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I’m not a tech guy, but we had used a re-direction function to guide people after they had signed up on our database. It took them automatically from the sign up page to the user’s area. We had used it for 2 years previously, as had many others. (When the ban came, it affected thousands of websites.) I think this was the problem.

We were obviously aware that Google frowned upon egregious SEO tricks, and so we avoided them.

Over time, we found that online promotion brought us the best return for our marketing dollars, so we began to build our strategy around it. The data showed clearly that a good number of our customers were coming from Google, so we responded accordingly (and cautiously). However, when the ban hit, it was not just a case of losing the extra traffic that SEO provided. The problem was this: Suddenly we did not exist on Google anymore. You could search all day and find no reference to us. People thought we had disappeared. You could type in our URL, our slogan, our name, everything, but according to Google we did not exist.

My business hasn’t failed, but we went AWOL from the most important online channel and it hit us hard. Obviously we made mistakes – such as over-relying on Google – but I still believe my point is valid: Google’s ‘monopoly on information’ (as Robert Feinman calls it above) didn’t extend to informing us of its devastating plans to change its policies. There is simply no channel between Google and it’s millions of non-technical users. It can do whatever it wants, with impunity, regardless of how it affects those who rely on it. And as I said, not only did I lose a crucial source of revenue, but I also had to beg for them (in vain) to re-instate me. Now, I pay for the privilege of the whole thing by upping my daily PPC spend, so Google actually benefits fron my misfortune.

I am a firm believer in free-markets. To me Google can run their business as they see fit. But they do absolutely need need a better way to communicate with their customers. I think this has something in common with Jeff’s Dell problems.

http://robertdfeinman.com/society/google_monopoly.html

Google are truly despicable – far worse than Dell, to my mind. Let me tell you my Google Hell story.

Earlier this year, Google banned thousands of sites in China (where I am based) without any warning. Immediately after they received their license to operate in China (last May), they decided that SEO practices that they had acceptable for 2 years were suddenly unacceptable. There was no warning, no communication, just a sudden ban.

This sudden disruption almost put us out of business – a company that had taken me 8 years to build up. (We are still struggling and may yet go under.) Google gave me no indication of what I had done wrong. I searched their site for help. It said I had to offer them a written apology before they would reinstate us. I was furious. I bit my lip and, like an idiot, wrote the thing. And the result? Nothing. Not a word. I waited for months for some response. None was forthcoming. I’ve spenty thousands of dollars with the these overgrown, self-righteous billionaires, and this is the customer servcie I get?

Eventually, after sever financial losses I had to start from scratch with a new URL and build the whole thing up again. Now, I have no choice but to give these jerks 100 bucks per day just to stay in their PPC searches. It will be several months before my business recovers. I’m still feel sure that I cannot trust threm.

My misfortune was certainly their gain. All the talk about not doing evil is just sanctimonious clap-trap. It doesn’t help me in the slightest when I think how I may not be able to keep my daughter in a decent (but expensive) school here, because of them.

Google Hell.

Ken