Google’s dialogue predicament

There have long been complaints that Google doesn’t dialogue enough with SEO’s.

But then when Matt Cutts, a Google engineer and Public Relations figure, opens up his blog for feedback, SEO’s worry that it’s a trap - or complain there’s not enough attention given to feedback.

Pretty sad, really.

While people may be suspicious of testing client data on the new Google datacenter, it would be naive to imagine that Google hasn’t already collected a wealth of information about the SEO landscape from search queries, manual, and via their API.

If you use ranking tools, you’ve probably already told Google who your clients are, and what exactly you’re trying to rank them for.

Do the results on the new datacenter look great for a test sample of keywords? Well, that’s great, too, but there’s no guarantee those results will go live as they are without further tweaking.

As for continued complaints about lack of dialogue - is it really that reasonable for individuals to expect a billion-dollar corporation to treat them as equals? Should Google really be trying to use an employee blog as an online reception room, where every individual commenter must be given every attention and self-indulgence?

Somehow it seems that no matter what Google do as a communications strategy, there will always be people with sticks waiting to beat them back.

Sure, Google is careful to present a carefully managed public relations strategy. It would be irresponsible for Google and its employees to let loose with careless comments that could negatively impact a company with a current market valuation of over $120 billion.

But when multinationals open communication channels, they should be encouraged, not spurned.

After all, how many companies of comparable size and strength are making a better job of communicating directly with webmasters?