Google's purchase of Writely sent Search Engine Watch editor Danny Sullivan over the edge. He says that once he saw the news, he was immediately moved to write down the 25 things he loves and hates
most about the search giant. Here we're going to focus on the things he hates, but you are more than welcome to go to Search Engine Watch yourself to get Sullivan's balanced view. First, he asks how
Google continue moving in new directions "when there is so much stuff they haven't finished, gotten right, or [still] need to fix." Among his gripes: Inaccurate Web search counts. That result you just
got didn't really yield 59,800,000 results. It returned maybe 879, and the rest are duplicates. Google also doesn't provide enough help to users who want to narrow down their searches based on initial
Google results. "Why no related searches option?" Sullivan asks. He also wonders why it's so difficult to access Google's plethora of tools. Google is a lot more than Web, images, groups, news,
Froogle and local, as it merely appears to be on the home page. He says Google should show the same results regardless of country. Google also caches pages without asking publishers, letting them
opt-out if they don't like it, but Sullivan argues that the process should have always been opt-in. The company's response to click fraud has been inadequate, Sullivan says, noting that Google has
been promising for years to develop better answers to advertisers' click fraud concerns. To know the true state of the search industry, Google should break out search revenues from AdSense revenues.
Until they do we'll never truly know just how healthy search marketing is. He also says Google should start charging for things like analytics and search advertising support, because not charging
means these tasks don't get the proper attention and support from the company. Finally, Sullivan asks Google to change its philosophy. Google is no longer the cute new little company looking to do
right by everyone; he says "don't be evil" shows a huge disconnect with reality.
Read the whole story at Search Engine Watch »