With an estimated 2 million searches a minute, Google is the most powerful search engine on the internet and one that many adults utilize every day. We in the search engine marketing industry have a job because of Google and its never ending algorithm changes. While we are thankful for Google and the industry we work in, the search engine isn’t always our friend. From algorithm changes to failed social media platforms, and everything in between, here are a few reasons Google gets on our nerves sometimes!
| Google is getting more and more money hungry by placing ads literally everywhere. Recently, it seems that you can’t browse a website, watch a YouTube video, or use any Google feature without seeing an ad. The newest way that Google is promoting ads is through Google Maps Local Search. These ads will be shown in purple at the top of the search results in Google Maps and in the mobile version – which could be distracting for drivers. Don’t get me wrong – I think ads are good, especially for our industry and are a great method for bringing traffic to a website. But is it necessary to place ads everywhere? |  Abbey Hadar |
| I could talk about this for a decade or more, but most recently I’ve found the ease with which some industries are duping Google’s local business listing is maddening. For example, the rehab/recovery industry is absolutely overrun with fake local listings all over the country when places like recovery.org pretend to have a location on a G+ page and link it to a local directory page on their site. For an industry like this where people REALLY need local help this is pretty disgusting. One, Google should vet this stuff better. Two, these parasitic websites are pretty damn shameful for doing this – as they often sell the contact info they obtain to recovery centers who then blow up these people’s phones. /rant |  Adam Henige |
| I don’t hate Google per se but some of the crap they pull really get under my skin. The most recent pain in my ass is site speed. No matter what we do for clients to try and improve site speed it’s never good enough in the eyes of The Goog. I have gone down the list of recommendations from their page speed tool and made every change and implemented every suggestion only to have the tool give me the exact same grade and same errors as before. It gets frustrating as hell when you spend an hour compressing images and writing .htaccess rules only to have your page speed score improve by 1%….and get no useful feedback as to why that’s the case. Ugh! Freaking page speed! |  Jerod Karam |
| I do not like the way in which Google generates revenue in the AdWords platform from unsuspecting advertisers. Google generates an enormous percentage of their revenue from low quality/low relevancy display text and banner ads. Search ads often get the praise for this revenue, but in reality it is the thousands of ads across millions of sites that generate the cash flow. Additionally, the default settings in both search and display, such as ad rotation, are designed to get the most clicks for Google. Any amateur advertisers are unaware of these settings and end up wasting a lot of good money – which goes right into G’s pocket. |  Joe Ford |
| I have three words: Google Personalized Search. It’s a feature that has been around for a while, but not only does it mean that search results are ranked differently depending on the user but it makes it almost impossible to do a spot check of your rankings. Google ranks the search results based on personalized search history recorded with browser cookies and believe it or not, most users don’t really know that their search results are personalized. It decreases the chances of users finding new information online and makes our jobs that much more challenging. If you need to ever double check your rankings, Google’s Incognito feature removes personalized search but it still factors in your current location. |  Kyna Garrett |
| My top reason for hating Google is likely an unknown problem for a normal searcher, but any business owner will likely agree with me on this one. Trying to claim a business listing is a pain. There is no easy way to go about it and it can be a very long process, which is difficult when a business owner simply wants an accurate listing. Google’s disorganization and attempt to create a social media platform was also poor and has only made Google+ or Google My Business or whatever they are calling it today more difficult too. Google needs to step away from anything related to social and just stick to what they do best. |  Lexie Kimball |
| This is a bit old but I still hold a grudge for the immorality of what Google did to small businesses back in 2012. With the Penguin algorithm update, Google was partly responsible for thousands of small businesses suddenly letting leads go dry and sending them out of business. Why? These businesses had in previous years worked with a bad SEO who focused on short term growth instead of long term SEO health of the website. Google slapped them with a manual penalty which prevented their website from showing up in Google search results for any search and gave them little guidance on how to fix their issue. Aside from hiring the wrong person to do their SEO work these business owners were for the most part innocent and had no practical way of getting back on Google’s good side. Who’s eating up these leads now? Since 2012 there’s been a trend of Google preferring large nationwide sites over small local business websites. For example it’s nearly impossible to find real estate agent websites when doing real estate searches in any city – its always mega-sites like realtor.com and trulia.com. Google does many awesome things but supporting small businesses is not one of them. |  Michael Hall |
| I had a difficult time trying to figure out the top reason that I hated Google. I guess one thing that I dislike about Google is that when you create a Gmail account, you automatically have other accounts on platforms like Google+. I haven’t really looked that much into it, but I feel like I don’t need a Google+ account, and I haven’t really used the one I have now. Another thing that I dislike is how difficult it is to switch between multiple Google accounts. If I have a lot of tabs open and I decide to switch accounts in one tab, then Google will sign me out from that account on the other tabs. |  Michala White |
Leave a Reply