The controversial Google “Tips,” where Google promoted certain of their own products over organic search results, have been quietly pulled down.
Until recently, Google searches for Calendar, Blogging, Photo Sharing and others returned “tips” above normal search results suggesting users try Google Calendar, Blogger and Picasa, respectively. Firefox co-founder Blake Ross criticized the change in a widely read blog post, and the rest of, the world generally piled on. Even Google’s Matt Cutts had said he’d turn them off if he could.
There’s been no official announcement on this by Google, so the removal could be temporary. My guess is they are gone for a while, though, based on the overwhelmingly negative feedback from bloggers.
Even if it is not temporary, were you really expecting an announcement by Google?
“Firefox co-founder Blake Ross criticized the change in a widely read blog post, and the rest of, the world generally piled on.” I wonder his problems, isn’t Firefox is getting a ton load of money via Google Search One Box results. Isn’t every search engines does that?
Suprising IMO. Sooner or later Google will have to sort of play deaf to the blogosphere. If they keep giving in, hey I have a few dozen complaints too.
-Zaid
I never thought this was a big deal. What’s wrong with Google promoting their own products on their own site? If you have a problem with it, ok, fine – go have fun trying to get useful search results from Yahoo or MSN.
Google is getting smart about not promoting their own projects. We don’t want to hear someone’s self praises, we just want to search. Google is doing a good job of pulling some services. A while back they also took down Google questions where you paid someone to answer your question. I guess this is leading toward Google as a non-fault company. Well not really but it would be nice.
Man bloggers are whiney! OMG, google showed a tip! Get a life.
I’m not sure I understand the problem here. It’s not like google.com is a community-owned resource that Google, Inc. is exploiting. It’s their site, for crying out loud. How is it an issue for them to promote their own products when users are clearly searching for something in that category?
Also, Blake’s argument is that if Google’s products were the best in their class, they would automatically rise to the top of the search results, thus negating the need for the tips. This argument is fundamentally flawed because it assumes that if you build the best product, you’ll automatically have the largest usershare and consequently, the best search results (build it and they will come, in other words). I think we need only look at myspace to see an example of a poor product with lots of better alternatives that is blowing the competition away in terms of marketshare. Products need great design, but they also need great marketing, and that’s what tips was accomplishing.
I certainly hope that Google pulled this for some other reason, and not because they lack the courage to stand up to the blogosphere in the face of such a flimsy attack.
wow mike! i love how you think the world is only inhabited by a few hundred thousand bloggers. “and the rest of, the world generally piled on”
just because a few web 2.0 geeks think what google did was “heinous” in putting tips, which were clearly marked as such, on a website they own doesn’t mean the rest of the world is ready to look for a new search engine. so what? if i’m looking for an online calendar, and i’m using google, chances are i like google products and might, possibly, have an interest in using other google products.
besides, it’s not like they are hiding this in the organic results as if it’s the most popular calendar. give people some credit for being a little smarter next time.
I’m glad it’s been removed. I actually found them annoying and intrusive.
Maybe Google should now start advertising their search engine, and other products on PayPerPost..That should help in getting some positive feedback about their site…
And maybe that Firefox founder guy should also join PPP bloggers network..
I understand both sides though I didn’t like how it waisted space and I don’t think that I ever clicked on a tips listing.
I’m glad to see it gone I guess but it really didn’t bother me either way. Some of these people are pretty nit picky.
Google should promote their services. Why should free search apps be free from self promotion?
Doesn’t really matter. They could just as easily sponsor Google Calendar at the right when a user searches for ‘online calendar’, ‘calendar tools’, etc.
-Amit
http://www.ipatrons.com
Google always has been user friendly, and most of the people knoes about any of the new service which comes in very fast so people gets the information quickly. It shall only be an issue for those who starts new to any of the services which is provided by google, otherwise it not a big concerned.
Why shouldn’t Google be able to promote their own products? It’s their site, if you can find ONE company that has a website on which they only promote the products of competitors please post the URL here – that doesn’t make sense.
I can see them as being obtrusive, but the “Dont promote your own stuff” arguement is hogwash – how is a company surposed to turn a profit if it can only promote the products of its competition. HELLO?
Now if we could only get broadcasters to stop airing promotions for their own shows on their own networks! And magazines to stop placing in-house ads for subscriptions!
It’s official, Blake Ross actually covered this the other day, and Matt Cutts replied to his post. http://www.blak.../#comment-99800
If people are fine with Google leveraging their dominance and promoting their services then the tech community shouldn’t be angry about Microsoft promoting their applications like IE and Windows Media Player alongwith their OS??
The argument with Microsoft was that because of their OS dominance promoting their apps will kill the chance of independant app makers to compete evenly. If you notice then Google promoting their service is analogous to MS since they will kill the chance of independant service providers to compete because everytime users will first see Google’s service and will opt to use that instead of other services shown in the search result.
Dont you think this is quite monopolistic and whatever happened to ‘DONT BE EVIL’. Microsoft is the evil empire but atleast they dont shamelessly proclaim that they are not evil unlike Google
A part from promoting their own things.Google has covered many services with their competitors which also been on right on the money.
Although you noted in the article Matt Cutts agreed that the tips should come down, i think it’s also important to note that he felt the tips should come down because they’re relevancy was pretty weak — or put differently, tips were being shown when they weren’t really relevant to the original search.
I think this is a reasonable argument for getting rid of the tips — however, if they can get the relevancy right, then by all means google should recommend their calendaring solution if someone is using their search engine to find calendaring tools. We should be thankful they don’t plaster them across the top of every screen in a damn nav bar….
Totally agree with Pranab (#18).
Google search is already in a dominant position in the search market, similar to Microsoft in the desktop market.
MS bundling of IE hurts competition, but Apple bundling of safaris does not, because it’s still a weak player in the OS market.
Similarly, Google tip hurts competition, but if Ask.com promotes its own products on their site, it won’t hurt.
yes, I think Brandon is right, his comment makes sense.
#20, #22, sure. and just for the record, i said google had every right to do this, and i had no issue with it at all.
I suspect it was more about annoyed advertisers rather than a concession to the whiny bloggers.
That Ok,
cHHERS
Big Deal. You know what? YOU would promote your own products over other crappier competitors as well. Man, I saw it and i didn’t care. Bloggers really need to suck it up. I just saw post here on techcrunch over crunchgear. Is that as bad? No because they are getting the word out about one of their related products. That is exactly what google is doing. Bloggers need to suck it up.
“Tips” may be gone, but a quick search for “spreadsheet” and “calendar” resulted in links to Google services at the top of the page in a sponsored link box.
fancis – yep. see #3 above. and my original post.
I find it strange how many people here are complaining that Google gave into “bloggers” given that, as far as I can tell, the vast majority of people disagreed with my position on these tips. I spent many hours debating (and reconsidering, and reshaping) that position.
I know from working on Firefox how important it is to put feedback in perspective, and I’m confident (and happy) that Google is not the kind of company that makes rash decisions based on whoever is loudest. If the recent discussions played any role in Google’s decision to turn off the tips, I imagine it was simply to spark some debate within the company. And that’s fine by me, since that was the only purpose of the post in the first place.
Maybe Blake Ross should also listen to bloggers complaints about Firefox?
Disclaimer: I use Firefox and think it’s great but there’s some bugs that are a constant nuisance.
Does not look like they have stopped
25 searches result Google as a result on first page. Often either sponsored or conveniently ranked. 50 ads where found all together in this short search. 20 ads(40%) of which where sponsored results.
View ad screenshots. http://img113.i...ogle2007cm3.gif
Search Terms used.
Books, patent search, Video, News, Maps, Email, Calendar, Calendars, Spreadsheets,
Spreadsheet, On-line payments, Online payments, Payments, Desktop, Earth, Finance,
Business News, Mobile, Blog, Globe, Online Shop, Online Shopping, Web, Web Accelerator,
Sketch
few days ago my the java runtime environment asked for update and during update the window saying “download google toolbar” and “download google desktop” was there, toolbar one was already checked but the desktop was not.
obviously google agreed with sun, but just a moment, what if microsoft does the same with windows for their live services? then google will get fckd:)
i think google should step back from this agressive strategy.
A handful of bloggers moan means “the world generally piled on”. Come on, get a grip on reality.
HAHA…Google got Pwn’d!! Listen to the users cause we are your master!
@RyanW:
“I think we need only look at myspace to see an example of a poor product with lots of better alternatives that is blowing the competition away in terms of marketshare.”
I think you need a different definition of “better”. If it is “blowing away the competition”, then it _is_ better. Maybe, in theory, the site could be prettier or easier to use, and in some way be better still, but if it is used more, then those are simply more people “voting” for it as their choice for the better alternative.
Credit Google with the foresight to realize how quickly company goodwill can dissipate as the 800 lb gorilla of the internet. Microsoft
only paid attention to its stock price with an attitude towards their customers that said try to do without us, where you gonna go?
Microsoft first bought up any company they felt, hey, maybe this is the Windows Killer , secondly loaded up their software with all sorts
of gizmos, IE browser capability, unrelated to their core product and what was eventually determined to be anti-trust.
Google has great instincts common sense to realize why antagonize
the web. our customers, clients?? a good business practices concept tMicrosoft is absolutely incapable of comprehending. Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees.
@7136398
i think ryanw was right in what he said, you’re just not comprehending it. take this example:
internet explorer is dominant in MARKET SHARE compared to firefox.
according to most of the blog-o-web, firefox is by far the superior browser.
by your logic everyone who claims firefox is better is wrong because more people use internet explorer, so i.e. must be better.
yet, i.e. is not BETTER, they just have a more widely known name – hence dominant market share.
more people using, voting for or whatever does not make a thing – be it website, software or person – better. ownership of the market and product quality don’t have to go hand-in-hand.
in addition its interesting to look at how google promotes its services in its own web results – this is surely more ‘evil’ than tips. e.g. im sure google spreadsheets its not the most relevant thing for this search even though its in the first 2 results twice: http://www.goog...amp;btnG=Search
I personally agree with people who see no evil here. It IS their site and they’d be fullish not to promote their services there, either as sponsored or organic results. No harm done. What I find amusing is if you search MSN for “spreadsheets”, Google Spearsheets links come up above the rest
Is MS so fair that they don’t promote Office on their own search engine? 