The Trouble with Google

Most web surfers will testify to the effectiveness of Google at finding what they're looking for, most webmaster will swear by the engine's ability to bring them an ever new stream of customers and curious visitors, but as Google heads towards an inevitable IPO, there should be greater concerns about the company and it's form of business.

To begin with Google isn't a friendly company. Despite the colorful logo, simple design and office space that resembles something from the height of the dot com days, the company has relied on the hype generated by it's search technology, rather than develop a coherent communications or PR department. This has also resulted in an almost non-existent customer service department.

Why should Google need to worry about these things? Well for a start there are many challengers to the search throne, such as Yahoo! and MSN, both of whom are spending vast amounts on perfecting their search technologies. This means that Google is unlikely to retain it's lead through technology alone, instead the company is going to have to capitalise on it's existing position and develop a good business strategy.

One area the company falls flat on it's face with is in licensing. There isn’t a technology used today that Google hasn’t developed itself. "Great!" you may think, innovation always pays off. Unfortunately it doesn’t. R&D is always an expensive business.

Google has formed almost no partnerships whereby it uses another companies technology, instead it relies on its Google Labs feature to provide for all it's needs, even if it means copying existing technology, as was the case with its desktop toolbar, a version of which was released by TerraLycos for Hotbot weeks earlier.

Google forays into the realm of enterprise search, in the form of the Google Search Appliance has already shown that far from being untouchable, the company is rather naive in areas beyond it's home territories, with it's search device being described as lacking features and power, when compared to the likes of Verity K2 search.

Whether Google can change enough to turn itself into a real company, rather than one that's just riding high on the wave of search technology remains to be seen.

Author: Amy Chen
Search Journal