Google Day Questions?

[mike]

I'll be in Mountain View next week for this Google Media Day thing. We have several pretty good questions in this thread already, but I wanted to give it another push before I start making notes for the trip. What would YOU ask Google?

Here's a rundown of the event by the way:

"Speakers will include Eric Schmidt plus a number of executives from our technology, sales, corporate and international teams. Come armed with your best questions, and get the latest update from Google."

As such, I figure you guys might have all kinds of interesting questions you might want to ask... so let's hear 'em.

You can reply to this thread, zap a private message, or shoot me an email (mike.ientry@gmail.com).

So, what do you want to ask Google?

[incrediblehelp]

Is PR your biggest joke on mankind?

Why don't you give the website owners of the world more feedback, right or wrong?

What is the future of Google search as it it applies to relevancy? What improvements are you making to Google search to make it more relevant? Can relevancy still exist without heavy algo weighting on back links?

How can you stop click fraud better? Why do you count double clicks?

Is their absolutely any connection to the Google algo if websites are using AdWords or AdSense?

It seems with the recent acquisition of Ori Allon search engine and other sneak peeks (Google SERPs with left navi green bars) recently leaked, Google is looking to bring more of the websites content on the Google web property, SERPs. Why?

Can Jaan Kanellis get a t-shirt?

[davidmg]

Mike ask them why my PPC with adwords gives a high count on a special page and then adsense on that page gives a lower count on page views. Thanks

[Grinler]

How about answers as to when all the sites who have had ongoing issues (prob due to canonocolization issues -sp?) since big daddy?

Problems where their pages were dropped, they are constantly indexed but no new material gets added to the index, etc.

[Grinler]

How about answers as to when all the sites who have had ongoing issues (prob due to canonocolization issues -sp?) since big daddy?

Problems where their pages were dropped, they are constantly indexed but no new material gets added to the index, etc.

[Irishjim]

Thanks... what a great offer.

Here are my thus-far unvoiced fears and questions:

1) Is the increasing popularity of RSS feeds going to run afoul of the "anti-scraper" mentality of BigDaddy? In particular, when multiple sites put up the same RSS feed because it's good news for their visitors will Big Daddy see this as "scraped" content and uncoil the whip?

2) Is Google beginning to fear the results of their "lag time" on updating their search results for new content on sites?

At present, MSN far out-performs them on new content. When the public starts to figure this out, Google may be found out to be the "lesser" search engine.


3)Is the new algorithm out of (I think New Zealand) that is expected to be incorporated by Google next year going to violate copyright laws.

It's my understanding this new bot will be able to pull content out of a web site and display it on a search result. This will keep visitors away from information sites and disallow any "residual sales" on sites that originally display the info.

(follow-up question) Is this going to force a full-scale reaction to Google by webmasters who will block Google's bots?

Thanks for the chance to give the input. Can you tell I'm a reporter?

[Irishjim]

By the way, I LOVE Incredible's first question. Still laughing here.

[murphypj]

(1) Are Google arbitrarily changing SERPs to reflect the geographic location of sites, regardless of content and relevance?

My site has retained it's #1 positions, held for some years, for relevant search terms if I use www.google.ie, but has dropped steadily in the past few weeks to #10 if I use Google.com - even though the only 'Irish' connection is the .ie domain name in my URL ( www.iol.ie/~murphypj ).

Localisation is fine for websites which are supplementary to 'bricks and mortar' businesses, but many sites have only online content, of international interest, and would appear to be being 'scored down' for google.com searches because they are not US based. This deprives the site owner of interested visitors, and gives searchers a blinkered view of the best available content on their subject of search.

I'm proud to be Irish, but I was also proud to be receiving over 4,000 US visitors to my site daily.
What was wrong with the 'search the web' / 'pages from {my country} option?

I know from previous posts here and on other forums that many others are similarly aggrieved.

(2) Do Google intend to expand on the practice of placing results from their image searches at the top of SERPs ?
( see search for: guitar chords ). Are these sites paying for placement? If not why give preferential placement to an image link over sites which have presumably earned their top placings by virtue of their content, and the 'white hat' optimisation generated by the blood sweat & tears of a hard-working webmaster?

If these are paid placements, they should be clearly shown as such.

Many thanks for the opportunity to unburden!

P.J. Murphy

[mishj]

1) What plans do you have for avoiding Florida updates and the like in the future? I.E. ensuring that people's websites dont suddenly disappear from the top of search results without any warning? Yahoo! appears to manage it fine, so why cant Google?

2) What plans do you have for avoiding Click Fraud in the future? It seems that many websites are told by Adsense that they get a lot more views than they get on Overture (Yahoo! Search Marketing) and yet they dont see any benefit from those views?

3) Does Google have plans to do something like Yahoo! myWeb 2.0? It seems that this product (now in beta) will lead to a great many more relevant search results and better advertising hits when this comes out of beta

4) Does Google plan to go "open platform" with its desktop tools or does it plan to go with Microsoft gadgets and therefore be tied into the Windows platforms?

5) Does Google plan to offer a client side tool for manipulating its web apis like Yahoo! Konfabulator? Konfabulator looks like it will be excellent now Yahoo! owns it - once it has full security in place etc.

6) How far is Google planning to take "tags" and Web 2 technologies? Yahoo! myWeb 2.0 uses tags for an excellent way of improving search results, and search related advertising and Yahoo! Flickr seems to be the way forward for photo sites for example.. Is Google going to follow suit?

[bluebinge]

I like all the questions, so I thought I would think "out of the box".
Here I go: I like the reporters style, so I think I will try....

Do you see any plans for helping flash sites out in the future?
Do site listed high on your other search categories including, image, groups,news, etc have any influences
on content and if not do you see something to this nature in the furure?

Well I hope it isn't to foolish of questions, but i was always taught "no question is a bad one."

[ADAM Web Design]

I'm going to copy bluebinge's idea and try to think of unique questions just because I think there are some that would be of more wide-scale non-bitchy relevance.

1) Will social bookmarking and/or user behaviour, tracked on an opt-in basis while using the Google Toolbar, become factors?

2) Will site networks/network link farms be attacked more aggressively?

3) Will "Powered By" links lose their strength?

4) Does Google have any plans in the future to remove the new but disturbing trend of "PPC scrapers" (AdWords account holders that bid on low PPC keywords to promote single-page and/or scraper sites)?

5) Will there be changes to the algo as it pertains to hidden text and/or navigation?

6) Will Matt Cutts continue to be the only person who serves as an open voice for Google (as valuable a reasource as his blog is, it shouldn't be the only one) or will there be an increased effort to communicate with the public?

That's all I can think of for now.

[webspinner]

Where do the websites with content of historic significance go when their hosting times out? Say the author dies or simply is no longer capable of maintaining the hosting? Should such information just go down the cyber sewer? In the hard copy world, there are libraries with huge archives for such information for the generations that follow.
Google has the technology and the capability to source and archive such websites for perpetuity.
None of us live forever but often those generations that follow need to source the information we have produced. It is such a waste to believe it all just goes down the cyper shute.

[hologos]

Not all change is for the better. You would think that if Google had the best search algo in the biz, then they wouldn't want to change it. But, if Google changes just for the sake of changing, then clearly Google risks sacrificing good results purely for the sake of change. I wonder what is more important: pertinent search results or clandestine algorithms.

[JKomp]

Is google abandoning their 'ten things'philosophy. In which they state:

2. It's best to do one thing really, really well.

So why are they buying up so many different companies??

4. Democracy on the web works.

A democracy where weighted, multiple voting occurs? Sounds more like 19th century Britain than the modern democracy they make it out to be. (read: Google, Internet Democracy?)

8. The need for information crosses all borders.

So why do they beta test everything exclusively in the USA? Why not invite a limited number of people across the globe if they truly want to be a borderless company.



Don't get me wrong I am still a fan of Google, using Google search, adwords and adsense - but there are definitely some discrepancies they need to address. They can't say one thing and do another imo.

[TrafficProducer]

How about improving the Search to include information that is NOT posted to Google or on even on the Internet. That is Google employ people to produce webpage’s about information that is not already on the Internet so that research maybe done for these issues?

What will you be doing Ten Years time?

Will Google still exist?

Can Google put Political pressure on United Kingdom Governments to increase Bandwidth?

[kgun]

1. How do you screen your AdSense partners?
2. Is the average AdSense site likely to be more reliable than the average web site?

[incrediblehelp]

1. How do you screen your AdSense partners?

"screen"?

LOL

[kgun]

If you have not heard the expression, it is frequently used in finance.

It is related to the theory of assymmetric information, moral hazard and adverse selection.

You may perhaps also use game theory? Google "knows" Bayesian filtering, so they should perhaps also study bayesian players.

In short. Before you start, you have apriori information. As more and more information are collected, you get aposteriori information that should be more precise. Could be used in fighting spam.


Is PR your biggest joke on mankind?

Look at the 10 th post in this thread (http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=62150)

One of the reasons you wrote LOL?

[send2paul]

I think, at Easter time, I'm tempted to enquire from Google what their "resurrection" plans are.....?:

If the Google "crashed", technically speaking, today - what are the main apsects on Google's Contingency Plans:

a. How would they let know people what was going on?
b. Who would they inform first?
c. What would they "fix" first - search engine, Adwords, Adsense, etc
d. How would they recover consumer confidence and recover lost clients from all their different ventures?

Apocalypse type questions... something to make them sit up and think :)

[langard]

Q1: Is the periodic Google 'dance' officially dead and, if so, is the new, on-the-fly, machine-intuitive method any faster or better at producing/maintaining quality indexing at all?

Q2: Why bother to launch a sitemap program if you are just going to index a domain's default page anyway and toss the rest into a morass of invisible supplimental pages and Machiavellian sandboxes? Where's the advantage?

Q3: Can you please use baseball's three-stike rule on .404s and then move them all to some cobweb file - or at least purge them completely from your operating index to clear the pipes once in awhile for us?

Q4: Since you directly effect billions of dollars of e-commerce and can make or break whole corporations, what assurances can you give to those of us who fear Big Daddy's halucinations and eccentric behavior lately?

[arius]

Question: What is going to be next killer app on the Net? (Whatever is the answer, then follow up so why are you releasing 10 apps a month if you think that will be the killer app?, isn't focus to doing one thing right made you successful so far?)

[JKomp]

Exactly my point arius - they say its best to do one thing really well, but now they are spreading themselves out, when they should be focusing on improving existing services,especially if they want to maintain market dominance.

[incrediblehelp]

kgun I was being facetious. Google usually accepts most AdSense apps and then bans the bad ones later after editors find them....eventually.

[tomarkllc]

How about a simple, straightforward question from one who needs a whole lot more technical knowledge than currently possessed...

WHile this is not the case on MSN or YAHOO! it seems to be on Google:

What sense does it make that a web site that ranks in the top 10 among 50K or more sites for a single keyword in the plural form, as in "cornices"... ranks near 160th for the same word in singular form, as in "cornice".

Since there is no "context" to a single word, there should be little or no difference between the results for "cornice" vs. "cornices" (seeing that the big buzz lately is contextual search). Or am I missing something here? It sure makes a difference in the potential traffic volume, but I am having real trouble with this one. Thanks.

[Emark2009]

Why don't you give the website owners of the world more feedback?

This sums it all up. The only reason i can think of is they don't want to.

[T2DMan]

Determination of the country of a domain for country specific searches should be done more regularly. People should be able to "correct" their hosting and domain name mismatch "mistakes" and know that Google will make the change in good time.

The general rule for deciding on the country of a domain for country specific searches has been:
- what is the tld of that country
- where is the domain hosted
- ie .co.nz hosted in Australia should show on both nz sites only, and au sites only.

However, if a country specific domain (.co.nz) has the hosting moved to another country (say AU), I have found that it takes forever (months and counting) for that domain to be listed in that countries country specific searches. My .co.nz site happens to have some Sydney content on it.

The batch processing should be at a minumum monthly for such changes of hosting.

[incrediblehelp]

Mike I am still wondering about my t-shirt...

[LazyCat]

I could easily have missed the anwer to this question -- I was out of the loop for some time:

Is the sandbox real or legend?

[mike]

incrediblehelp:
Mike I am still wondering about my t-shirt...



I asked a Googler (who wished to remain anonymous for obvious reasons) if it'd be ok for you to get a t-shirt and he said it was fine with him.


So cut loose brother and go get you one.

Personally, I like these (http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/sr=1-4/qid=1146854397/ref=sr_1_4/601-7412242-3976146?%5Fencoding=UTF8&asin=B00064YUGU) because they don't have a tag in the back and you can get 2 or 3 of em in a bag for like ten bucks.

[incrediblehelp]

Mike I hope you have good time meeting with them. Now I am off to http://www.cafepress.com/ to make my Google shirt (http://www.googlestore.com/product.asp?catid=5&code=GO13022).

[TrafficProducer]

Oh! Yes!!! Millions!!!

How can I get Millions of visitors to my sites without using PPC, Google AdWords, an burning my budget?

How about Google picking a random site, (mine please, to get a Ton of vistors. Warn the site owner first. OK you have Feeling Lucky but here I talking main page and every other page for a month.

Why can't I find single thumb screw shelf brackets (http://www.acomputerportal.com/shelf%20brackets.html) of the type I need?

....

Enjoy your day :0

[dartman]

Will G ask Msft if they will program a static window on the next version of IE for adword ads? This way G can eliminate adsense and only need to send 1 check each month to Msft. Maybe web pages can then get back to being web pages rather then billboards.

Seriously, I look forward to the G vs Msft/AOL/etc battle that may be on the horizon. Get the kevlar tshirt.