# Are Google products becoming too convoluted?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-google-products-becoming-too-convoluted/694784>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [August 4, 2014, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-google-products-becoming-too-convoluted/694784 "2014-08-04T14:09:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Dog80](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6bbea6/32.png) [@Dog80](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dog80)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-google-products-becoming-too-convoluted/694784/1 "2014-08-04T14:09:44Z")

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I have a youtube channel and a website with adsense and analytics.

Setting everything up is a nightmare. It seems that there are a million settings thrown out all over the place, sometimes well hidden behind several layers of menus. Each product has a unique menu layout and to make things worse, Google frequently redesigns the menu layouts. Many times I will find a guide on how to do something, only to realise that the menus were redesigned since the guide was published and the new options do not correspond to the guide.

And then there are some things that are simply broken. For example, I was trying to link my Adsense and Analytics accounts. There’s a nice option for that in Analytics, but when you click that it will send you to Adsense. There, you’ll find a similar button, but when you click it you’re sent back to Analytics. :smack:

Is this my unique experience with Google products or is it really as bad as it seems?

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**Author:** ![UncleRojelio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unclerojelio/32/3160_2.png) [@UncleRojelio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleRojelio)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-google-products-becoming-too-convoluted/694784/2 "2014-08-04T14:49:01Z")

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I’ve pretty much given up on Google, even for search. They seem to take a shotgun approach to everything now.

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**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-google-products-becoming-too-convoluted/694784/3 "2014-08-04T20:05:55Z")

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I use Google Phone a lot, so I don’t need a LD carrier. Google no longer has a way to “call someone”. Now you “invite someone to share an experience”. Luckily, it’s the same thing, and amazingly, the icon for doing so is shaped like an antique 1970’s telephone receiver, so I could even guess how to access it. I wonder how they let that happen.

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**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-google-products-becoming-too-convoluted/694784/4 "2014-08-04T20:26:18Z")

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> [@jtur88](#):
>
> I use Google Phone a lot, so I don’t need a LD carrier. Google no longer has a way to “call someone”. Now you “invite someone to share an experience”. Luckily, it’s the same thing, and amazingly, the icon for doing so is shaped like an antique 1970’s telephone receiver, so I could even guess how to access it. I wonder how they let that happen.

Don’t worry, I’m sure they’ll “fix” it soon.