Frustrated with the Google Webmaster Tool

Dear Google,

I love your tools. I'm one of those crazy googlers with a blogger account, a packed Calendar, a stuffed Reader, a couple Coop engines, I use the Docs and Spreadsheets, I send out invites to all my friends describing the wonders of Gmail, I've listed my company in the local business center, I run Analytics on all of my sites, I've got Talk installed and actually USE it -- these are all products I've tested out, liked, used repeatedly and even have become a strong advocate for. But there's one product out there that drives me absolutely crazy..........

Google Webmaster Tools -- it's popular, really popular... why? Because everyone from Matt Cutts to Danny Sullivan to Rand Fishkin and the like promote this thing. For a while, when I'd read about a cool undiscovered feature (like seeing what keywords other sites use in linking to your site) I'd run over to my account and I'd get error messages like the one above.. I'd think.. 'it's ok.. that story was all over Digg, of course it's taxing to their infrastructure... of course...'

Well, today, at exactly 4:40pm CST, my patience has completely run out. You're GOOGLE! You're supposed to be HUGE and HELPFUL. You go on and on about this tool, and how it helps you rank my site, but anytime I want to logon and actually make changes, I'm confronted with these error messages.. oh and by the way, "This service is unavailable"??? Really?? That's what you call an error message?

I'm trying to be helpful -- I'm trying to remind you why so many people LOVE you -- even when they know that you're really the only game in town.  Usually that kind of monopoly drives smart people crazy, but in your case we're still pretty happy day to day. We like that you're stripped down, those new themes on the home page, that was weeeeeiird... Don't do that again, ok? Stripped down + always works = magical happiness. Stripped down + sometimes works = USPS.

Comments

[Lisa Ditlefsen]

Hi Bud,
That post really made me laugh. It totally worked though as Vanessa picked it up straight away. That girl is fast..

Hey Vanessa, found a new name for you "Vanessa the Problem Slayer".

[Bud Caddell]

Wow. The Vanessa Fox. I really do appreciate the quick response -- it seems to be working now. I also just found this article online -- http://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-apps-customers-not-happy-with-downtime/4628/

Infrastructure woes?

[Vanessa]

I'm really sorry that you've had trouble. We're working to ensure that you don't see these errors and that the system is up and running. I know it's really frustrating when the service isn't available.