More evidence that Google's core business is hurting
This seems to be a new trend: bad news for Google. Not only are their newest in-house products receiving very mixed reviews, but they seem to keep having problems with keeping their search results pure and relevant. (See an earlier post of mine for more examples.) The latest blow comes some guy who got Google to index 7 BILLION pages using some dirty tricks, polluting Google's index and causing a PR nightmare.
What I find most interesting about this fiasco, however, is that Google apparently found it necessary to LIE about it. They didn't say "oops, he got us, but we fixed the problem and nobody will be able to do it again." Instead, they basically said that it was a reporting error, and we didn't REALLY index 7 billion pages, it just looked like it. Haha, joke's on us, now go away please, and pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. However, the page's Alexa ratings don't lie: they shot thru the roof once those pages were indexed, and then once the pages were taken out (manually, apparently, by Google), they plummeted again. This is a pretty good indication that Google was lying through its collective teeth, because a reporting error doesn't generate massive amounts of traffic like that.
Why did Google feel the need to lie about this incident? I think it's because, as I postulated earlier, they have so many people gunning to break their algorithms that they just can't keep up. People are figuring out how to "hack" Google's engine, in a sense, and it's diluting the relevancy of Google's results. Oh, I'm sure they'll patch the holes, but after a time won't it turn into the little Dutch boy with his finger in a dam? (Does this remind anyone 
else of the problems Microsoft had with Viruses a few years ago?) My guess is that they're having a hard time keeping up with these people. BUT, they can't tell anybody, because if they did their stock would plummet since, after all, search is still their core business. Looks like they have themselves in a bit of a bind now.
Oh, by the way, CNN Money is now recommending to avoid Google as a long-term investment. The beginning of the end?
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