15 features and improvements Pandia wants
from Google this Xmas.
Dear Santa Brin,
We have been a good boy and a good girl this year.
We have brushed our teeth three times daily, we have
taken our Omega 3 supplements, we have written loooong
articles about Google, linked repeatedly to the Google
Search Blog and used your search engine daily.
So we sincerely hope you will bring us some great
gifts this Xmas.
We know that even you do not have the power get us
a Playstation 3, and we already have all the iPods
we need, which is why we humbly send you the following
wish list for Christmas:
1. Consistent navigation
We get your idea of presenting a complete online
service package including search facilities, mail,
a calendar a word processor etc. etc. When we log
in to our Gmail account we do get access to all of
them. Still, could you please introduce one consistent
navigation system on all of these pages?
Make it a left hand margin or expand the list of
links near the top of the screen, but do include links
to all services available, or — at least —
the ones that we have signed up for.
2. A more sensible “more…” function
Do also help those that continue to use the classic
Google home page only. We understand your wish to
keep the user interface as simple as possible, but
you have made it too complicated to access important
services like the Directory and Blog Search. Could
you please include all important search facilities
in the “more” pop up menu? Yahoo! does!
Nowadays when we do a regular search we can’t
transfer that search to Google Blog Search. Instead
we have to find the Blog Search Home page and enter
the search query again. Come to think of it, why don’t
you just give us an old fashioned pull down menu with
all the alternatives. We are grown ups. We can handle
it!
3. Make Blogger work
Please get the new Blogger beta online blogging service
out of beta and make it work.
You are on the right track, helping non-HTML-savvy
people adjust lay out and functions, but it is still
too complicated.
We are, for instance, trying hard to help one of
our friends edit his Labels text, and we have so far
found no way of doing it. And yes, please make Blogger
more stable.
4. Get rid of spam
There’s no doubt in our mind, you are best
in class when it comes to fighting search engine spam
and irrelevant results.
Nevertheless, there is still too much junk in search
results.
We know that this is an arms race you will never
win. The spammers will probably always spend more
resources on outwitting you, than you will on beating
them.
Still, it is ironic that you are contributing more
to the proliferation of automatically generated nonsense
pages than anyone else by allowing spammers to earn
money on “scraper sites made for Google Adsense”.
Blogger is also actively used by spammers to generate
useless junk. Stop them! You are clever people. We
know you can do it!
5. Give us a better mashup
We want a genuinely easy to use Google Mashup! We
want a Google home page where we can drag and drop
RSS feeds, our Google mail box, weather forecasts,
notebooks, our online image account, and any kind
of widget we can think of.
You’d probably say that we can do this already,
using the Google personalization feature, and yes,
it goes a long way. But it is still too complicated
for our taste. We had to go to the Wikipedia to find
out how to add an RSS feed.
And we want it to look sexy in the Apple kind of
way. Yes, we know it is childish, but this is Christmas
and we want to dress up our default home page with
elegant skins!
And can you please tell us where your test search
engine Searchmash fits into this picture? Will you
ever include Searchmash capabilities into the Personalized
home page, or is it the other way around?
6. Buy a good bookmarking service
The Google Bookmarks service doesn’t
really work, does it?
Why don’t you buy one of the best bookmark
services on the planet (apart from the ones owned
by Yahoo! and Looksmart, that is) and let us include
our bookmarks in the Google Mashup? We are sure you
can find ways of using it to improve your search engine
results as well.
7. Update the PageRank bar on the Google Toolbar
more frequently
We know that the PageRank presented by the Google
Toolbar is close to useless for search engine marketing
purposes.
PageRank is after all only one of a large number
of factors influencing search engine positions, and
the number you give us is — at best —
an approximation of the real figure.
Still, it appeals to the competitive streak in us
and there are not that many indicators out there measuring
the “importance” of a page.
Hm…. Come to think of it. Why don’t you
give us an Alexa-like ranking site based on toolbar
traffic and click-throughs? Christmas is all about
sharing, and we would love to get access to some of
that data!
8. Give us real numbers
You know, we talked about that competitive streak
in us?
We would really like to know how many sites are linking
to us, but your link command (link:www.pandia.com)
is totally unreliable. We know, because Yahoo! sometimes
reports 1000 times more links than you do, and we
doubt that’s due to a larger database.
It is all right with us if you don’t want to
show us all the back-links, but do display the correct
number.
9. Add the NEAR operator
We love the fact that you support advanced Boolean
operators, even if only a small percentage of your
searchers make use of it. (It is an important and
influential user group, though,)
Could you please add the NEAR operator? AOL claims
that it has it, but it doesn’t seem to work
properly anymore.
10. Spend millions on click fraud research
We are not saying this as Adwords advertisers, as
we do not spend much on text ads anyway. However,
your income is based on text ads, and the legitimacy
of that revenue model is based advertisers trusting
your ability to stop fraudsters in this area. Please
do not let click fraud undermine your ability to deliver
a good search engine.
11. Give us a well functioning Gdrive
We are very grateful for your generous Gmail accounts,
which are well suited to storage hungry power users
like ourselves.
For Christmas this year we want a Platypus Gdrive,
an area on your servers where we can store any kind
of file from any computer in the whole world. Heck,
we are even willing to pay for it (but do not quote
us on that).
12. Make Writely stable
We are actually writing this article in Google Docs,
or Writely as it was called before. We use it because
we can cut and paste the HTML code directly into our
Wordpress blog software, links and all. (If you have
ever tried to do that using Word, you know what a
relief this is).
However, we have lost text using Google Docs, at
least when using our Macs, and we would rather not
see that happen again.
(Hm. It seems you have changed the way Google Docs
generates code. This time there was much more work
cleaning up the HTML).
13. Continue to help webmasters
Thank you for one of this year’s most
welcome presents, Google Webmaster Central!
We are glad you put so much effort into helping webmasters
as well as search engine marketers, and we appreciate
the fact that you try to communicate clearly what
you consider unhelpful behavior search engine optimization
wise.
Still, there remains some work to be done as regards
transparency in this area, especially as regards the
underlying logic about what is kosher (white hat)
and what is not. Some clearer re-inclusion procedures
for repenting sinners may also be helpful.
14. Get out of China
We know we are talking about 1 billion potential
customers here and that you desperately need to establish
your brand in largest market in the world. Still,
it makes no sense for the “Do No Evil”
company Google to give in to the Chinese dictatorship,
censoring search results for them.
The free flow of information will ultimately undermine
the present regime. Stand up to the Chinese authorities
or get out!
15. Continue working on Google Books
Your book search may be the beginning of something
wonderful — the ability to search the text of
most books available in one place.
The fact that some people don’t get it should
not stop you from continue working in this area.
However, maybe you should communicate more clearly
that you respect the intellectual property rights
of the authors, and that you will not give searchers
access to the whole text unless the copyright owners
agree to this or they are compensated financially.
You see, the fact that you — for instance —
published photos in Google News Norway without the
permission of the owners does not generate trust.
On the other hand, we and all other sensible webmasters
will support you in you fight for the right to quote
from, and link to, news site articles.
16. A Google Travel Mug
And finally, we’d love a Google Travel
Mug. It looks great, doesn’t it?
Happy Christmas, Santa! Say hello to all the elves
and reindeer at the Googleplex for us!
Per and Susanne
Pandia
