google can change their algorithm thus forcing the "SEO scumbags" to start over, but they will start over and they will again succeed. In truth the fact that it's taken this long for it to happen in the first place is rather commendable.

Re:Just because the "best days" are in the past..

[brit74]

Funny, you could've spun the Apple situation in a lot of different directions. Of course, the slashdot crowd tends towards wanting features and complexity over simplicity and ease of use, so I guess I'm not surprised to see your comment and the upvotes. I think it's silly to suggest some kind of "complexity is better than simplicity" type of argument when society is made up of millions of different consumers with different needs and desires. And let's not forget that it's not just Apple; the Flip camera sells pretty darn well. Reducing it down to "it's just hype" is missing the reality of the market. "I know what all fifty buttons on my TV remote does, I don't know why people are too dumb or lazy to figure it out too. It's obviously superior to the five-button TV remote." isn't the correct answer for all consumers. Somewhere there's a guy who knows what every extra charge on your phone bill is for, and since you don't know, he thinks you're too dumb or lazy to figure out. Is he right? No, we all have a limited amount of time and patience to figure out what this or that thing is for. Technophiles are willing to spend the time. Most people aren't technophiles.

Perhaps that's the problem. Engineers are designing the devices, and engineers have spent thousands of hours pouring over the features. So, there's a tendency towards feature-creep and complexity as the devices are increasingly aimed at technophiles willing to spend lots of hours learning the device. I worry that Apple will move that direction like every other computer company has a tendency to do, unless there is someone at the helm steering away from the engineer's predisposition. (And, no, I'm not an Apple user. But, I happen to respect what they do and understand why it's a useful approach for them to take. I also don't look down on my friends who have little time or desire to learn the details of their electronic devices.)

Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[Anrego]

My perception:

They are no longer the cool new guys tearing up the internet and being a company for the people. They are big, diversified, making money hand over fist, and have attracted the requisite controversy, criticism, and bad press that comes with being big and diversified and making money hand over fist.

Despite everything, I still see them as one of the good guys. I think there’s always a severe whip back when you suddenly discover something that you thought was awesome is now merely ok. Google looks terrible when compared to what it was, but compare it to everything else and it looks pretty damn good.

And (flamewar time) I continued to be baffled over all the flack they got over the stupid wifi thing. They came clean, admitted everything, co-operated with the investigations and people still tore them 12 new ones. Personally I think they should have been commended for admitting they made a mistake rather than going into full on cover up mode.

To get back to the topic, it really required a definition of “Best”. Are they ever going to be the cool trendy upstart they once were: probably not. Are they going to continue making money hand over fist and growing like a spider until you shave with google razor blades: entirely possible.

As for not innovating I still think they’ve got it in them. They’ve had a string of bad luck, and they’ve failed in the social area but I suspect they’ll pull something killer out in the next little bit.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[Anonymous Coward]

And (flamewar time) I continued to be baffled over all the flack they got over the stupid wifi thing. They came clean, admitted everything, co-operated with the investigations and people still tore them 12 new ones. Personally I think they should have been commended for admitting they made a mistake rather than going into full on cover up mode.

Maybe that reaction is why companies tend to go into cover up mode. If they really did make an honest mistake, what do they gain by fessing up and cooperating vs trying to hide it? The answer is nothing, and I think Google probably learned a bad lesson from the whole ordeal.

I hate to say it, but most consumers and voters are short sighted idiots.

Re:Fried Potatoes and gravy with garlic and spices

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad press means, they kick the ass of competitors willing to pay persons to smear them. In the beginning they had no real competitors.
Just look at the Smartphone. For Google that is just a trick. For Nokia it was vital.

If they want an open confrontation with Microsoft they can, just for fun. Put 30 Mio annually on Wine development and Windows is obsolete within 5 years. Or 50 Mio annually on Libreoffice and the Microsoft Office cash cow would get slaughtered.

Whats with the google articles today?

[Reapman]

To answer the summary: No

I'd elaborate, but decided to go with the same depth this "summary" provides.

Marketshare

[Sockatume]

Not to rip on an article that's just a bunch of one-sentence summaries of other articles and a saucy eyebrow-raise, but the 1% drop cited in the article is in search marketshare. The total value of search ads went up by about 10% in the same period, meaning that Google's revenues almost certainly grew over that period. It's just that they grew slightly more slowly than the newcomers.

WTF?

[doubleplusungodly]

A pretty large majority of the article went into arguing that just because Google lacks good social networking tools, it is declining. What kind of logic is that?

What the heck is Google?

[aplusjimages]

Never mind I'll just Yahoo it.

Re:oh rly.

[SQLGuru]

Actually, it look more like Classic ASP. I don't see much in the source that would indicate otherwise. (ASP.NET tends to be -- isn't required, but tends to be --- .ASPX, not .ASP).

So, not only is the guy running on the Microsoft stack, he isn't even that current in it. I'm not sure I'd put too much creedence in any topic he discusses.

that is what happens...

[Mr.Fork]

...when you have the best search engine, tied to the best internet ad support, tied to great free thought-provoking-industry changing office products, map tools, tool bars for your browser, chat tools, phone tools, and it all comes from ONE company. What else can you do when everyone is watching every move, ever senior management comment, every action?

Then again, it does beg to ask, is this typical media bullsheit with typical negative stories that are solely geared towards making money rather than a balanced approach to news reporting? When does the news cross the line when it starts focusing on areas that it's owners have a vested interest in ensuring their 'enemy' is bashed at every opportunity? Is this really a sponge-worthy story?

Not a great article

[Jim Hall]

I read the article (it's not that long) but let me save you the trouble: it's not a great article. In fact, it's pointless. You don't need to read very far before he presents his conclusion:

While Google is still clearly riding high in the general consumer market, it seems to have lost its innovative edge, the one variable that always seemed to help it stay ahead of the market. But whether the company has peaked or not is still an open question.

Emphasis mine.

So the tech writer (Ron Miller) doesn't know either. He presents both sides, and seems totally unsure about what he's talking about. To summarize the article:

• Facebook and Twitter got the tech attention during the Egypt riots, not Google. [Not sure what his point is, here.]
• JC Penney's tampering with their search results
• Google might lose ground to vertical search in the future
• Google dropped 1% in comScore

But:

• Google still controls 2/3 of the market, and 1% not a trend.
• Google doing well with Android
• Bing not a threat
• It's all about perception, anyway.

So yeah, this was a pointless article.

Re:Depends on what Google does.

[0123456]

Google's not dead yet, and as long as they continue to dominate search and a few other niches(Maps, email), they'll be alive.

The problem is that they're trying to dominate search by making it 'smarter', with the end result that it increasingly sucks. Most times I look for anything out of the ordinary using very clear search terms I end up with 90+% of the results being crap I don't want because it 'intelligently' decided that I wasn't looking for what I was asking it to search for.

So I'm definitely looking for a better alternative for searches which isn't trying so hard. Yeah, I know I can put magic characters in the search thing so it actually searches for the thing I asked it to search for, but I shouldn't have to do that.

Re:In the snow, uphill both ways...

[symbolset]

This is because Google searches are personalized now. Stop searching for male enhancement drugs and online casinos and it will change. You have managed to convince Google that's what you're interested in.