Why Google Will Eventually Stumble

Here is a classic example of why I think Google as a company will ultimately stumble, or at least need adult management one day. Keep in mind that as a search engine, yes, they own 43.1% of the market because of basically one terrific accomplishment - the search engine.

But nearly all of their new ventures are performing marginally, at best. Gmail trails ... the recently debuted Google Finance claims only 0.3 percent ... In map services, online-based Google Maps claims third place in the market with 7.5 percent. Link and more text on that issue below.

After a month of hearing nothing from Google, I emailed them a post from Instapundit today. I also wrote that if they were smart they would understand that in order for their newer products to take hold, they needed early adopters - precisely the kind of people they are consistently ticking off due to little if any real customer service. So, after a month of nothing, imagine my surprise, they pick today, after my nth email with Glenn's post included, to respond.

Hi Dan,

Thank you for your note. Your page has been blocked from our index because it does not meet the quality standards necessary to assign accurate PageRank. We cannot comment on the individual reasons your page was removed. However, certain actions such as cloaking, writing text in such a way that it can be seen by search engines but not by users, or setting up pages/links with the sole purpose of fooling search engines may result in permanent removal from our index. Please read our Webmaster Guidelines at
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769 for more information.

Thank you for taking the time to write.

Regards,
The Google Team

That's a non-answer. I've done none of those things. I have no hidden links, couldn't create blind text if I wanted to - and previously have offered to correct anything necessary, if only I knew what it was. I don't and apparently never will, thanks to Google. And public relations like this is going to leave their new initiatives in the basement where they belong.

Yeah, I'm ticked. But besides all that, from my experience, Gmail, Google Toolbar and Maps and a few other aps actually do suck. Time to start using something new.

However, Google still lags behind in many other services, including email, where its Gmail service claims only 2.5 percent of the market.

Gmail trails e-mail king Yahoo! mail, which claims 42 percent of the market, as well as MSN Hotmail and MySpace Mail, which claim 23 percent and 19.5 percent respectively.

"Despite early adopters glowing about Gmail, it still has low numbers," said Charlene Li, analyst at Forrester Research.

Li said that Gmail's relative newness compared to the long-established Yahoo! Mail and MSN Hotmail make it hard to take command in the marketplace.

"It's hard for users to switch, especially with Gmail, where the interface is really different," she said. "Overall, Google is playing catch-up on mail."

Similarly, the recently debuted Google Finance claims only 0.3 percent of the business and finance information market, trailing a slew of competitors.

Meanwhile Yahoo! and MSN's finance services rank first and second in the market, in that order.

In map services, online-based Google Maps claims third place in the market with 7.5 percent, while the downloadable Google Earth application is in fifth place with 2 percent

Comments

[kate]

their search engine isn't as good as it used to be, imo.

[Libby]

Gmail is never going to take off. It's the pits. I only use the account for public posting. I hate the interface and worse it's been hanging up a lot lately.

[Daniel Filpatrick Wornzer]

To paraphrase Charlie Daniels:

"Google may have stumbled, but she ain't never fell, and if Jerry Yang don't bloody believe it he can ALL GO straight to Hell! We're gonna put Google back on her feet, to search enginning and then, GOD BLESS GOOGLE STOCK AGAIN"

[agent bedhead]

Yeah, but didn't your Google indexing problems really start after the last Typepad crash?