Google Sucks. All of us SEO consultants work our butts off for Google rankings because Google has dominant market share and because Yahoo and MSN are too lazy to prioritize search.
Update: Reading the comments, and from emails, it's obvious that many of you searching "Google Sucks" are frustrated that you're not getting traffic from Google. If you want help getting search engine traffic from Google, (and Yahoo and MSN) then perhaps you might consider buying an hour of my time.
Alternately, if you want to learn SEO and have tools to help you out, I encourage you to read my review of SEOmoz Pro's tools, articles and membership generally. SEOmoz's Pro membership is the most popular in the search industry (over 2000 memberships sold!), so you'll probably find that it meets your needs too.
But Google is much more than a search company now, and while I concede they're reasonably good at search, Google still sucks enormously overall. This is my contribution to the web's massive love-hate relationship with Google: 10 Reasons why Google Sucks my Hairy Chia Pets.
Here are the top 10 reasons Google sucks:
10) Google is fine with spam in certain markets. Look at how spammers are dominating the 'buy viagra' SERPs: .EDUs keep getting hacked, having pages with links or redirects sending visitors to pseudo-pharmacies. Conclusion: Google needs to adjust its TrustRank algorithm! TR's giving too much weight to old domains/seed sites. 9) Google's tech support teams have a tendency to want to copy-paste the FAQ in their email responses. Thanks, I can read the q&a myself, Mr. Google-tech-support-bot. If I'm writing you, it's because the FAQ wasn't satisfactory.
8) Google serves all those useless, generic, bid-increasing eBay ads. Plus, it enables people to do arbitrage on AdWords traffic. G, don't you want people clicking AdWords in the long term? Why whine about the small guy trying to make a buck on being an affiliate if you're going to serve all those eBay and arbitrage ads? It's not the small affiliates that suck, Google, it's your hypocritical policies.
7) Google places extreme trust on Yahoo paid links in the Yahoo directory. Then it tells the rest of the webmaster world to put rel="nofollow" attributes on their paid links. FYI, Google: You're still allowed to make a buck even if you're not on the NYSE. If paid links are such a concern, don't get editorial-review and paid links confused, just develop another standard, like a rel="paid-reviewed" and rel="paid-unreviewed" attribute. And ask Yahoo to use them too.
6) Google's expansion into so many different markets and control over such a wide array of personal information is downright scary. And the fact Google has been willing to work with China in censoring information Chinese people may want to find doesn't comfort me one bit.
5) Google AdWords doesn't actually fulfill its promise of letting the little guy compete. Before embarking on an AdWords journey, one has to scour forums for information on targeting, match types, bidding strategies etc. The result is that the main AdWords buyers are eBay, spammers and arbitragers, and big companies. The great equalizer it ain't.
4) On a note related to #6, Google keeps on buying out the little guys. Reminds me of another big tech company that's infamous for the anti-trust lawsuits it's been hit with. Except that Google's engineers tend to solve problems, usually.
3) Google claims to be so concerned about keeping spam out of the SERPs, yet it lets so much garbage be advertised on AdWords. I can't even count the Clickbank get-rich-quick scams people are hawking through your Google AdWords ads (ironically, the scammers present themselves as get-rich-quick review sites that prevent people getting scammed). It's 2007 Google; Western society gave up "buyer beware" in favour of consumer protection last century!
2) Google's Adsense for content matching algorithms are awful, particularly in Gmail. The ads you've served me with when I check my mail are completely irrelevant, making for a sucky user experience and generally sucky "researching mode" rather than "buying mode" leads when people click. (But then, I guess I'd be creeped out if your algorithm was better.) Anyways, before you keep buying out the Jotspots of this world, Google, make sure the ads you can serve on them will be relevant.
1) You're big, arrogant, and your algorithms are such a mess that you're likely to rank this post #1 for "Google Sucks" by the time I'm done promoting this.
-gmail > your email -google search > your favorite search -yahoo buys little guys too, do ur research, everyone buys little guys. if i was a little guy, i would want to be bought. in china: -some google > no google -even with a very successful site, adwords will only get a few hundred bucks. which is not something you can live off of.
-it seems that your major problem with google is its advertisments, they appear everywhere. the solution: firefox + adwords. dont tell me you use IE :(
Google really does suck! They refuse to index my site (www.vegward.com) even though it is purely educational and non-profit - it is a health information site that aims to get out the true facts on nutrition. It would not matter if Google didn't have a near monopoly of web searches i.e. they are apparently how almost all people currently find sites on the web. I also don't agree with their compliance of the oppressive censorship laws in China (although worryingly it seems like they also have some warped form of censorship in the rest of the world - from the fact they have not indexed my site after over a month of me writing to them, emailing them, faxing them, signing up and filling out web forms etc. I even signed up for their AdWords at $30/month but it has made no difference. Now they are also taking my money as well as censoring me into oblivion! At least this site doesn't suck so thanks for letting me tell my story! Good luck to everyone else who is also getting shafted by this horrible monopolistic company.
I'm not complaining about the practice of buying little guys, I'm complaining of the effects Google aims to produce by it, namely, a monopolistic market. Veg, I'm glad you're getting somewhere. It can be tough at times. Dax, euh, bon, y'avait pas de besoin de me foutre a la porte comme ca, on peut regler ca a l'amiable ;).
Dont feel bad my site www.donalder.com keeps getting dropped from the google index. Takes a year to get it back in and tben dropped in 10 days. Google has no sense of responsibility for the power they have achieved. Its impossible to get anyone to look into a problem.
hey a fellow sitepointer, just following your signature links
Just wanted to point out that I think google shut down adsense arbitrage...they started canceling accounts en masse as I've been told...could be wrong though
I'm not so sure Google shut down Adsense arbitrage. Look around the credit serps' paid listings. You'll likely find people buying general terms to bring traffic to more targeted (and more expensive per-click) parking pages.
To be honest, I have to recognize that Adsense Arbitrage takes skill and courage (at least, if you're doing it off the regular SERPs and not the content network, where clicks are cheaper). I mean, you need to run a tight ship (err, campaign) and be ready to lose a lot of money testing (without any ROI guarantees...)
Google does suck...i submitted a website hash-studios.com and it was coming up on search results just fine on google a few weeks back. Until, one fine day i started using adwords and the website has disappeared from their search results. only when i submit the full domain name in the search does it show the result. Google sucks big time
It is amazing, three hours after complaining on your website, my domain name has reappeared on google. How how how? maybe, after this post it will disappear again. What is Google up 2?
Google also adjusts search without letting users know. For example if your logged into gmail you will see different search results then if you are not. Why wouldn't they make this fact obvious, because it will allow them better to serve you ads.
i found your post by googling adwords sucks, and after reading your post, I figured you might be interested in a new class action suit being file against google over their crap adwords software. the url is googleadwordslawsuit.com. If you are not interested, dont bother approving the comment, as this is really more for you to read anyways. hope it helps!
I hope you will allow this on your blog. I think your viewers may be interested.
If you have a Google Horror Story and want to share it with the world, please feel free to post it at http://www.googlehorrorstories.net. We are an RSS enabled Article site dedictated to effecting positive change at Google regarding how they treat us small publishers and advertisers. YOU can make a difference by sharing your story with us. The more people that contribute and syndicate our content, the more exposure we will have and the greater the chance we can get the big "G's" attention. We may be small timers but we number in the thousands and we can make a difference if we all band together!
I am totally pissed that I somehow lost all my google juice. My business and my web addy - lazarusrealty.com used to come up when lazarus realty or lazarus fresno was entered. Now it appears my site is not even indexed. BTW - it all happened after I put in a request for my business phone number to be changed. I have emailed them and havent received a reply. I dont think its healty for ANY business to wield the power they do. I PREDICT THEIR TOWER OF BABEL WILL BE BROUGHT DOWN! The sooner the better as far as I'm concerned. GOOGLE SUCKS!
I know the items are listed on my site, I use the exact words, & it is not there, buried so deep, other irrelevant sites come up, aren't they supposed to pull the "exact" in quotes up first before they go on their google tangent?
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-gmail > your email
-google search > your favorite search
-yahoo buys little guys too, do ur research, everyone buys little guys. if i was a little guy, i would want to be bought.
in china:
-some google > no google
-even with a very successful site, adwords will only get a few hundred bucks. which is not something you can live off of.
-it seems that your major problem with google is its advertisments, they appear everywhere. the solution: firefox + adwords. dont tell me you use IE :(