Hi Mike,

My name is Matt, and I’m the tech lead on Local Business Center. I just wanted to assure you that “steve” does not represent us here at Google. We read and appreciate your blog and your criticism, as well as that of other bloggers and commenters who post on issues related to LBC.

As you are aware, LBC has been going through growing pains, and while progress is taking longer than we would like, we are working to address the major points of frustration for business owners, because we know there are problems. Your criticism and the issues raised in the help forums help us decide which are most important to work on. So please, keep doing what you’re doing. We are listening.

Matt R, LBC Tech Lead

As a long-time participant in the blogosphere, I’ll add my two cents. Trying to leave “grassroots comments” without people knowing you’re coming from a company is not smart–companies that do it usually get caught and look worse in the long run. Plus that time is better spent making products that people feel passionately about in the first place, which is why Google avoids it.

I think I can give a little bit of an explanation (not an excuse). One of the reasons that Google does well in general is because we really believe that we’re working on important products that change the world. When you’re that passionate and you’re working hard, it’s easy to take constructive criticism as bias or “Google-hating.” I think that’s probably what is happening in this case; you saw someone responding out of passion, when if they had stopped to think about it, they might not have commented, or they would have made it clear where they were commenting from.

Personally, I’m torn about whether someone commenting from a company needs to declare “I work for company X” every single time. I get plenty of people talking to me on Twitter or FriendFeed where I know they work for Microsoft, and it would get really awkward if they had to mention that every time. But in this case, it would have been better to say “I work at Google” or possibly to sleep on it before making that comment. At any rate, I appreciate all the feedback and suggestions you’ve given Mike, and I know the Local/Maps team does listen to that feedback and appreciate it.

I would nitpick about one part of this post though. 🙂 The websearch group only has a finite number of resources; we only have X people to support Y million webmasters that want to communicate. But even then, we don’t just try to “keep a lid” on problems by only answering the complaints that bubble up to the top of search results. We try to look all over the web, plus conferences, plus web chats, plus my and other blogs, to get and respond to feedback. The call for feedback that I did a couple days ago is a good example, because anyone can respond to that to make a case. Can we still do better? No doubt, and I’m happy to hear suggestions on ways to communicate or get feedback in a better way than we do today.

Thanks for listening. 🙂

Mike,
It is obvious to any regular reader of your blog that you are not a ‘Google-hater’. In my experience, no one specializing in Local Search hates Google; on the contrary, everyone is earnestly pulling for Google to ‘get it right’ and you are in the lead of the effort to bring attention to what needs to be fixed to create a fair and ethical local business environment on the web.

I’m very glad that both Matt R. and Matt C. stopped by to let you know that Google Steve’s comments do NOT represent corporate culture at Google nor Google’s attitude toward your blog. I take it from Matt C’s comment that Steve was flying under his own flag, though doing so from his work computer. I’m prepared to accept that this can happen. After all, I do leave comments places that have nothing to do with my company and that don’t necessarily represent the official policy of Solas Web Design. But, I don’t find criticisms of my business and then defend my business while not revealing that I work for my business. That does seem like intentional deception – I agree with you.

I imagine Steve isn’t having a great day today. Maybe he’s a new guy and so loves the company he works for, he did this out of loyalty to them, not understanding how it might reflect on Google. I trust he’ll get the hang of things after this.

At the end of the day, it sounds like both Google and all of us vote for Mike Blumenthal to continue the peerless job he is doing of tracking the progress of Local Search. We couldn’t do without you, Mike.

Miriam

Hi:

I am glad that a number of Googlers showed up to support Mike B’s efforts.

But guys, GLBC isn’t easy to use, not for the average florist/small business. Further, as Mike as written about you can’t even count on your listing “sticking” even if you claim it.

1800Flowers.com has thousands of florists in its BloomNet membership. Ask them what it takes to service clients, well it takes people and I always find Google reluctant to add personnel when things get labor intensive. Local business really need some hand holding.

Maybe Google should charge a small fee to verify a listing. It would be money well spent for most businesses.

Regards,
Jordan Glogau
Enterprise Search
1800flowers.com

@Ahmed

I must say that this sort of recognition, I could live without. 🙂

Mike

Mike: Per your comments I read through this thread, the comments, the earlier thread that generated this thread, and Greg’s thread and comments at Screenwerk. Fascinating commentary. Its still a relatively small world of interested commentators. As Ahmed stated, being astroturfed puts you in the big leagues. Congrats. In the process you managed to “out” someone who abused their “google insider” status. In so doing other Google employees responded with earnestness. Very appreciated.

A couple of thoughts hit me. At Screenwerk, Chris Silver Smith focused on the problems associated with data collection. That is a topic about which he knows a lot. Its an enormous difficult problem. I know that first hand. For years I worked as retail real estate leasing agent for a major firm in a major market. The thing that got me started was in depth strip mapping of every major retail corridor in my territory with every store, retailer,property owner etc. over many corridors. It was a monumental task. It was also incredibly invaluable. Yet that was a micro micro micro effort compared to what Google and the other engines have tried to do.

Take it a step further and Yipit has made an effort to create detailed information on one category in Manhatten. A bigger effort than mine. It appears they have better info than the engines. I’m sure they put more time, money and effort into it….and expect…and hopefully generate revenues from the effort.

Then there is the service issue, addressed by so many, yourself included.

Whether paid (as Will has suggested) or not….I simply don’t undertand why it is lacking. Google is the de facto source of information. Its market share increases all the time. The mistakes create ever bigger problems for a greater number of businesses. I personally strove to assist a business whose customers regularly suffered from misinformation that Google failed to address for months after months after months. The business suffered the potential customers suffered. Google received regular requests from this business. Nothing was done. How pitiful. Multiply that by thousands.

At Greg’s post, Tim suggested that Maps is a tiny aspect of Google that might not merit the time and investment. Of interest, Steve Espinoza’s research commentary at his newsy blog on local suggests that searchers hit organic results before 10-pac results by a significant amount.

Outside of Google we still don’t know. How much activity does Maps get and how much does the 10-pac showing in organic results get. Despite the volume and problems maybe it still isn’t that great.

Anyways this has been a fascinating set of comments.

:D…….Assuming Google doesn’t implement a reasonable customer service methodology anytime soon…..you will have a lot of rich topics for a long time to come…….:D…….

In any case, that scathing attack on you should have toughened your skin….which is quite helpful during this brutal cold weather period. Happy x-country skiing. Stay warm.

😉

Dang back at ya, Mike.

Glad to be commenting.