COMMENTS
You sound personally attacked and emotionally hurt by Google today. I hope you are able to recover but I wouldn't take it so dramatically. It's tech. Tech breaks. I'll bet even YOUR tech can/will/will again break.
Google has a level of service and uptime that dwarfs that of most anyone I can think of. No consider that all those services are offered for free (except for your published ads of course) and it simply can't be compared. Now my stuff has worked all day so perhaps I am simply being callus but I think we'll all live. Having said that, being more open is always nice but "Google crashes the internet"? Common...
I don't think I feel "attacked" but I do feel let down by Google. My experience is that their software is less reliable than Salesforce.com or HubSpot. I just think it is important that if marketing professionals rely on free Google software, they should remember that it can go down, and when it does the cost can be pretty big.
Ahh, so it's part warning against free alternatives. Gotcha. Good news is that according to @google only 14% of "customers" (does free make you a customer?) were effected and that it was only for about an hour. More good news is there were able to try and redirect via Asia when there was a problem. Bad news is, most online offerings would have been totally down during a similar problem as Google has well over 30 data centers (around 20 in the US) that while you might, most providers don't come close to that level of redundancy.
HubSpot seems like a great product but all tech breaks at some point. Be it free or paid.
I must agree with JohnnyHavens. For a free service Google services are very reliable. Coming to think about it when was the last time there was an outage of this scale?
Yes companies should remember that these services can go down, but they should not forget how much they saved by using Google services how much sales they have generated via these services, and what the free analytics and seo services are worth to them. In my opinion these three values would dwarf the potential cost of services going down for 1/2 a day.
I'm a major fan of Google, having used both their paid and free products for many years. And, I totally agree that on average, Google has uptime that is much better than most other web applications -- even paid ones.
However, I support Mike's point around transparency and communication. All technology fails at some point -- but simply communicating quickly and directly with those potentially impacted helps a lot.
Google should just be better at communicating because even their free services are depended on by millions of people.
Johnny Cakes makes some good points, but I do believe Google ought to try much harder in the communications department. "only" 14% of customers IS a big number to let down, particularly when you have a near-monopoly share in some of the key services.
How long are they going to hide behind the "it's free, so learn to accept beta-y quality" answer?
You make very good points about being frustrated. I know I was.
But I also am curious what lesson they did learn from it and how it was started...
Also everyone was flocking to twitter, but they were more rants than real updates...
As far as
notification of such events is concerned, <a>http://www.google.com/appsstatus provides this info.
Dev, thanks for the link to the Google App status. I hadn't been aware they offered this kind of information. However, the information they show regarding their performance doesn't square with what we experienced with their main search site today. Transparency matters.
This explains alot. I use Google Analytics and Webtrends on my site. Data that was normally tracked by Webtrends was suddenly unreportable in April - mainly entry and exit pages. My web team could not give a reason why. Maybe the Google Analytics Code is the culprit.
That Google App status is a step in the right direction. Thanks for posting. I think they need more detail, like Salesforce.com has. And it really should include Google Analytics performance. It is used by a lot of websites and their issues today made other websites very slow or unusable.
Geoff, Indeed, transparency matters. The app status page can be much more robust and should allow the ability to drill down specifics(let alone more info). Hopefully its a lesson learned on their end. Lets see.
Wow. Just goes to show what can happen when you put all your eggs in one basket. I personally love the Google tools but this could be a wake up call to use diversity in the what/who you rely.
I noticed today in Webmaster Tools they are changing some things - perhaps combining analytics / webmaster tool features is what caused the problem.
P.S. I'm a newbie to HubSpot and love all the info you provide!
I'm sorry, but I have not seen any problems with Google as of yet.
I really like all Google, Hubspot and Salesforce products, but I have to point out that Friday, May 1st, my understanding is that Hubspot was totally down all day, and I never heard anything from Hubspot. I was working Saturday May 9th and the keyword tool was not working all day, and then another time last week. In these cases I had to use Google Adwords. Our hubspot blog was down for about an hour this Tuesday, and no word from Hubspot.
I've worked with Salesforce and they are the same way and do not communicate problems when they occur. Sorry, but I have yet to see Google's level of service outperformed by Hubspot and Salesforce.
I'm still a big fan of Hubspot and Salesforce, but I think they should focus on their own notification systems instead of bashing Google.
Seriously? Are you really comparing SalesForce and HubSpot to Google. Yeah I agree, if Google is going to make the world dependent on it's platform (free or otherwise), it's their responsibility to make their products as reliable as possible. That said, I think they do an exemplary job. Can they improve? Absolutely... but they're still way ahead of SF and HB.
Let's be realistic. Both combined don't have the load Google carries neither in users nor usage and Google offers more services than both combined as well.
If you really want to complain about Google, let's talk about ...
Sure, Google still has the largest share of search traffic, but today showed exactly why marketers shouldn't target Google alone.
As my dear old mother use to say ... sh*t happens, get over it and move on, life is to short.
I guess it goes to show you that even a mega-giant like Google can have technical problems. I guess if this was an ongoing problem happening daily, then you would have every right to call for a public reporting mechanism -- but since this is a fluke (from what I have heard) let it go and get over it already.
well, i agree that tech always has broken down/breaks/will break down again/. As long a it is not a long outage everyone can cope with it.
An unsaid truth is the fact that google analytics slows down your site, slowing down the whole site, regardless how many and how fast these many servers are who are pumping the ressources .
this is something that needs improvement, and i personally find more anooying as a temporary fault.
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Just about time people realized they're now just too heavy. I don't want them to grow, but to shrink! It's not healthy to have such a big celestial body around which everything gravitates.
I disagree, I don't think they are too heavy, just need to watch what they eat and stay lean. Google is Google and will be here, until it stops being Google, kind of like the
Sun.
You get what you pay for. If you want reliability, go paid but makes sure it is webtrends as omni has it reliability problems.
Hi - late to the party but I want to add my comments. Yes, S**T happens and tech breaks. HOWEVER let's remember why we use these tools and it is ultimately to provide products and services to the customer who does NOT think s**t should happen to them cus we cant get our s**t together. I agree with Mr Shaw - transparency and communication are critical and even more so the 'heavier' you are.
the only issue here worth reporting is how over reliant you might be on one company. How about sharing some of those services around that you use?
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