If you were stuck in a lift with a bod from google...... [Archive]

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KidsBeeHappy

17th February 2010, 18:46

If you were stuck in the lift with a google person, what (apart from tell me the algorithm) would you ask them?

Beachcomber

17th February 2010, 18:51

I'd ask why, when I've spend ages getting my head around SEO / Adwords / sorting Web Site copy I still rank under another local company who have a one page pooey site written by a chimp with no attempt to promote it. :mad:

s'not fair!

Big Pete

17th February 2010, 19:08

KidsBeeHappy

17th February 2010, 19:11

I've learnt that one - it's because the chimp has had the one page pooey website for ten years!

sirearl

17th February 2010, 19:12

If you were stuck in the lift with a google person, what (apart from tell me the algorithm) would you ask them?

Do you want to be very rich.?:|

Earl

Rusty

17th February 2010, 19:18

Ooooh, I had an opportunity recently to corner a Google bod, I was cheeky enough to ask two questions,

1) If your site is bouncing around from bottom half of page one to pages 3 or 4 on a regular basis for a competitive single keyword, what could you do to ensure that you ended up on page one permanently? - Answer - get some PR and brand awareness working for the site.

2) If you have a site where you had accidently lost your domain name long enough for the website to be de-listed after you had begun to climb the ranks what can you do? - Answer - just wait and make sure you don't lose your domain name again!! Still waiting on this one.:( (and it wasn't me who lost the domain name).

I was lucky enough to attend a two day conference where there were several Google bods both on panels and as delegates and it definitely produced some interesting conversations.

Kerry

TheSlackers

17th February 2010, 19:25

sirearl

17th February 2010, 20:21

.

I was lucky enough to attend a two day conference where there were several Google bods both on panels and as delegates and it definitely produced some interesting conversations.

Kerry

Was that in The Three bells or The Pig and Whistle.?:|

Earl

CaterTrade

17th February 2010, 20:28

I'd ask them for a link exchange :)

omnivore

17th February 2010, 21:02

i'd ask them exactly how much evil they had not done this week

mattsaw

17th February 2010, 21:33

Was that in The Three bells or The Pig and Whistle.?:|

Earl

It was probably SES or SMX, Google send both speakers and delegates to both.

To be honest you never really get anything interesting from the Google bods, listening to what the black hats have been getting up to is far more entertaining.

Webtistic

17th February 2010, 22:24

I would ask what it's like in those strategy meetings when they discuss the currently laughable market position of Google in social media as compared to Facebook and Twitter.

Then, I would ask who was responsible for rolling out the recent half-arsed real-time search integration, quickly followed by whether he/she is still at the company.

Finally, I would ask if they have any contingency plans for when Microsoft (Bing) buy up the default rights to be the default AOL search provider (having already allegedly secured the iPhone deal) and massiveley increase their online and mobile search market share overnight (predicted by me - today! :) ).

Cornish Steve

18th February 2010, 01:23

A good friend of mine is a Google bod. I don't ask him questions of this sort because I know he won't answer. I must say that he's the archetypal geek. :)

Search Perfect

18th February 2010, 08:09

I spent half a day at Google's UK head offices in Victoria London a few months back and could ask anything about Adwords, very interesting.

I was more interested in questioning them about the secrets of their algorithm though. I think that actually most of them know as much about their algorithm as we (SEO people) do, apart from a select few. In fact we might know more as we're constantly testing it.

Ali-v-8

18th February 2010, 08:14

Any jobs going? :)

omnivore

18th February 2010, 11:00

i have had some `off the record` conversations with some of the account manager types and whilst we didn't discuss anything technical or algorithmical it was most apparrent that folks on this side of the water (inc ireland) are very respectful (ie fearful) of the folks in the usa and seem not to be able to even wipe their bums without the ok from them.

garyk

18th February 2010, 12:39

Finally, I would ask if they have any contingency plans for when Microsoft (Bing) buy up the default rights to be the default AOL search provider (having already allegedly secured the iPhone deal) and massiveley increase their online and mobile search market share overnight (predicted by me - today! :) ).

I don't think thats actually a done deal just a rumour, in fact two opposing rumours as reported on the register with one saying it will happen and one saying it won't. Theres nothing wrong with Bing IMHO but nothing better, nay compelling enough, to make me switch from the big G, I hope they do leave it as it is, I still think G is more relevant.

phil battison

19th February 2010, 12:20

I'd want to know why despite spending over £1m with them why its still not possible to get anyone to take any interest in any issues we raise with them. Arrogance personified.

Ali-v-8

19th February 2010, 12:33

Because 1 million has no influence on the other 626million in 90 days or 1.6 billion someone else mentioned :P

I'd want to know why despite spending over £1m with them why its still not possible to get anyone to take any interest in any issues we raise with them. Arrogance personified.

omnivore

19th February 2010, 13:12

I'd want to know why despite spending over £1m with them why its still not possible to get anyone to take any interest in any issues we raise with them. Arrogance personified.

we have had some problems with them recently too and they were spectacularly uninterested in resolving our issues to the extent that they actually said `there is nothing we can do and there is no point in you contacting us again on this`

i did some research on this kind attitude from google and one thing is quite apparrent that they have had this policy for quite some time (complaints of this nature (refusal to deal with, or explain or discuss probems) run back to 2007) and that from their point of view it is quite astute.

the reason they do this is, i think, that if they don't deal with any problem, or talk about any problem, then they don't have to employ staff to deal with it,

and MORE IMPORTANTLY if they don't talk about it, then they don't have to get into any dialogue about it that might leave them open to being sued for compensation for making a decision that was either unfair or illegal or incompetent

in our case they told us our campaigns had been suspended as there was a problem reported (by a competitor) on our site, but they would not tell us what it was and that we had to get an e-mail from our competitor saying we had resolved the un-mentioned problem then they would activate the cammpagn again. The competitor would not reply to our e-mails asking what the problem was, we told google they would not reply to us so we didn't know what to do and the google response was, it is nothing to do with us, YOU have to resolve it and get the e-mail otherwise the campaign stays suspended. They wouldn't even tell us WHY they couldn't tell us what the problem was, they just said that `it is our policy`. we still don't know what the problem was that was reported.

i know why they wouldn't deal with it, it was because to deal with anything opens up a massive can of worms which would potentially detrimentally affect all sorts of things that would cost them money, so they refuse to deal with anything, quite smart really.

KidsBeeHappy

19th February 2010, 13:13

How did you ever get that resolved?

omnivore

19th February 2010, 13:15

How did you ever get that resolved?

................who? me?

KidsBeeHappy

19th February 2010, 13:17

................who? me?

Aye, didn't want to quote it! Too long!!

omnivore

19th February 2010, 13:21

Aye, didn't want to quote it! Too long!!

you saying i'm a waffler? huh? huh?

er....no..we haven't resolved it, google won't activate the account, the competitor won't answer our requests as to what they complained about and google won't tell us what the complaint was.

so we've decided to spend our adwords budget on massivly ramping up our SEO activity..was about the right time to do it anyways.