Reading a
- If one attempts to email Google with questions, there's either no response or a canned reply with a link to the Google Guidelines page, which is only marginally useful, and NEVER answers the question asked in the first place.
- The Google group for webmasters is a joke. Anything even remotely controversial (like the thread I linked to above) is deleted, even if the question is legitimate. Asking for Google to clean up it's search results and index is a good question, and the deletion of a legitimate question because of the controversial nature of it is just bad business.
- I've never used the phone support, but I can't imagine a customer service phone monkey knows the answer to the hijacked proxy sites problem (if the monkey even knows what hijacked means or what a proxy site is).
- There is no centralized place to get information about Google's requirements for webmasters or a centralized place to contact Google with serious questions.
- If a webmaster has done something to anger the Google Gods, a notification is never sent out, a reason is never given, and there is no place to go to find the REAL reason for the penalty.
- Matt Cutts, aka "The Google Mouth" provides bits and pieces of information that are extremely useful, but rarely answers questions (probably because of the sheer volume of questions posted on his blog). Google has literally billions of dollars - they can afford to hire a couple more smart guys like Cutts to help the webmaster community get answers to it's questions.
What's funny is that
Google, are you listening?