Have you ever typed in the address of a Google service and been surprised when that website didn’t exist?

Google uses a sub-domain for some of its products, (e.g. adwords.google.com, earth.google.com, mail.google.com) but uses a path name for others, (e.g. www.google.com/analytics, www.google.com/adsense).

This inconsistency causes confusion amongst Google users who may type in a URL containing the product name, but use the wrong format. The classic example of this is Adwords: Type in  www.google.com/adwords/ (with the trailing slash) and you may be astonished to discover:


So, this got us thinking here at First Rate, how many of Google’s products have both the path name and the sub-domain version set up, and how many of them have only one of them set up. And is there any rhyme or reason behind Google’s choice of a sub-domain or a pathname?

First Rate tested the pathname and sub-domain version for 50 of Google’s different services and products. The names tested were:

admanager
adsense
adwords
affiliatenetwork
alerts
analytics
android
androidmarket
base
blogger
blogsearch
books
checkout
chrome
code
dirhp
docs
earth
feedburner
finance
friendconnect
grandcentral
groups
health
images
insights
labs
local
mail
maps
mobile
news
orkut
pack
picasa
postini
reader
scholar
sell
sites
sitesearch
sketchup
talk
translate
trends
video
voice
wave
websiteoptimizer
zeitgeist

First Rate tested the following six URL formats:

  • http://name.google.com/
  • http://www.name.google.com/
  • http://google.com/name/
  • http://www.google.com/name/
  • http://google.com/name
  • http://www.google.com/name

The results confirmed First Rate’s suspicions: Many of Google’s products do not have the alternative URL set up:


Further details

First of all, let’s ignore some of the tests – almost 100% of the tested URLs with no www. redirected to the www. version.

This is true both for URLs that exist at the redirected location (e.g. google.com/analytics redirects to www.google.com/analytics) and for the URLs that do not exist,(e.g. google.com/android redirects to www.google.com/android). Therefore, we haven’t considered the non www. versions of the URLs any further.

62% of the products did not have the www.subdomain.google.com version set up.

Perhaps we can let Google off the hook, as many websites with sub-domains setup fail to allow the www.subdomain version.

However, it is inconsistent and perhaps careless nonetheless, that half of the of the Google products that do have a subdomain have a www.subdomain version – and half don’t!

Finally, here are the full details for all the tests. (Note that the link checking software that we used failed to report on all the 302 redirects, it reported all of these as 200 ok – so the status code for the test may be incorrect.)

Product
admanager 200 OK 12007 No such host 200 OK 200 OK
adsense 200 OK 12007 No such host 200 OK 200 OK
adwords 200 OK 200 OK 404 File not found 200 OK
affiliatenetwork 12007 No such host 12007 No such host 200 OK 200 OK
alerts 200 OK 12007 No such host 200 OK 200 OK
analytics 200 OK 12007 No such host 200 OK 200 OK
android 12007 No such host 12007 No such host 404 File not found 404 File not found
androidmarket 12007 No such host 12007 No such host 404 File not found 404 File not found
base 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK
blogger 200 OK 12007 No such host 200 OK 200 OK
blogsearch 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK
books 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK
checkout 200 OK 12007 No such host 200 OK 200 OK
chrome 200 OK 12007 No such host 200 OK 200 OK
code 200 OK 200 OK 404 File not found 404 File not found
dirhp 12007 No such host 12007 No such host 200 OK 200 OK
docs 200 OK 12007 No such host 200 OK 200 OK
earth 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK
feedburner 200 OK 12007 No such host 404 File not found 404 File not found
finance 200 OK 200 OK 404 File not found 200 OK
friendconnect 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK
grandcentral 12007 No such host 12007 No such host 200 OK 200 OK
groups 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK
health 200 OK 12007 No such host 200 OK 200 OK
images 200 OK 200 OK 404 File not found 200 OK
insights 12007 No such host 12007 No such host 404 File not found 404 File not found
labs 200 OK 12007 No such host 200 OK 200 OK
local 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK
mail 200 OK 12007 No such host 200 OK 200 OK
maps 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK
mobile 200 OK 12007 No such host 200 OK 200 OK
news 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK
orkut 12007 No such host 12007 No such host 404 File not found 404 File not found
pack 200 OK 12007 No such host 200 OK 200 OK
picasa 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK
postini 12007 No such host 12007 No such host 200 OK 200 OK
reader 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK
scholar 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK
sell 12007 No such host 12007 No such host 404 File not found 404 File not found
sites 200 OK 12007 No such host 200 OK 200 OK
sitesearch 12007 No such host 12007 No such host 200 OK 200 OK
sketchup 200 OK 12007 No such host 200 OK 200 OK
talk 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK
translate 200 OK 200 OK 404 File not found 302 redir
trends 200 OK 12007 No such host 200 OK 200 OK
video 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK 200 OK
voice 200 OK 12007 No such host 200 OK 200 OK
wave 200 OK 12007 No such host 200 OK 200 OK
websiteoptimizer 12007 No such host 12007 No such host 200 OK 200 OK
zeitgeist 12007 No such host 12007 No such host 200 OK 200 OK
Icons ref

Some other notable broken URLs include:


Blogsearch
www.google.com/blogsearch/ (with the trailing slash) – weirdly this one redirects to http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch/ which then doesn’t exist.


Feedburner

www.google.com/feedburner
– you’d have thought that feedburner was a big enough product that there must be plenty of people who type in google.com/feedburner


Website Optimiser

websiteoptimizer.google.com
is another important Google product with a path name but no sub-domain. First Rate loves this product, it is excellent for improving a client’s website conversion rate.


The Conclusion

Well, really the conclusion is obvious: Google as a “multi-armed hydra” has a variety of different business units and divisions, and perhaps this is the reason that there are no consistent website standards enforced?

And on top of that, Google don’t really need to care – because as a search company, Google knows that if someone fails to find a website they can always do a Google search to find it (and that’s why SEO is so important..!)

Sometimes, the search results for Google’s own products are less than good, e.g. they may lead to an older version of the page which has no obvious link to the newer version, or the phrase used may not match the product name and so the official page is pushed down the search results. Or sometimes even the link may be broken! – But that is a story for another blog post.

UPDATE: 10th September 2009

Matt Cutts has just pointed out to us that some of the inconsistencies are in fact intentional, on the basis of performance. Thanks Matt!

matt-cutts-google-url-inconsistency