Google Search Follies
It used to be in the old days… Indulge me. Although I am not that old in people years, I am old in accountant years. In the old days, when you wanted to research something, you looked in big books, like the IRS Code or GAAP or IIA Standards. If you did a legal search you used WestLaw, Lexis, Nexis, casebooks, etc.
Nowadays, if you want to know something, you Google it. Business people search for the funniest things; things you could ask your boss, things you could check around the office on, things you could ask another expert about. Instead they trust the World Wide Web to give them a definitive answer to their myriad of questions, some of which in and of themselves reveal a lot. Over 95% of the users who came to me via a search engine came to me via Google or Google Blog Search. Which is why Google shares trade at 1pm today at US$ 634.33 after going public in August of 2004 at US$ 100.
Who audits Google? The answer is here.
Today a few examples that brought folks to my site:
From someone at a Big 4 firm in Mexico City:
Auditor nearly finished with an engagement discovers that the director of marketing has gambling habit…
Notice the full sentence structure. Notice fear inherent in being near the end of the engagement balanced by the calm of making sure it’s mentioned that it is the marketing director, not the CFO or CEO. My question – Do you know if it’s a winning habit or a losing habit? Makes a big difference.
This one from an unidentified searcher:
ernst young offer letter background check
Hope they don’t have the same issue as this guy who wants to work at Deloitte…One thing about Gen Y accountants – More of them have more colorful backgrounds at age 23 than we did (well, than you did…) at that age. They’re fearless.
Someone from PwC, via their server in New York:
arizona state board of accountancy consent order 2006 pricewaterhousecoopers
What? Can’t find it already? It’s probably thumbtacked to Sam B’s bulletin board in the Independence Compliance Command Center in Jersey City.
And also from PwC on April 23, 2007:
PWC mckinsey layoff
What? You didn’t get the email? This morning you showed up at the office and you weren’t able to reserve a cubicle because you name was no longer listed in the electronic directory at the door? You’ve been on the road too long, dude. Better hope you get paid for those extra days at the client.
Thanks for the link Francine.
As you can tell though, the full searches you’re blogging about here aren’t showing up because the long links are getting cut off by Blogspot.
If you would, edit the post and turn the URLs into links to themselves, so we can visit the search results pages and see how you rank for the terms! 🙂
I think I was the one who did the PwC McKinsey Layoff search. A person in IFS told me that McKinsey was interviewing the admin group, so I was curious if there was any announcement of layoffs by PwC to the media. I was afraid of being layed off because of a particular experience. I would like to share my story. I left PwC pretty shortly after the lay off rumors. I would like to share my story…I was a top performer all my career. Because of my performance, I started a large audit engagement (to help me get to the next level) where a new partner became a working partner on the engagement. As a manager on the engagement, I had a lot of questions about workpapers and judgments made in the previous year (where he was the senior manager). The new partner started feeling pretty defensive and started treating me poorly. He would ignore me completely, bad mouth me, and demean me. I went to HR to complain and got removed from his engagement. Then, to get back at me, he gave me a horrible feedback form, full of assumptions, hearsay, innuendos, and lies. I thought my career was ruined, so I left. I couldn’t afford to be layed off. I wouldn’t wish such an experience on anyone.