5 Things We Hate About Google

Google is undoubtedly the best search engine, and in many ways an equally great company. It has an unchallenged marketshare that is steadily increasing. And it is always producing new products and making strategic acquisitions.

But enough with all of the accolades! Here are 5 things that we hate about Google.

1. Search Dominance

Google has a near monopoly on search. Yahoo and Bing cannot even begin to compete with it. And while Google has pledged to "Do no evil", doesnt it make you nervous to think of what might happen if Google drastically changed? What would happen if Google started charging for inclusion or giving websites priority based on how much they paid to rise in the ranks? Of course, Idoubt that this will ever happen, but the economy is changing. And as Google pulls in less revenue and its stocks dip, they might be forced to pass the buck on to their users.

2. Data Collection

Google collects a whole lot of data. They gather data from user search patterns. They gather data from Gmail, to display relevant ads as you catch up with your email. And they gather data from the use of almost all of its other products.

I wonder, what does Google do with it all?

3. Unscheduled Pagerank Updates

Probably the most annoying thing about Google, is that they dont schedule their toolbar pagerank updates. And if youve ever experienced the anxious wait for the update, you probably agree that itd save you a lot of gray hair if they just supplied a date.

4. Endless Product Betas

It seems like Google launches a new product ever week. And while I like most of their products we faithfully use Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, Google Translate, and Google Chrome one thing that bothers me is that their products often stay in the beta stage for an extended period of time. And in some cases, some great products never leave the beta stage befo re the cord is pulled. Of course, the beta stage is useful for testing and getting the kinks out, but Google is known for their especially lengthy betas.

5. The Ever-Changing Algorithm

One of the most recent things that you might find frustrating is that Googles index is more fluid than ever before. This means that your rankings for keywords are always changing; one day you may be on the front page of Google, and the next day you may be on the tenth. And the steady traffic that you might have depended on in the past, is probably fluctuating as well. These changes are making webmasters dig deep for new tricks and better SEO techniques to retain their placement.

So, what is your relationship with Google? Love, hate, or perhaps a combination of both?

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