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ArgMeMatey
join:2001-08-09
Milwaukee, WI

1 recommendation

ArgMeMatey

Member

Unsophisticated exception handling

They may be very good at searching and ranking, but their exception handling subroutines seem unsophisticated.

I've had multiple edits to Google Maps automatically rejected, even when I post comments and appeals citing photographic evidence that the current maps are wrong.

I mention this because Google may be more likely hire a hundred programmers to write code to handle exceptions, than to hire one person to actually handle exceptions.

justin
..needs sleep
Mod
join:1999-05-28
2031
Billion BiPAC 7800N
Apple AirPort Extreme (2011)

1 recommendation

justin

Mod

unsophisticated seems correct
how hard would it have been to oblige a sentient being to scan shutdowns over a non trivial size to make sure. Just split off the daily stream of fu notices for sites that have a long history (10 years) without violations.
scross
join:2002-09-13
USA

1 recommendation

scross to ArgMeMatey

Member

to ArgMeMatey
I use Google constantly, but if you actually pay attention to what you get back you'll often find that their search results aren't that hot either. Plus, lately they've gotten much more selective about what they will return to you at all, basically biasing things in their favor from an ad revenue perspective. I doubt this is really anything new on their part, but I certainly have been noticing it more lately.

I actually discussed this matter in some depth a while back on another forum with what turned out to be a Google insider - only I didn't know that at the time, and only found out about it shortly before he deleted the the posts where he stated that he worked there. The responses that I got back from him were nothing short of execrable - shockingly arrogant; claiming that I had no clue how to do a Google search (even though I've been using Google basically ever since the day it went live - well before most anyone else had ever heard of it and long before he ever went to work there - and I was complaining about "advanced" features that just don't work, among other things); and ended by insulting my intelligence and claiming that Google (being a "search, the whole search, and nothing but the search" company) knew more about what search results I wanted than I did. (!!!)

I countered that the day Google placed its first paid ad was the day it became an ad company instead of a search company, and that he needed to come to grips with this reality if he planned to continue working there. This of course made him absolutely furious (which was the intended effect), and after a few spits and snorts he dropped out of the conversation - but not before claiming the Google does absolutely no search biasing, which was clearly a lie because it's quite obvious that they do this and any number of people have noted it and commented on it. I guess my complaints caught his attention, though, because I notice these days that at least some of the breakage that I was complaining about has been fixed.

justin
..needs sleep
Mod
join:1999-05-28
2031
Billion BiPAC 7800N
Apple AirPort Extreme (2011)

4 recommendations

justin

Mod

I don't have a problem with google being an advertising company, and I don't even care if they are no longer even handed when it comes to their own properties, or if they buy companies that, from their position of superior knowledge, they know are under-valued in advance of their competition.

But I do think some of their employees have to be assigned to take calls from their customers, as distasteful and grubby as that seems to them. They are still an organisation of nerds at heart and nerds hate phones, but it is a risky strategy to hide behind algorithms.

skeechan
Ai Otsukaholic
Premium Member
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170

skeechan

Premium Member

They probably do this to a gazillion people, every single day. It would take more reps than any building in India could ever hold.

justin
..needs sleep
Mod
join:1999-05-28
2031
Billion BiPAC 7800N
Apple AirPort Extreme (2011)

1 recommendation

justin

Mod

said by skeechan:

They probably do this to a gazillion people, every single day. It would take more reps than any building in India could ever hold.

Although they do, I'm sure that only a very small percentage are accounts over a reasonable revenue size.

Google is large, but cutting off sites with no human check that generate more revenue for them than their expenses to have a full time american engineer? it seems a little odd.

skeechan
Ai Otsukaholic
Premium Member
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170

skeechan

Premium Member

It may generate revenue but not as much revenue from other investments (where that money could otherwise be spent). Alternatively, they stop spending and they still get the revenue. You are not going to drop Ad Sense...you are going to deal with it as best you can. That is incentive for Google to continue flipping you the bot-bird.

justin
..needs sleep
Mod
join:1999-05-28
2031
Billion BiPAC 7800N
Apple AirPort Extreme (2011)

justin

Mod

it isn't much $ in the scheme of things, especially if they re-instate.

However the lost revenue on their end from even 4 days disabled (because they cream off 50% of the ad receipts) would pay for hours of some high level engineer to double-check the bots. And I'm asking for 3 minutes of human time, not hours.

It doesn't make sense mathematically, unless of course they DO check these compliance decisions and have such draconian rules now that they won't even deal with an adsense publisher site that contains the URL of torrent sites on a secret list, even if it was listed innocently, and even if it doesn't "drive traffic" or whatever their wording is.

However they just won yet another court case where they were sued for indexing and offering defamatory material in auto-complete and search. Their defence was the normal "safe harbor we are not a publisher" argument. Which is great. But not one they apparently believe in when it comes to entities other than themselves?

So which is it.
Either they don't mind bots making mistakes, ones that could be headed off before they cost $s, with the smallest amount of human input. OR, they actually they require all publishers to moderate all content in case something illegal gets by, but take refuge in safe harbor when they index something illegal.

Which is it? Neither is very flattering to google. I'd like to believe the first, that it is just a screwed up adsense program they'll sort out eventually. I guess I'll find out.

skeechan
Ai Otsukaholic
Premium Member
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170

skeechan

Premium Member

My point is...they don't have to help you and you will remain a loyal customer. Meanwhile it wouldn't pay for a call center otherwise they would be doing it. Evidently it is cheaper for them to have false positives than to defend themselves from copyright lawsuits.

justin
..needs sleep
Mod
join:1999-05-28
2031

justin

Mod

I guess until they have meaningful competition they can run things that way, yes.

skeechan
Ai Otsukaholic
Premium Member
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170

1 recommendation

skeechan

Premium Member

They will never have meaningful competition so long as their customers tolerate their behavior.

djrobx
Premium Member
join:2000-05-31
Reno, NV

djrobx to justin

Premium Member

to justin
We had the same problem with Google ads ages (maybe 5 years) ago. In our case they couldn't even tell us how we allegedly infringed, just that we were terminated due to violation of the terms and conditions, and that there was no recourse. Gee, thanks.

I love Google's innovation spirit, but ever since then I've learned not to trust them with anything business critical.

JohnCC
join:2005-12-19
none

JohnCC to justin

Member

to justin
I run a pretty large free forum host and Google has been hammering me lately with violations that don't make any sense. It used to be when I received any type of violation, there was an issue ID number and I could issue a personal reply. Not anymore. Granted, they aren't outright disabling the URLs and they're giving me a chance to deal with it, but I haven't always been given that opportunity either.

Now they've built this whole policy violations center. And as of a few days ago, they added a feature to "mark issues as resolved" after you've been given a warning. They've removed personal contact entirely it seems and want to automate this even more than it was before. Very scary times to be an AdSense publisher.

justin
..needs sleep
Mod
join:1999-05-28
2031
Billion BiPAC 7800N
Apple AirPort Extreme (2011)

justin

Mod

you want to watch out, that's what I thought as well, attend to the warning (even if it makes no sense) and things will be good. For example a month ago I had to remove a post that contained just a list of all the alt. newsgroups that someones ISP had removed. It was posted in 2008.

There was nothing wrong with the post, it was informative, etc, however clearly it is now forbidden to even mention some of the more tasteless alt. groups, and/or the quantity of newsgroup mentions on one page tripped up the AI, so rather than waiting and trying to raise someone at google I just deleted it.

Then a month later they send this other warning simultaneously with disabling ad serving to the entire domain.

I went through the entire membership list here to see if any DSLR members have an @google.com email address, every single email address now bounces.

My old adsense rep from years ago now promotes google+ so I had him in a circle. I shot him a direct google plus message. Maybe that did the trick, maybe not, because he has not as yet replied.