Blogcritics Comments on Google's Evil Ways Show Clear Need For Congressional Regulation, DOJ Investigation

Comment by GoogleLoverBoy

Wed, 19 Apr 2006 02:49:01 EDT

Hang in there Mr. Real, no matter how much they flame you. "When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him." Jonathan Swift Then again maybe their aren't dunces, just SEO's making $$$ off the Google On/Off Racket? What does SEO stand for?

Comment by Dr. James

Tue, 18 Apr 2006 15:23:54 EDT

I think it has some good points, although it may be a little bit extreme.

Comment by Allister

Tue, 18 Apr 2006 14:33:40 EDT

This article is stupid.

Comment by Mr. Real Estate

Tue, 18 Apr 2006 13:28:15 EDT

Disinterest Observer wrote:

I can't believe that anyone would complain about that nonsense blog you call a business site. I think you head is a little too inflated because some business organization nominated you for an award.

Perhaps you're confused. My blog is separate from my business site, but it is integrated into my business site. And for the record, I have written posts like this one long before I ever got any business recognition. You can see all my posts by clicking the appropriate link in this article.

In all honesty, the site is ugly...the font is ungodly large, plastered with CAPITAL LETTERS, and links go for lines and lines. It looks like the personal sites of preteens from seven years ago or Homer Simpson's flying toaster business. I'm not being critical for the sake of attacking you, I'm giving you my honest evaluation of the site, and unfortunately for you, your site is an assault on the eyes.

If my website or blog are so ugly, then why do you feel the need to bash them? If they were such horrible sites no one would ever visit them, and neither the site nor the blog would have ever won any awards, and both have.

Also, the site really doesn't have anything at all to do with you. It has lots to do with properties that have been sold, but not much to do with you. The first link on Google for John Mudd is, in fact, the site you -link to- when you sign your name every post. That seems like a much more accurate way to rank "John Mudd" than to link to a blog where you make posts about real estate. In fact, I wouldn't even expect that blog to show up reasonably high as it isn't really about -you-.

That makes sense, but then it doesn't. My website comes up first for my name because Google local search changed the name it indexes my site under when I joined Google's local search. I gave them no permission for that, nor did I like it when they did that. My site's relevance has more to do with the real estate I sell in the locations I sell it than me, personally. If I switched companies it would take a while for Google to change it in the main index, whereas the Google local would take 5 minutes or less. The press releases about me on the back pages of the Google search are all about me and only about me, so they should be more prominent in the search, but they're not.

Google's primary responsibility is providing relevant, useful search results. Your real estate blog is just plain and simple -not relevant- to the search query John Mudd. I might be able to empathize if you suddenly lost rank on "inside real estate" or something that is actually related to the topic or content of your site, but complaining that your name no longer links to the spot you want it to is just nonsense.

Google changes its algorithm so often that it ruins the quality of its searches. Yesterday I tried finding out how to remove some malware that made the Frazoo search engine appear anytime I logged into my local MLS. All I could find in Google was SPAM making Frazoo appear higher in Google. Google has flaws. I'm not going to sit here and pretend they don't, and I'm not going to support them when their flaws force me to lose potential business. I thank Google for removing the real estate search from Google Real Estate from its main search index. Google Real Estate should be separate, and it should be similar to Google Finance, which I absolutely love. Flaming me and my site is against comments policy, by the way.

Comment by Disinterested Observer

Tue, 18 Apr 2006 12:56:04 EDT

I can't believe that anyone would complain about that nonsense blog you call a business site. I think you head is a little too inflated because some business organization nominated you for an award. In all honesty, the site is ugly...the font is ungodly large, plastered with CAPITAL LETTERS, and links go for lines and lines. It looks like the personal sites of preteens from seven years ago or Homer Simpson's flying toaster business. I'm not being critical for the sake of attacking you, I'm giving you my honest evaluation of the site, and unfortunately for you, your site is an assault on the eyes. Also, the site really doesn't have anything at all to do with you. It has lots to do with properties that have been sold, but not much to do with you. The first link on Google for John Mudd is, in fact, the site you -link to- when you sign your name every post. That seems like a much more accurate way to rank "John Mudd" than to link to a blog where you make posts about real estate. In fact, I wouldn't even expect that blog to show up reasonably high as it isn't really about -you-. Google's primary responsibility is providing relevant, useful search results. Your real estate blog is just plain and simple -not relevant- to the search query John Mudd. I might be able to empathize if you suddenly lost rank on "inside real estate" or something that is actually related to the topic or content of your site, but complaining that your name no longer links to the spot you want it to is just nonsense.

Comment by Mr. Real Estate

Tue, 18 Apr 2006 11:49:19 EDT

VinnyQ wrote:

ask me how I found your blog, Mr. Real Estate. I found your blog through finance.google.com.

You actually found this article, which is a part of Blogcritics, at Google Finance. Blogcritics is not owned by me, I am but one of many contributors.

But I like to point out your first case with the German national railway ... that's a joke right?

No, it's not a joke. They have filed a lawsuit against Google.

Instead of going after the people who actually created and hosted the site, they're going after Google? Google does nothing more than to "crawl" and "index" the site for searching. They are in no way responsible for *any* sites that are out there on the web, they just categorized them. Sueing them is like suing the Public Library for carrying book on how to make bombs.

Well, I do see your point, but Google does index those sites, and since Google has shown that it can ban sites it wishes to, it can easily be argued that Google can also remove questionable content upon the request of a corporate entity. Libraries do ban books, and there are some books some libraries won't carry for various reasons. The difference between Google and a public library, though, is that Google is a public company which profits, where, a public library is a public institution that never profits. Shares of my local library are not for sale, nor are they traded on any stock exchange, whereas, shares of Google are. It may not seem like there is a difference between the two, but there is.

Comment by VinnyQ

Tue, 18 Apr 2006 11:27:10 EDT

ask me how I found your blog, Mr. Real Estate. I found your blog through finance.google.com. Maybe it's irrelevant. But I like to point out your first case with the German national railway ... that's a joke right? Instead of going after the people who actually created and hosted the site, they're going after Google? Google does nothing more than to "crawl" and "index" the site for searching. They are in no way responsible for *any* sites that are out there on the web, they just categorized them. Sueing them is like suing the Public Library for carrying book on how to make bombs.

Comment by Matthew T. Sussman

Mon, 17 Apr 2006 13:03:20 EDT

Haven't used it, can't comment on the quality of it, but isn't it $50/yr minimum for a license? I don't even spend that much on TotalFark.

Comment by Mr. Real Estate

Mon, 17 Apr 2006 08:31:30 EDT

What are your thoughts on TypePad? It's owned by Moveable Type. Is the quality the same? Similar? It looks easy to use.

Comment by Christopher Rose

Mon, 17 Apr 2006 05:34:03 EDT

Dave: WordPress IS obsolete! I mean in the sense that it can't cope with many of the new technologies that are now coming through like AJAX, never mind Flash. It is one of the best 5 blogging platforms around today but in terms of being either truly good or user friendly, it is totally lacking. The fact that it is open source (I think that's what you mean by a "consortium of programmers") is totally irrelevant.

Comment by Dave Nalle

Sun, 16 Apr 2006 20:05:15 EDT

WordPress isn't going to be obsolete, and I'm not sure that's exactly what Christopher was getting at. 2.0 has some bugs in it - I just upgraded to it from 1.5 - but it's definitely an overall improvement. And there's still constant and ongoing development, including a multi-blog hosting system that's in beta which is pretty impressive. WordPress is produced by a consortium of programmers as a non-profit exercise, so it's not likely to go belly up anytime soon. dave

Comment by Mr. Real Estate

Sun, 16 Apr 2006 19:57:01 EDT

Neo wrote:

Quit complaining you big babies. Got nothing better to do with your time than promote censorship and get more of everyones rights taken away. Let's all move for restrictive freedom! Quit the bitchen, and enjoy the freedoms you still have. -Neo

Hmmm...could this perhaps be an anonymous threat from Google to take away more of our freedoms?

Comment by Neo

Sun, 16 Apr 2006 16:09:59 EDT

Quit complaining you big babies. Got nothing better to do with your time than promote censorship and get more of everyones rights taken away. Let's all move for restrictive freedom! Quit the bitchen, and enjoy the freedoms you still have. -Neo

Comment by Mr. Real Estate

Sun, 16 Apr 2006 11:56:54 EDT

Christopher Rose wrote:

On the topic of WordPress, I'd like to qualify Mr Nalle's words a little. Wordpress is indeed one of the best blogging systems currently available. There are other options around that are as good or even a little better but, in terms of having availoable a TRULY GOOD blogging system, that's another matter entirely. I've spent a large part of the last few months researching blog platforms and my current view is that the ideal blogging system still has not been built. I do have a pretty good overview of what such a platform should be able to do to incorporate newer technologies and make the whole blogging process a lot more up to date and less clunky and have even written to various people and companies on the subject. To my intense disappointment and frustration, none of my mail has even been acknowledged let alone dealt with. By all means, sign up with WordPress and you'll be fine. However, unless they have an extraordinary secret development programme running that nobody knows about, the recently introduced WP v2 is going to be somewhat obsolete, possibly as soon as this year. Damned Evolution!

We used WordPress for Hundred Acres, a now defunct real estate Web magazine, and it worked really well. Perhaps I should use something else if WordPress is going to be obsolete. I have a lot of concerns about moving my blog, though. If I do move it, I want to be able to move the entire thing without losing it.

Comment by Mr. Real Estate

Sun, 16 Apr 2006 11:51:51 EDT

Pzzdolph wrote:

Personally, I like google. I live in an area of the USA where you almost have to pipe the sunshine in. You wont find any high speed internet services around here, it's dialup or nothing! So what's that got to do with it? Well, with google I don't have to wait ten minutes for the home page to load from all those animations and ad's like you see on MSN, netscape, yahoo and so forth. Little things like that mean a lot to some people. I'm sure you probably have T-1 or whatever so its no big deal for you. With google, you can go anywhere find anything! The only other place that can compare with google, is this place google hasn't forgotten the American people, maybe you have? I'm just not interested in Real Estate, I'm into Aviation. Since "Aviation" begins with an "A" and is probably more interesting and popular than Real Estate (which starts with an "R") it should rank higher, perhaps? Oh, and I found this site using google, too. Now I can come here and spew my BS opinons!

Well, I'm not completely down on Google, I was just mad that they de-listed my blog for something that an "SEO expert" did (and that I paid to improve my Google ranking). Google should be de-listing the so-called expert, not me and my blog. Google has no ability to do due diligence, though, as its completely automated, so it will, at times, de-list someone even if they are innocent. Personally, I think that's completely stupid. This is why the real estate industry will never be completely automated, as a mistake like this one on Google's part would have heavy penalties. SEO "experts" have all kinds of SPAM pages, and Google never tracks them down when their bad advice ruins the PageRank of someone else's site. This is something Google needs to change. Also, you may want to note that Google took this site out of Google news at one point, and it took us forever to get it back in. It got back in because of my contact. Google isn't perfect. I'm not going to sit here and pretend that it is, and when they punish me for something that an "SEO expert" that I hired did, I'm not going to let Google live peacefully until they de-list the right person, and I am not the person they needed to punish by de-listing my blog. If Google is going to de-list sites of folks who are not guilty of abusing their system, I say regulate them. After all, Communist China has proposed to regulate them and they are bending over backwards to accomodate them. Why don't we de-list Google from the stock exchanges its on without giving them a heads up and see how they feel about it. I don't think they'd be too happy. Google has a lot to do to re-earn trust from a lot of people. Turning a blind-eye isn't going to cut it. I applaud Google's success as much as the next capitalist, but when one business hurts my business or any other business without reason, well, I don't applaud that all. There are a number of businesses who feel this way about Google, and there are enough of them to form a PAC to regulate Google. Google would be smart to buy a clue, in my opinion.

Comment by Christopher Rose

Sun, 16 Apr 2006 07:08:15 EDT

On the topic of WordPress, I'd like to qualify Mr Nalle's words a little. Wordpress is indeed one of the best blogging systems currently available. There are other options around that are as good or even a little better but, in terms of having availoable a TRULY GOOD blogging system, that's another matter entirely. I've spent a large part of the last few months researching blog platforms and my current view is that the ideal blogging system still has not been built. I do have a pretty good overview of what such a platform should be able to do to incorporate newer technologies and make the whole blogging process a lot more up to date and less clunky and have even written to various people and companies on the subject. To my intense disappointment and frustration, none of my mail has even been acknowledged let alone dealt with. By all means, sign up with WordPress and you'll be fine. However, unless they have an extraordinary secret development programme running that nobody knows about, the recently introduced WP v2 is going to be somewhat obsolete, possibly as soon as this year. Damned Evolution!

Comment by Pizzdolph

Sun, 16 Apr 2006 05:05:26 EDT

Mr. Real Estate: "Google was great in its early stages. Now it is becoming a dinosaur that is out of touch with the Amrican public. The American people can get the same thing in search from MSN, without the large number of SPAM or useless blogs that clog Google, even as they de-listed a blog that was not a SPAM blog." Personally, I like google. I live in an area of the USA where you almost have to pipe the sunshine in. You wont find any high speed internet services around here, it's dialup or nothing! So what's that got to do with it? Well, with google I don't have to wait ten minutes for the home page to load from all those animations and ad's like you see on MSN, netscape, yahoo and so forth. Little things like that mean a lot to some people. I'm sure you probably have T-1 or whatever so its no big deal for you. With google, you can go anywhere find anything! The only other place that can compare with google, is this place google hasn't forgotten the American people, maybe you have? I'm just not interested in Real Estate, I'm into Aviation. Since "Aviation" begins with an "A" and is probably more interesting and popular than Real Estate (which starts with an "R") it should rank higher, perhaps? Oh, and I found this site using google, too. Now I can come here and spew my BS opinons!

Comment by Dave Nalle

Sat, 15 Apr 2006 22:05:27 EDT

Oh, and for compatibility certainty, wordpress.com offers its own low cost blog hosting service. Might want to check into that. Dave

Comment by Dave Nalle

Sat, 15 Apr 2006 22:04:38 EDT

I'd throw in my vote for WordPress too. I'm not using it right now for my personall blog because I don't want to have to convert all the custom scripts, but I've used it for several blogs I've set up for others and it does a great job. dave

Comment by Matthew T. Sussman

Sat, 15 Apr 2006 21:48:15 EDT

I say go with WordPress. It's served me well along with others. If you're disillusioned by free services, then Movable Type is just as powerful. BC is powered by Movable type. It can be a little tricky to set up but WP is well documented when it comes to getting it all ready, plus depending on the web server host you go with, they can be helpful in making sure you get set up with all the components you need (PHP, MySQL). By the way, three times as many people found my site through MSN's search than Google, for what it's worth.

Comment by Mr. Real Estate

Sat, 15 Apr 2006 16:08:23 EDT

Consider me late to the game, but John you seem like it's your right to have a Blogger account and not be pushed around. Well guess what, if you sign up for a free Blogger account, they own you. Mine didn't last six months in Blogger before I registered my own domain and purchased my own web space. I am now in the hands of 5i.net, but I'm a paying customer and can cancel my service. If I leave Blogger, Google won't give two shits. Read No. 10 in Top Ten Design Mistakes In Blogs and get your own domain/server, John.

Good point. I was a paying Blogger customer until they discontinued the service. I find it ironic that I get this message from Blogger after writing this post:

Error We apologize for the inconvenience, but we are unable to process your request at this time. Our engineers have been notified of this problem and will work to resolve it.

I'll likely use my hundredacres.com domain for my blog if/when I switch. What blogging software do you use? The last time I was going to leave Blogger, Jason Shellen at Google talked me out of it. The host company I was going to switch to went out of business and we lost the Hundred Acres blog in the process.

Comment by Matthew T. Sussman

Sat, 15 Apr 2006 15:37:21 EDT

Consider me late to the game, but John you seem like it's your right to have a Blogger account and not be pushed around. Well guess what, if you sign up for a free Blogger account, they own you. Mine didn't last six months in Blogger before I registered my own domain and purchased my own web space. I am now in the hands of 5i.net, but I'm a paying customer and can cancel my service. If I leave Blogger, Google won't give two shits. Read No. 10 in Top Ten Design Mistakes In Blogs and get your own domain/server, John.

Comment by Mr. Real Estate

Sat, 15 Apr 2006 15:24:10 EDT

ryan wrote:

: Google is not a "public" search engine. It is a search engine. The public--aside from stock--has no ownership of the company whatsoever.

Funny. It's on the Internet, which is owned by the U.S. government and is regulated by ICANN, which was created by the U.S. government. I guess you're saying that the government is a company, then. It's not, but if you want to inerpret it as such, that's your choice to do so. The public if effected by decisions Google makes, therefore Google is a public search engine. Google is also a public company regulated in part by government entities, but not yet by Congress, although it has allowed itself to be regulated by Communist China. I have said it once, and I'll say it again, if it did not want to have to deal with these issues, Google should have remained private, rather than going public.

Comment by Mr. Real Estate

Sat, 15 Apr 2006 15:17:02 EDT

Wow wrote:

How many Walmart's account directly or indirectly account for over 50% of a small business' sales? Rules change when companies get big - when they impact a a large # of other businesses directly, they need to get more transparent.

This is a very good point. Yes, Google should become more transparent and less secretive. Google is a public company, it is not the Order of Skull and Bones, or another secret fraternal organization. Google needs to implement better customer and user service measures. Even Microsoft has surveys. I've never, ever seen one from Google.

Take another same-scale-as-Google example, Ebay. They raised their listing prices, clients hammered them over it, and they had to back down. Posts like these are part of the same system in play. They reflect client discontent, and it's a matter of time before Google directly feels the pain, or someone makes them feel it. It's all good - it's capitalism.

Finally, someone who makes sense. Google was great in its early stages. Now it is becoming a dinosaur that is out of touch with the Amrican public. The American people can get the same thing in search from MSN, without the large number of SPAM or useless blogs that clog Google, even as they de-listed a blog that was not a SPAM blog. Messages are important to companies. Google's message appears to be this: "We accept regulation as a cost of doing business (i.e., China), and we see no reason to communicate with the end-user or our customers to improve his or her experience." Google would be wise to hire a new PR person. One that understands government relations, public affairs, customer and end-user communication. It ignores many of these areas, as is shown through its lack of communication/action consistency. The longer it ignores them the more of a tower of babel it will become, and the more likely its credibility as a company, or a search engine, will likely decline. Google would be smart to listen to criticsm, rather than blast those who provide it. Positive change has never been bad for a company. GM can tell you, though, that refusing to change is not a good thing for any business, long-term. Wal-Mart managers, who decide what good are placed in Wal-Mart stores, are very kind, and are also much, much more reachable than anyone at Google. E-Bay is more reachable than Google. Again, Google is not God, it is a public search engine, and as such it should remember than when it effects the businesses who depend on it, it is effecting the public, including but not limited to the customers and end-users. If Google is going to accept regulation from Chia, there is nothing stopping the U.S. government from regulating it, regarding small business customers and end-users.

Comment by ryan

Sat, 15 Apr 2006 15:09:57 EDT

Google is not a "public" search engine. It is a search engine. The public--aside from stock--has no ownership of the company whatsoever.