There has been talk about Google quietly downsizing, probably in response to the current global economic crisis. It seems that even the search engine giants is not immune to the effects of the financial downturn because while the company has been able to hit its targets last year, it has been reported that it managed this by cutting down on ‘operational’ expenses. However, the company also claims that the layoffs also mark a change in Google so search engine optimization people can expect to find something different with the search engine in the coming months.

In a report by the Financial Times, it was stated that the company had to let go of about 200 employees from its sales and marketing departments, the first mainstream job cut that it had to undertake in its 10 years of existence. But before that, there have been rumors going around that it still stands to let as many as 10,000 people go.

This isn’t really the first time that Google has downsized. It has done the same thing before mainly to let go of unnecessary positions, such as those from the human resources, because it has stopped hiring people aggressively. But the company’s spokesperson confirmed that this particular wave of layoffs is a result of business issues such as the need to restructure to make operations more efficient. But Google did say that the employees who had to be laid off are welcome to apply for other positions in the company.

‘In some areas, we’ve created overlapping organizations which not only duplicate effort but also complicate the decision-making process,” says field operations head Omid Kordestani in his bog post.

Google admitted that the job cuts were also made in response to the economic downturn which has somehow affected how users see the company as a whole. This translates to Google being just like any other company. It is vulnerable to the effects of the current crisis. The job cuts can potentially affect user confidence, which is why search engine optimization experts are currently on the lookout for changes in user behavior as a result of these activities.

According to SEO Chat, the job cuts have caused disillusionment as far as Google is concerned. People have come to see that it is just a normal company. The search engine optimization industry is braced for the possible effects that may arise from downsizing. This can result to a great deal of change in the search engine’s applications. Some say it can also cause an overhaul in the whole company’s system to improve Google’s corporate image. It’s really difficult to tell what could happen at this point. It may only be a matter of time before search engine optimization rules change because of Google’s corporate restructuring.