Google Let Me Down
PART ONE
I have to say that my expectations for Google are extremely high. They get higher all the time. Further, my technical expectations are through the roof. I’m saying that I expect flawless execution, even with beta products.
Am I being fair? Probably not. But folks, isn’t Google supposed to be wonderful? I believe that other people hold Google to higher standards. Here’s some evidence:
Google shareholders praise management
How do I love Google? Let me count the ways
Google Is God
PART TWO
With all of this said, I was very disappointed to find a simple usability bug with a non-beta (!) Google Service; Google Personalized Homepage. The “bug” translates to an actual end user failure. Here it is:
http://www.google.com/ig yummy…
vs.
http://www.google.com/IG failure!
I’m probably being harsh but given that these guys are technically brilliant, this is a let down. The argument might be that “http://www.google.com/ig” is a shortcut to some other long and nasty URL. I’d buy that as an excuse. Unfortunately “http://www.google.com/ig” is the root URL.
PART THREE
I think that what I’ve found is interesting. Maybe very interesting to some Google voyeurs or insiders. You never know, right?
Here’s a set of questions: How long will it take for someone from Google to find this posting, review the merit of making the technical change (should be drop dead easy), and then make the change? Further, will they post a comment here saying why it was broken and how it was fixed? Will they decide to even fix it? Will they fix it but do it in stealth mode?
I realize that my posting here translates to a small, tiny, insignificant request for Google. That’s exactly why I’m bringing it up. I’m a speck, but do I still matter to Google? Will they validate my existance and my feedback?
We’ll see. The clock’s ticking.
p.s. Terrible error handling: “The requested URL /IG was not found on this server.” Sheesh.
June 23rd, 2006 at 9:05 pm
Google is so large a company it is not surprising some bugs sneak through various development phases. That’d be the reason it shouldn’t happen, too, as you have noted.
I have noticed some deadlinks at Google as well. Not to mention they don’t have usable 404 pages.
It’d be, indeed, interesting when they fix this since Matt is on vacation (last I heard).
June 24th, 2006 at 4:10 am
Well, I doubt that Matt Cutts will have much impact on this - really not his area. Matt is, ultimately, just one of thousands of Google engineers - the others have responsibilities, too!
I’d have to say that Google has a LOT of problems with usable error messages and lack of obvious redirects - for example, google.com/sitemaps/ does NOT go to Google Sitemaps. Nor does google.com/adwords/ go to Google Adwords - but google.com/analytics/ works, and so does google.com/adsense/. Just a general lack of consistency - even if these services aren’t actually housed at the obvious location, you should be able to get there that way.
June 24th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
Given Google’s level of traffic it’d make sense for them to allow for variations in spelling and case, but you’re perhaps being a little harsh.
(What’s going on with Google? They seem to be building up a loose collection of independently-developed beta services, with little or no strategy, integration and cross-promotion. I don’t get it.)
June 29th, 2006 at 9:19 am
Here is another one… Google just release checkout. But finding it is almost impossible to find.
Typing http://www.google.com/checkout return an error, nor can you find it on their list of products.
I had eventually found that it was located at http://checkout.google.com (obvious ones you know it)
July 4th, 2006 at 12:53 pm
Further to Joe & Thomas’ comments, when I’m looking for the AdSense homepage I generally do a search for ‘google adsense’ through Google, how terrible is that?!
July 20th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
[…] WebWord » Blog Archive » Google Let Me Down Scum Sells Cheat Sheets » … google.com/adwords/ go to Google Adwords - but google.com/analytics/ works, and so does google.com/adsense http://www.webword.com/wp/2006/06/23/google-let-me-down/ […]
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