Plenty of people burnt by G's often parasitic and monopolistic forms of monetisation. E.g: placing "search this site" in SERPs for brand queries (actually performing yet another Google search + Ad's) to get more adwords ad's in front of users. Forcing brands to bid on their own names in search results by not protecting trademark claims in any cohesive way.
Suffocating industries with verticals, with poor /no support and then moating, (Think local search and Yelp/online Yellow Pages").
The Binghoo vs. Google pissing contest, (They both look like bullies).
Hijacking loans, mortgages, credit cards, new cars, (and other 'big ticket' items) with aggregated results yet cracking down on aggregators algorithmically in core organic claiming it's not good for the user, (Double standards).
G +... fake numbers they are throwing around when they've clearly strong armed users and 'advertisers' such as the Google Places migration.
Google reader...
Lots more, but generally it's the "Do no evil" BS. Where folks feel hoodwinked into believing G was anything more than a money making machine, even at the cost of their own integrity.
I blame Mayer for the mess in search and Schmidt for the borg like focus on $$$ and social, at any cost.
That would be the ultimate testament, maybe the only stunt they could pull to PR themselves out of this mess.. if www.amazon.com ran on the same set of EC2 servers and systems as us muggles
"Google Is Tops for Software Engineer Salaries" - I'd hope so, compared to traditional corporations like GM for instance; they have similar operating income BUT, Google have roughly a quarter less employees.
They need to be paying high salaries to attract top talent, as an incumbent operator, but their contribution to the larger economic picture is less than impressive, (Unless tax avoidance impresses you).
Hi mooism2,
(a) We paid the company $5625.00 in March 2011. They have not delivered us a single bit of data as agreed. We are now over a year down the road and seeking a refund, but have been told they wish to complete the project they overshot by almost a year, (More stalling for time).
The company refuse, outright to issue a refund.
(b) By linking to their site and in turn backlinking to this post, we hope to be able to get visibility for their company name, "Fornova" in Google SERPs and warn other companies and startups of their business ethics. Specifically we intend, over time to oust both the company and it's management. Amir Freund, Dori Stein and Michael Rubanovich.
Mannicken, your 20... Pain is what you'll experience as a result of life and through it you get growth. I'd suggest perhaps some volunteer work with those in a worse situation than yourself, such as the homeless, it's a great way to get perspective and help others, (Rather than thinking about yourself and what's only a temporary situation). Time and good judgement will fix things for you. But in a culture of instant gratification, it may not be in your time.
We, (http://www.explore.to) recently were penalized by Google for having thin content. That is, we have business profiles that are yet to be claimed and enriched by business owners, (As do lots of Google Places listings, (That appear above the fold)). Yet, thin content via Google's own properties is fine? http://www.google.com/search?q=Mark+Zuckerberg&pws=0&...
Zuckerbergs profile is adding nothing to the Google users experience, except for visibility of G+.
In the case of LinkedIn vs. plus.google.com using Open Site Explorer, (Best source I have) this has double the amount of linking root domains, a well aged domain and a crawlable structure.
Opening this up to rigor by peer sharing. Where are the signals that all other sites are subject to? Where is the crawlable structure, or the inbound links?