Update: Adam Lasnik, Vanessa Fox and a whole host of Google webmaster help group regulars comment on this article. Adam and Vanessa skirt the “coffe cup” issue, but I still appreciate them taking the time to come by
I noticed a post by Kevin Newcomb over at Searchenginewatch about Adam Lasnik announcing that there will be more Google staff assigned to providing feed back in the Google webmaster help group.
This is great stuff, and has been the number one request of group participants since last year. I started a post there about ways to improve the groups that became quite lengthy with the amount of people responding (Google should thank it’s lucky stars to have that many people providing that much great feedback and putting it all together in one post), but the number one request over all has been to have more of a Google presence in the discussions.
Google resisted this which I did not understand. They have worked their butts off making that group into a successful one by implementing many changes that the community requested but they totally ignored the number one request, in fact, Vanessa Fox and Adam really lessened their own participation and they lost alot of the people and interest that they had worked so hard to get.
I never said this before but I stopped participating in that forum because of Googles/Adams seeming lack of interest and pushing aside of the one over riding issue that virtually everyone of their regular participants had. That issue was a stronger and more active Google presence. If they were not going to listen to their community then I didn’t really want to be part of it. I moved on. This is not a critique of Adam, who is a really nice guy, but is a critique of Google and their lack of giving back to the core people who work their butts off in that group. How hard would it be to write some paragraphs like the ones below and put them on webmaster central? Print some t-shirts and mail them. Give out a couple coffee cups. Thank your community worker bees. Argghh.
Speaking of which, here are some great people (other than the obviously wonderful “Constant Traveler” [That would be me] ) that have for a long time made the Google webmaster help group and very good place to be and an interesting place to hang out.
These people deserve mucho thanks..
JLH -
JLH is a long time active member of Google webmaster group. He has answered questions like “How long does it take my site to be indexed?” thousands of times. He has even started a very useful Google webmasters FAQ website of his own that compliments the Google group. His Blog has some great insights and has even got a mention or two from bigwigs like Matt Cutts.
Softplus -
Softplus takes the time to answer technical questions and was great source of inspiration to me when I was a crazily active member of the Google webmaster help group. Sofplus developed a great Google sitemap creator called Gsitecrawler with many many bells and whistles for someone in the know to take advantage of. It is quite impressive that he supported his sitemap creator with a Google group of it’s own where users of his software can get quick answers to their questions.
Webado -
Webado has always been a presence in the Google webmaster help group and like a champ she has really done the very respectable and simple thing of providing help to others. I think the ideal situation would be that if someone gets their question answered in this group they would then try to answer someone else question. But unfortunately that doesn’t happen. Luckily there are people like Webado to pick up the slack and provide patience and help to newcomers. Thanks Webado. Also of note, I think she gave feedthebot one of it’s first links when I first wrote that site and she also has a blog where I just learned about the newest Google group .
Robbo rocks and has steadily provided help to others since this group began.
Halfdeck
Halfdeck is also a constant force in the Google group and has a great blog that I was just writing about because of his post 21 Reasons Why Anti-Nofollow SEOs Can’t Think Straight which I loved and he too has been a great contributor both on the forum and off. I just saw your name in a thread and I thought “Doh!”
There are too many people to mention that make that group rock, and make it a very valuable place for newbies to go to find out some real answers based on experience. If any of you guys who know me as “Constant traveler” want some link love, let me know. You deserve it.
Thanks to all of you who make that place work!
Thanks, Pat.
If more Googlers join in, would you come back? We miss your input.
Thanks, man. I probably would, it wasn’t the lack of Googlers per say, it was the way Adam brushed it off which made it pretty clear that it was not going to be a priority. Which is fine, it is their group after all but it urked me like mad that they had sooo many great quality people telling them the exact same thing and their response was sorta “well, it’s cute that you think that, but we see it different.”
I am also perhaps too sensitive, who knows?
Pat, John just pointed me to your blog, and I second the notion. I hope you get more involved again, it looks like things will be picking up soon.
My biggest beef has always been that I often have to go to external, non-official sources, for quotes from Googler’s to address the common questions. Hopefully this renewed interest will provide us with many more comments to bookmark and refer people to. I know the comment you speak of by Adam, made me mad as well. I never understood why the Official Google Group wasn’t good enough for them, but other private forums were. Perhaps it’s because none of the top poster’s throw giant parties at the SEO events.
As you’ve documented in the feedthebot, the online documentation from Google is kind of thin, and needs other information to back it up. Which is what we’ve been trying to do with the FAQ blog/site. I’m just hoping that getting other voices involved will help add to our knowledge base.
I can live well without much direct involvement by Google (I know it’s going to change, sooner or later). 99.9% of all queries can be answered by anyone with a bit of experience, there does not need to be a Google-confirmation of those answers (bad answers get noticed by the regulars and get corrected anyway).
What I am kind of sad about is that sometimes “the” official comment is found on some other forum. I have no issue with personal blogs, the official blogs, etc. – but I would really appreciate it if the official comments regarding an issue are done in the official forums (google groups). All issues being discussed elsewhere are also being discussed there. It’s kind of frustrating to have several longish threads going on in the official groups only to have to post a link to some other forum where a Google employee has posted a comment that makes everything clear. I think it’s getting better though, I hope so.
I’m stubborn. I’m sticking around. Ain’t no place better. I’d hate for those fresh webmasters (or at least fresh to this search engine stuff) to get the wrong advice and mess things up even more (or worse, to give the wrong advice on to the next generation). There’s a lot of really great stuff out there, a lot of stuff that deserves to be indexed and to be found. I love helping to make that happen. I don’t mind if that includes explaining pagerank several times daily.
JLH, you are absolutely right about that. To have to go quote Adam post in webmasterworld IS RIDICULOUS!
They need to keep those types of comment on their own forum, which would help get more participants and ADD VALUE to the group. arggh
I remember this old posting from way back when the extended groups started up – http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Requests/browse_thread/thread/142a43ddbfd06a47/
I don’t mind if they are not that active in the groups, there are some really great, motivated and active people in there who know what they’re talking about and who can help everyone to learn something new every day. When I look back at most (all?) of the times when Googler interaction was low, I see that they were busy preparing some great new piece of candy for us users. With that in mind, I love it when they’re not that active
.
But … when a user has a multi-page thread going in the groups and gets a personal reply from a Googler, explaining the situation in detail, confirming a penalty and the exact cause, and even following up to make sure that it is cleaned up in the index – on some other non-Google site/blog – then I wonder if that’s perhaps sending the wrong signal. Who should be posting in the Google Groups? If you want to get a direct contact, should you post there or elsewhere?
I might know where to look for other “official” (not so much official, but the 1-2 sentences about a topic that just make everything so clear) comments, but the average webmaster doesn’t.
That’s why I’m so excited to hear about new Googler’s joining in. I hope we can keep them out of all those other places
.
John, great point about “when Googlers arent active, they are usually making new toys”. I agree with you, that did seem to be true. However, they are building a brand, and any consistency they exhibit in the future will strengthen that brand similar to the way the inconsistencies of the past may have hurt it.
I would absolutely love to supercharge our involvement in the groups. The posters over there are fantastic. They ask great questions, have valuable input, and really help each other out. I know it seems like I’ve lessened my involvement, and I’m really sorry it seems that way. In truth, I absolutely agree that there’s lots more we can do there and have been spending time working on getting that going — in getting more Googlers posting, as well as working on scalable ways to investigate problems and put feedback to good use.
I’m hoping to have more time to spend over there soon as I really enjoy interacting with the community, and would love to get back to doing more of it on a one-on-one basis and not just from behind the scenes.
Pat, I see you are number 1 for “sprinked with fart jokes” but not doing so well for “sprinkled with fart jokes” (notice the “L” in sprinkled). Is that an old SEO misspelling trick?
Vanessa – thanks for commenting, when do they get coffee cups?
Looking forward to meeting you at the party.
JLH – I didn’t realize that “sprinkled” was misspelled oops, now I have to figure out how to correct it without losing all my “sprinked with fart jokes” traffic.. hmm maybe I could get some advice at the Google webmaster help forum…
Hi Pat!
Great post – the anticipation of ‘new toys’ is killing me
I second and third and fourth and fifth comments above that it would be great to have you back on the boards.
Howdy Pat, I second … doc’s call for Constant Traveler’s return to the group. The forum needs more common sense.
Hey Constant Traveler,
Thanks for the mention
I kinda relate to Vanessa in a way. I think GGWH is one of the best forums out there, and I wish I had time to contribute more often.
I think its absolutely a must for Googlers to post more often at GGWH. Then the group will gain more visibility (sites like SEL or SER will link to GGWH more often) and more contributors. Ok, so maybe the group is too big as it is, lol, but if Google’s goal is to reach out to as many webmasters as possible, then you gotta do some link baiting. And IMO nothing baits SEO bloggers better than a juicy post on GGWH written by Googlers.
(If i have no business here i am sorry but)
I admire ALL you guys it’s nice for someone like me who is only an amateur only having books to put me right,
Since i started visiting Random Chit Chat i have been on a big learning curve.
I never new so many people would be in one place and have the time and patience to spend helping me
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK you make things worthwhile
yorkieron
I hope that more Googlers do show up and stay. I used to be active but after a time, when there was next to never any official response (which allowed for far too much speculation to be taken as fact), I lost interest.
When I stopped back a few weeks ago, I was surprised and happy to see some of the original members still helping out.
Google should get more involved. I don’t think all that much of Yahoo’s sitemap interaction yet but the involvement of Yahoo staff in their forum is 2nd to none. This is an area where Google needs to follow the lead of Yahoo.
–Dori (aks DJC)
Wow, Pat, time for you to get back into the swing of things in the Group.
I’d also love to see more Googlers participate but I feel that if starts being part of the job, the fun disappears. Maybe they feel that way too.
I’m honored to be mentioned in the same breath as it were, as others who are more knowledgeable and systematic in their approach than I am. I have myself learned a ton since my first ever post where I got chastised by John (Softplus) LOL http://groups.google.com/group/google-sitemaps/tree/browse_frm/thread/c39c4170f587121d/979bc13ba69a4dd1?rnum=1&q=webado%2Bsoftplus&_done=%2Fgroup%2Fgoogle-sitemaps%2Fbrowse_frm%2Fthread%2Fc39c4170f587121d%3Ftvc%3D1%26q%3Dwebado%252Bsoftplus%26#doc_0924996cfc1761ab
Boy, was I ever wrong LOL
But you know, Google acknowledgment aside (which has happened on several occasions, it’s worth saying), I feel there’s no sweeter reward than to have a poster report back some measure of success after trying to use our help. When they also say thank you, that worked, rather than bicker over the unfairness of Google, blah, blah, it’s music to my ears … a feel-good Hallmark moment all around
Wow, thank you to all of those complimenting me and making me blush. I truly appreciate it. Take care.
I’m gonna echo what Vanessa said, and apologize for what you felt was a brush-off.
I’ve always wanted to be cautious in promises and perhaps overly manage expectations. While I’ve long anticipated greater overall Googler involvement in the Group and know such participation is valued… I also worry that it’s a bit like housing space; you buy a bigger house (get more Googlers), and it just gets more filled (in this case, with eager and curious Webmasters)
. Basically, I know that no matter how many Googlers drop by, we can never even answer a majority of questions.
So, too, do we want to strike a balance that leans towards valuing non-Googlers… both to increase trust in smart, helpful non-Googlers and to minimize the need for folks to demand hearing *everything* from the mouth/pen/keyboards of Googlers
Can we do more? Yes. And, as always here, I hope and do expect we’ll continue to move in the right direction.
Anyway, thanks for your frankness, Pat, and I hope you drop back into the group. And of course, even if you choose not to, thank you for your past contributions
coffee cups?
taps foot…
Tshirts?
taps foot…
Thanks for coming by Adam, I appreciate that alot.
New to blogging? Yeah right! Pull this leg and it plays Jingle Bells.
Vanessa and Adam commenting on the same post. Wow. It’s almost the trifecta of Googlers, if only Matt were not on vacation.
You’re going to be rolling in the money and ladies soon enough.
Hola!
What do you think about Tokio Hotel? >:)
Just saw this post, yes, I am late *G*. I was a poster when it first started, but then stopped again due to time constraints (not that anyone noticed I think except slightly less discussions about priority values in XML sitemaps). Now I am almost considering coming back
Come on in, Thomas! Don’t worry, I won’t discuss priority values (endlessly).
Adam,
Writing to tell you about our new tool for Webmasters called PublicPIM which is a website database application which can be uploaded and installed using our easy 3 Part Process.
You can see it at our OpenDB User Group site http://www.opendb.org.
Best Regards,
James M.Orr
Author of PublicPIM
I love te colours and lay out of your blog, i really want to get hold of this theme, what are you using?
wow you people on this blog amaze me you have a whole life out of understanding google. I know its important but its a bit overwhelming to us just starting to learn.
finally google is helping us.