SmallBusinessNewz

Google Apps and AdSense as poor choices for small businesses? It's a surprising opinion to have, as Google made these services partially to address the SMB marketplace.

Yet Matt McGee suggested small businesses avoid those and a couple of other free Google services. He doesn't like Apps' lack of functionality, and finds its tradeoff of privacy for convenience uncomfortable.

His AdSense opinion holds a simple premise: why advertise your competitors on your site? He cited another Matt, Site Logic's Matt Bailey, on this:

"To me, for an e-commerce or a B2B site, it shows a lack of clear direction and goals for the Web site. They’ll make some from AdSense, some from sales, and be miserable in the middle. There’s just no sense in promoting the competition on your Web site. The site owners need to figure out who they are and stick with it."

McGee also thinks small business types should look with skepticism upon Google Checkout, Reader, and Toolbar. As far as small biz blogging goes, Google's Blogger service pales next to the more robust competition from WordPress and Movable Type.

The opinion on avoiding certain Google services comes down to taking a position on not sharing more information with the company than it already has about a website. But with Google holding a huge position in the US search market, they are seeing which queries lead people to a small business website anyway; there may not be very many details to hold back from them.