Why don't we see Google employees do IM?

42 replies
Or are they legally bound to stay away from IM?


Update:

I meant to say "Employees" - mix them up all the times
#employers #google
  • Profile picture of the author Adie
    Originally Posted by trytolearnmore View Post

    Or are they legally bound to stay away from IM?
    Nah,

    Around 3 years ago, someone from V7N sent me a huge file about Google Adsense policy (like a secret document).... He was a Google employee assigned in marketing and research. Being a member of V7N i think I could say he is doing IM...
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  • Profile picture of the author Dash Evra
    How do you know they don't do IM? Odds are they are just not in the make money niche
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  • Profile picture of the author Istvan Horvath
    Did you mean the Google owners (as employers) or the G. employees? - Big difference

    If the latter, the answer is: because they are employees. Employees are employees because they are not good as independent business people. They like to be told what to do. They are afraid of taking risks. They think as employees, they die as employees. They are not entrepreneurs...
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    • Profile picture of the author Bozigian
      Have you seen how special google treats its employees? Its like heaven, free food, free messages, volleyball games etc.

      If i worked for google i would want to work their for fun.
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    • Profile picture of the author JackPowers
      Originally Posted by Istvan Horvath View Post

      Did you mean the Google owners (as employers) or the G. employees? - Big difference

      If the latter, the answer is: because they are employees. Employees are employees because they are not good as independent business people. They like to be told what to do. They are afraid of taking risks. They think as employees, they die as employees. They are not entrepreneurs...
      I came in this thread to say exactly that, but you did so already!

      Truth is also that most Google employees probably have very little technical knowledge of Google. The technicians and engineers know about the algo or Adwords quality score, but a vast majority of the employees have to be customer reps, project managers and sales people who really don't need (or want to) know the product in technical detail.
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    • Profile picture of the author wanna-succeed
      Originally Posted by Istvan Horvath View Post

      If the latter, the answer is: because they are employees. Employees are employees because they are not good as independent business people. They like to be told what to do. They are afraid of taking risks. They think as employees, they die as employees. They are not entrepreneurs...
      Lol, that's a hell of a bashing.
      What triggered it?
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    • Profile picture of the author TCrosby
      Originally Posted by Istvan Horvath View Post

      because they are employees. Employees are employees because they are not good as independent business people. They like to be told what to do. They are afraid of taking risks. They think as employees, they die as employees. They are not entrepreneurs...
      I strongly disagree, and frankly, find this almost insulting/disrespectful.

      I am a college student, and have scored a quite selective job this summer working as a software development engineer for Amazon (not google, but still, they are in the affiliate game).

      Does this mean I just like to be told what to do? Afraid of taking risks? I think you are preaching specifically to the people who are fully established in IM and no longer have a typical job. But everyone had to spend time getting to that point, during which they probably had a regular 9-5 job.

      On another note, google employees are typically very independent thinkers. Their work environment, recruiting process, and everything about how they conduct their work is outside the box. Not to mention that Google and Amazon have a huge number of employees that leave after several years and form their own web startups.
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      • Profile picture of the author TCrosby
        Originally Posted by Chris Kent View Post

        Originally Posted by TCrosby View Post

        I strongly disagree, and frankly, find this almost insulting/disrespectful.
        Why?

        Google employees may be smart at what they do but, like most employed people, they are like fish out of water when they go out on their own into the entrepreneurial world.

        What Istvan says is totally right. If anything, I would say that Google employees are probably more skewed this way than the average employee across the entire economy because heavily academic types tend not to be risk takers.


        I saw this as someone with a Masters level education from one of the top research universities in the UK. Why do you think most businesses fail within the first 2 years? Because most people have no idea what starting and running a business involves.

        Average person thinks you need an incredible idea that will become HUGE.
        Why? Did you not bother to read the rest of my post? I quite clearly stated why.

        Almost everyone on this forum had a 9-5 job at some point in their life. Not everyone but most people. That being said, asserting that the google employees "live like employees, die like employees" is slightly pompous.

        And I would suggest that Google employees are probably some of the most likely to move over into this industry. They are typically young, innovative, well-spoken, insightful, and took interest in Google due to it's unique business structure.
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      • Profile picture of the author Robster0880
        This is more the reality. For many employees is just a job later on many build their own businesses. Look aroumd here there are former employees doing their own thing. Others move on to other projects. The workforce is so diverse that IM may not be their thing


        Originally Posted by TCrosby View Post

        I strongly disagree, and frankly, find this almost insulting/disrespectful.

        I am a college student, and have scored a quite selective job this summer working as a software development engineer for Amazon (not google, but still, they are in the affiliate game).

        Does this mean I just like to be told what to do? Afraid of taking risks? I think you are preaching specifically to the people who are fully established in IM and no longer have a typical job. But everyone had to spend time getting to that point, during which they probably had a regular 9-5 job.

        On another note, google employees are typically very independent thinkers. Their work environment, recruiting process, and everything about how they conduct their work is outside the box. Not to mention that Google and Amazon have a huge number of employees that leave after several years and form their own web startups.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike McAleer
      Originally Posted by Istvan Horvath View Post

      Did you mean the Google owners (as employers) or the G. employees? - Big difference

      If the latter, the answer is: because they are employees. Employees are employees because they are not good as independent business people. They like to be told what to do. They are afraid of taking risks. They think as employees, they die as employees. They are not entrepreneurs...
      A very good point you have here. I think that Google workers set themselves apart though in that they are always innovating new technology and projects but I still know what you mean.
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  • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
    Banned
    Google dominates advertising on the Internet, so Google employers DO IM in a very big way. Do they hawk tinnitus clickbank or acaiberry products? No. Not likely. They just have an advertising network that is predominant on the Internet and are always trying to dominate more and more of the Internet advertising market.
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  • Profile picture of the author seasoned
    Google ITSELF can't stack the odds in its favor. They could be brought up on creating a monopoly, fraud, etc.... So the idea of open high click rate affiliate connections is out. BESIDES, that could KILL adsense on a WHISPER! They can't openly compete in a LOT of areas because then people would stop paying them for many things, etc... AGAIN too, they could conceivably be sued as a monopoly. Granted, ANDROID is coming close, and is getting them a big share of the phone market, and locking many users online, but it is still kind of gradual and inobvious, at least originally.

    It would be like this forum advertising a bunch of allen's stuff. If his stuff conflicted with yours, you might not want to further the forum, etc... If enough of the better people leave, the thing could become a shambles and maybe ALL would even leave.

    So yeah, there are a LOT of things google can't do because of press, relationships, or the law.

    BTW I went on a job search engine, and GUESS WHAT!!!!! There are 1148 positions that have SOMETHING to do with google. ALL 30 on the first page, and 4 on the second are for a company named GOOGLE! They have jobs in CA and TX! Some of the others may be google. I only checked the first three pages, and the second page DID have ANOTHER company between the last two for google. SO, YES FOLKS, google DOES use "IM" to ADVERTISE for EMPLOYEES! Is THAT what you are asking?

    Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author PabloVTB
    Originally Posted by trytolearnmore View Post

    Or are they legally bound to stay away from IM?
    Google has launched an affiliate platform.. and a Groupon type of site.. isn't that proof enough that Google is indeed doing internet marketing?

    Plus.. check YouTube channel for google webmasters, they talk about whitehat SEO, so yeah, they are in tune with IM


    Maybe we simply don't hear about them doing IM... or maybe they are not interested.. college people
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  • Profile picture of the author mrdeflation
    so you mean to tell me that the algorythm coders/writers dont use that to their advantage to make a huge website and rank it for 1000 terms?

    they sure as heck know how to game the system
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    • Profile picture of the author seasoned
      Originally Posted by mrdeflation View Post

      so you mean to tell me that the algorythm coders/writers dont use that to their advantage to make a huge website and rank it for 1000 terms?

      they sure as heck know how to game the system
      Frankly, it is probably so complicated and spread among so many people dealing with so many things, that they probably couldn't. And GOOGLE would probably fire them, tweak the algorithm, and lower all those sites, or deindex them completely. Google DOES need to have diligence, or people won't use them anymore.

      And you can BET that they ARE prohibited from running an SEO service. For one, if they see the code, they almost certainly have to sign an NDA!

      Steve
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    • Profile picture of the author DireStraits
      Originally Posted by mrdeflation View Post

      they sure as heck know how to game the system
      You may be surprised. Just because someone is an algorithm engineer/programmer at Google, it doesn't mean to say they have unbridled access to view every line of code, from start to finish.

      (You might assume that everyone who works at KFC knows the "Colonel's Secret Recipe™", but my understanding is that less than a handful of people actually do. )

      But even if they do, in the case of Google, it doesn't mean they have the legal and/or physical means to use their knowledge to manipulate (internally, at least) rankings in their own favour.

      And without direct, internal manipulation, I don't see that their "insider knowledge" would much more favourably position them to dominate the SERPs than any other well-clued-up SEO "professional": they might be able to make more accurate/concrete calculations as to how many backlinks they'd need (and where to get them) and so on, but they'd still have to put forth the effort to actually do the work and acquire them.

      In other words, without some hard-coded loophole that an employee can trigger from outside of Google, they wouldn't be exempt from working for their rankings just like everyone else has to - even with their extra knowledge! :p
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      • Profile picture of the author seasoned
        Originally Posted by DireStraits View Post

        You may be surprised. Just because someone is an algorithm engineer/programmer at Google, it doesn't mean to say they have unbridled access to view every line of code, from start to finish.
        VERY true! And they DO have security! The google code is obviously very complex. They would have to be IDIOTS to make it monolithic. That would make it hard to understand, even MORE complex, and FORGET about having more than one person on it. You might as well forget meetings too, because a slight change could be a disaster and only one person may really know about it. Better keep that guy happy!

        NOPE, MOST code is written with subroutines. Many compilers today can resolve them INLINE so you get ALL the benefits of monolithic code, with NONE of the problems.

        And those subroutines can be TINY! One algorithm in Googles code that might be a subroutine in its own right is comparing two color codes for contrast. Another is checking the number of hits a given site has. Another is checking the number of references from other sites. This is all stuff ****WE**** know! The KEY is HOW is that stuff used and tied together. Even THAT may vary. They may even have tables that weigh differences that are TOTALLY different in development. BTW I AM a developer and programmer, and have worked at over about 2 dozen companies, no I'm not just guessing how this might go.

        (You might assume that everyone who works at KFC knows the "Colonel's Secret Recipe™", but my understanding is that less than a handful of people actually do. )
        When Harland Sanders started out, he provided the seasoning and was VERY secretive about the ingredients. I'm sure they do the SAME TODAY! So that would mean that NOBODY at ANY FRANCHISE would know the recipe. COKE's recipe is supposedly locked in a vault. One guy DID buy something that contained materials from pemberton, and supposedly found the recipe HE then had. But nobody could be SURE. Coke's employees supposedly don't know the recipe.

        But even if they do, in the case of Google, it doesn't mean they have the legal and/or physical means to use their knowledge to manipulate (internally, at least) rankings in their own favour.
        Like I said, NDA! NON DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT!

        And without direct, internal manipulation, I don't see that their "insider knowledge" would much more favourably position them to dominate the SERPs than any other well-clued-up SEO "professional": they might be able to make more accurate/concrete calculations as to how many backlinks they'd need (and where to get them) and so on, but they'd still have to put forth the effort to actually do the work and acquire them.
        Like I said earlier here, "Those danged tables"!

        In other words, without some hard-coded loophole that an employee can trigger from outside of Google, they wouldn't be exempt from working for their rankings just like everyone else has to - even with their extra knowledge! :p
        If they were caught doing that, they could be sued, possibly thrown in jail, etc... Besides, there may be code audits and reviews. They may EVEN do DIFFS, so a tiny change hidden DEEP in the code will be VERY obvious. And one nice thing about most diffs is they give you NO information about the unchanged code.

        Steve

        BTW the parsing code may just be disjointed subroutines, like I mentioned, in a parser. The table names can come from a table. The main program may read from tables, and use all that.

        GOOD LUCK trying to understand it! The weighting tables could be different, and those looking at the application of values may not know what those values are. Ones working on the parser will know how those values are derived(Which we KNOW for the most part), but don't jknow how they are used. And the table of tables could be mixed up between the two so people delving deep into the code couldn't be sure. So production would be set right, but FAR fewer people have access to THAT.

        Steve
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        • Profile picture of the author DireStraits
          Originally Posted by seasoned View Post

          VERY true! And they DO have security! The google code is obviously very complex. They would have to be IDIOTS to make it monolithic. That would make it hard to understand, even MORE complex, and FORGET about having more than one person on it. You might as well forget meetings too, because a slight change could be a disaster and only one person may really know about it. Better keep that guy happy!

          [ ... ]

          GOOD LUCK trying to understand it! The weighting tables could be different, and those looking at the application of values may not know what those values are. Ones working on the parser will know how those values are derived(Which we KNOW for the most part), but don't jknow how they are used. And the table of tables could be mixed up between the two so people delving deep into the code couldn't be sure. So production would be set right, but FAR fewer people have access to THAT.

          Steve
          Thanks for that, Steve.

          I'm not a programmer by any stretch of the imagination (my comments were based only on speculation/guesswork and a bit of common sense), so it has to be said that some of that was slightly over my head; but it's nice, all the same, to get more of an insight into how these things function and are managed, from someone who obviously has first-hand, professional experience of working in a related field.
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        • Profile picture of the author Kirk Ward
          Originally Posted by seasoned View Post

          Like I said, NDA! NON DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT!
          Steve,

          Many folks think NDA's have some force. Almost any attorney worth their fee can break an NDA.

          Now let's talk about "Trade Secrets." And, believe me, a firm like Google will have an employee sign a Trade Secrets Agreement, and they will enforce it.

          Any employee, or former employee, will not be sued by Google for disclosure, they will be arrested by the police for theft of trade secrets. Yes "Trade Secrets" are property, and disclosing them is theft.

          It is used to protect everything from the Colonel's secret recipe to my customer list. And yes, I did have my employees sign a trade secrets agreement. And I enforced it.

          The poor fellow didn't know what to say when the sheriff came to his home at 6:00 AM, one early morning.
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    • Originally Posted by mrdeflation View Post

      so you mean to tell me that the algorythm coders/writers dont use that to their advantage to make a huge website and rank it for 1000 terms?

      they sure as heck know how to game the system
      I bet Matt Cutts could build a pretty mean blog and rank it for any keyword he wishes

      I'm not talking about him gaming Google where he changes the code in his favor, he would just be using the knowledge he has to build a perfectly SEO'd site. Basically all the stuff that the average guy on this IM has "questions" about or doesn't know how to do, he does.
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  • Profile picture of the author gundarz
    How do we know they're not?
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  • Profile picture of the author E. Brian Rose
    Why not ask your VAs the same question. Google is the epitome of IM. The company is the biggest IM earner of all time. Their employees are their VAs.
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  • Profile picture of the author PabloVTB
    Well.. I mean.. even if Google employees know "The Secret Code", that doesn't mean that they will rank super competitive sites in 1 day. I mean, yeah they would surely have a hell of an advantage, but I think Google's algorithm is built in a way that even following all the rules and hidden secrets, it will take time and work to get your sites ranked.
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  • Profile picture of the author aaronngoh
    Most employee will not want to take risk, they just want exchange time for money.

    IM for them is too risky!

    Moreover they do not want risk their comfortable job
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  • Profile picture of the author Tim_Carter
    Thank you.

    That has been bugging me for a while.

    Originally Posted by trytolearnmore View Post

    Or are they legally bound to stay away from IM?


    Update:

    I meant to say "Employees" - mix them up all the times
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  • Profile picture of the author trytolearnmore
    Yeah, i meant to say employees) Sorry.

    It would be great to have an inside man there. What if we are doing IM all wrong? What if there is a better way to get on top of Google? Yes, building links is a great way, but maybe there is something different that we consciously haven't discovered yet?

    Ok, now i went all "X-Files" on you guys =)
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  • Profile picture of the author candoit2
    Originally Posted by trytolearnmore View Post

    Or are they legally bound to stay away from IM?


    Update:

    I meant to say "Employees" - mix them up all the times
    If they are allowed to get into IM, then what stops someone from banning competitors in the niche they are marketing in?

    Find the smallest excuse, dig as deep into their campaign as you have to and disable their accounts.

    If someone is monitoring your campaigns and digging into them as a competitor would, eventually you would create a campaign and slip up somehow.

    Googles terms IMO are broad and vague. The average person if going up against a competitor who is an expert on these terms and has the power to disable your account has little chance.

    Judge Jury and executioner as your competition. IMO that is what a Google employee could be if they are involved in IM.

    Aaron
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  • Profile picture of the author 4morereferrals
    i watched a video from one former adwords business emplyee from Google.

    SHE ... was into PPC and facebook mainly .. NOT SEO.

    The 2nd was a former software engineer that was with google early on ... has done very well financially at an early age through stock and options ... He is heavily into IM and doing very sophisticated LEAD Gen business in some of the most competitive niches ...

    Mortgage / Banking / Credit Cards / Legal / Insurance

    Spent about 2 hrs with him in my office [ hes a client of ours in the offline gig ]

    PPC 100% - totally anti SEO this guy. "Google keeps moving the goal line on you... they will always keep changing what makes them happy..." But hey hes in lead gen. To say much otherwise kinda undermines his business model.

    Whats the take away from these two? hrmmmm - things that make you go hrmmmm ...
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  • Profile picture of the author Simon Ashari
    I'm not sure whether or not they do IM (they very well may be doing it).

    However I would assume that their employees are very risk averse (just like any employees). They just want their paycheck and that's it.

    You could ask this about any other professional who works for a business. They do not leave and start their own business because of their avoidance of risk.


    -Simon
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    • Profile picture of the author Kay King
      Those who joined google initially (and other online firms) were not risk averse. They took big risks on a new company in an unproven field - and they won. Many of those "employees" have stock in google that makes them far richer than the average marketer.

      There are many people on this forum who would give up IM in an instant if offered a good paying google job. They are a top employer with an unusual work atmosphere and fantastic benefits.

      There is a sense of superiority when IMers talk about people who work "jobs". Not everyone wants the IM "dream" or wants to work long hours with uncertainty and financial stress at times.

      If it weren't for the lowly "employees" in retail stores, at google and in places like hospitals....life would be difficult.

      kay
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      • Profile picture of the author Kirk Ward
        Everyone is an employee, even those on welfare.

        The only difference is whether you have one employer or more. While you can feel "independent" when you are an IM'er, you still have to perform a regular series of tasks in order to keep your customers happy, and keep the stream of income flowing.

        What's the difference between that nd being an employee other than the number of people it takes to fire you completley?
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  • Profile picture of the author Mehak
    good question, It will be interesting to see the answers as now that you mention it- I am curious! lol
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    • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
      Some people don't want the headaches of running their own business. Some
      just want to go to work, get their paycheck at the end of the week and
      come home?

      Why do people assume that everybody in the world wants to do IM just
      because they are doing IM.

      My wife works in a freaking war zone and even she doesn't want to do what
      I do.

      It just flat out isn't for everybody.
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  • Profile picture of the author Serenity090
    Well Most of Them are Technical Employees Not Marketers...
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  • Profile picture of the author flocon
    How can we be sure that they do not do internet marketing? Unless they want to attract the attention on themselves, I believe that one thing to do would be to hide their identity.
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  • I'm sure current and especially former Google employees get into IM, and many probably have some competitive advantage with their insider knowledge. The last thing they're going to do is admit that in any sort of public way.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kevin McNally
    I am sure that some guys do in time start to dip into IM in one way, maybe they just help out friends and family with some tips ! But it does look like a cool place to work !

    Never mind the google guys, what about affiliate network managers who have access to the stats and converting keywords for many affiliate marketers....They must see some guys making $30k per month and know most of their campiagns !
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  • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
    Google employees are not doing IM because they love what they do.

    When I worked at Microsoft, I did not want to work anywhere else or do anything else. That was all I wanted to do.

    Google is the only other company I know where the employees are that honestly loyal. They don't want to scam their way to the top of the SERPS. They don't want to make boatloads of money with AdSense. They don't want to run slick little loophole campaigns on AdWords.

    They want to work on the infrastructure of Google. They love Google. They love what they do at Google. And the very idea that they could cheat or betray Google is just fundamentally offensive to them.

    It may surprise you to know that Google and Microsoft aren't rivals or even grudgingly respectful of one another. They're fans of one another. Because they both know in the PC/internet world, they're the only two 800-pound gorillas there are, and it's more fun to be friends than enemies.

    And Amazon is kind of a 600-pound gorilla. So the three of us frequently hang out together and talk like we're all on the same team, because on some level we are.

    Oh, and once you've worked extensively at one of them, you spend the rest of your life saying "we" and "us" because you're just so damn proud to have been a part of it.

    It's not the money. It's not the benefits. It's the work. It's the impact. It's knowing that billions of people use what you write every day.

    You kind of have to be there to get it.
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