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Getting Less Traffic From Google? Here's One Explanation

by PerformanceMan
48 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Lots of people - especially small businesses are feeling the pain of Google's updates. Check out this article for a few reasons why.

1) Redesigned Google page offers only a small percentage of space compared to prior years for organic.
2) Organic search traffic is down 30% according to one major study!
3) Google is changing the rules too often for the average person to keep up.

What are your thoughts?
#explanation #google #traffic
  • Profile picture of the author Pawprints34
    I agree with what he said about social media for small business. I know quite a few small businesses that have utilized a following on Facebook to get appointments and connect with both existing and new customers.

    I must admit it will also annoy users more as well, all these updates. I wanted to find out where I could buy a particular model laptop today and when I googled it all 10 of the organic results didn't tell me any stores where I could buy it in Australia either online or offline! I was astounded!

    People will start to look elsewhere for answers. Sadly I think Facebook poses a much greater risk to small business of someone eccentric posting a bad review even if it is not justified. If a bad review is posted on a review website currently it usually has a PR of 0 and the page is buried in the results and few will see it.
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    • Profile picture of the author RandySwanston
      Actually each and every point that he has mentioned on his post are true (and going to be true). Google is running behind money.... and businesses who are mostly dependent on Google organic traffic, you need to wake up. You need to find alternate ways to keep your business running without trusting Google.

      Nowadays I am seeing an increase in organic search traffic to one of my website from Yahoo! over Google. .

      Lets see where it goes, afterall people behind Google are also business minded.
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      • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
        There is a big problem with that study cited. Buzzfeed reported that traffic from Google to the Huffington Post, Newsweek, Time, Sports Illustrated, and Rolling Stone was down 30%.

        The author than took a GIANT leap from that data to say that Google's traffic might be down 30%. That is ridiculous.

        Certainly people are finding new stories from the Huffington Post and the like on social media. So people very well may not be going to Google as often to search for those news stories. Still, that is just a small percentage of search users.

        To take that trend and broadly say all search users are leaving Google is freaking ridiculous.

        People are still not searching for a new dentist on Facebook. Nobody is going to Twitter to figure out where to get their car repaired at.

        Businesses, real businesses, not people selling goofy IM courses and the like, need to still be focused on Google search results. If they are not, their competitors sure are and will be bringing in a lot more new customers than they will be.
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        • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
          Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

          There is a big problem with that study cited. Buzzfeed reported that traffic from Google to the Huffington Post, Newsweek, Time, Sports Illustrated, and Rolling Stone was down 30%.

          The author than took a GIANT leap from that data to say that Google's traffic might be down 30%. That is ridiculous.

          Certainly people are finding new stories from the Huffington Post and the like on social media. So people very well may not be going to Google as often to search for those news stories. Still, that is just a small percentage of search users.

          To take that trend and broadly say all search users are leaving Google is freaking ridiculous.

          People are still not searching for a new dentist on Facebook. Nobody is going to Twitter to figure out where to get their car repaired at.

          Businesses, real businesses, not people selling goofy IM courses and the like, need to still be focused on Google search results. If they are not, their competitors sure are and will be bringing in a lot more new customers than they will be.
          Nope. Nobody needs to search for a dentist at all - especially in the nefarious underbelly of the web known as Google search.

          Instead they can go to their trusted circle of friends on Facebook or Google+ and ask, "Hey, my tooth hurts, do any of you know a good dentist?"

          That's a trusted recommendation and what local businesses should be focused on. Mediocre local businesses will be forced to compete for the remaining scraps on the untrusted Internet - as they should. The excellent businesses will turn their social connections into advocacy, which is the most effective and least expensive form or marketing of all.

          IMHO, of course
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          • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
            Originally Posted by PerformanceMan View Post

            Nope. Nobody needs to search for a dentist at all - especially in the nefarious underbelly of the web known as Google search.

            Instead they can go to their trusted circle of friends on Facebook or Google+ and ask, "Hey, my tooth hurts, do any of you know a good dentist?"

            That's a trusted recommendation and what local businesses should be focused on. Mediocre local businesses will be forced to compete for the remaining scraps on the untrusted Internet - as they should. The excellent businesses will turn their social connections into advocacy, which is the most effective and least expensive form or marketing of all.

            IMHO, of course
            Word of mouth advertising is great. Best referral you can possibly get. I won't argue that one bit.

            However, it cannot be the only way a business relies on attracting new clients either. Before the internet, businesses could have relied on nothing but walk-ins and referrals. They chose not to. They bought radio and TV spots. Advertised on billboards. Took out newspaper ads. Paid for preferred listings in the phone book.

            For your little IM class, what you are saying works. However, for a brick and mortar business, it is the kind of approach that by itself would get you laughed out of an office.

            If you wake up in the morning with a severe toothache, you are either going to call your existing dentist or if you don't have one you are going to go to Google and search for "Emergency dental care" or something like that. Very few people are going to go to Facebook and ask their friends who they should go see, and then sit back for 3 hours and wait for the responses.

            If my car breaks down on the side of the road and I do not have AAA, I'm not posting on Facebook for recommendations of a good towing company near the intersection of Route 30 and Route 74. I'm going to Google a solution.

            Social media certainly has a place in a business's marketing plan, but it is better served for keeping connected with existing clients and for branding purposes for 95% of the businesses that are out there.
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            • Profile picture of the author paulgl
              The day I go to FB to find a dentist, is the day I am admitted to
              Bellevue. Cuz I gotta be loony.

              Paul
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        • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
          Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

          There is a big problem with that study cited. Buzzfeed reported that traffic from Google to the Huffington Post, Newsweek, Time, Sports Illustrated, and Rolling Stone was down 30%.

          The author than took a GIANT leap from that data to say that Google's traffic might be down 30%. That is ridiculous.
          Well Mike....Whats left out and why PM chose to highlight this piece - is the overall picture (which flies in the face of Performanceman's recent campaign on the boards to have everyone cease doing SEO. Actual study is reported here

          Where Did All The Search Traffic Go

          and you can immediately see some nuggets (bolded below) were left out by PM's link

          Search traffic to publishers has taken a dive in the last eight months, with traffic from Google dropping more than 30% from August 2012 through March 2013, according to research done by BuzzFeed. While Google makes up the bulk of search traffic to publishers, traffic from all search engines has dropped by 20% in the same period.
          So first thing we see is apparently Performanceman's dream of Social taking over has not happened. Second thing is this - the entire study is about - PUBLISHERS

          amazingly the article never once mentions publishers in a study all about publishers

          Heres the kinds of sites they were looking at

          "BuzzFeed tracked traffic referrals to over 200 publishers in the BuzzFeed Network, a group of sites that carry BuzzFeed’s tracking code and include the Huffington Post, Daily Mail, NewsweekDailyBeast, Time, Sports Illustrated, Us Weekly, and Rolling Stone."
          A look at that list makes me go - duh. When I want news I go to a news site direct. I could go to Google news but then I know I am only going to be sent to another news site. Plus if I want to see all the top news I can get that quick at CNN. I am actually amazed at the power of search engines why they still drive most of the traffic to sites like these.

          Furthermore these publishers are more likely to do well in social networks because of entertaining posts about things that people like to talk about - trending subject, things going viral, gossip on famous people, movies, music etc .

          To make the leap to say this translates across all sites especially to those in IM is just silly but even then these sites are STILL GETTING MOST OF THEIR TRAFFIC FROM SEARCH ENGINES.

          Which given that these sites cover some of the very subjects people like to talk about on social networks really shows the strength of search engines and in particular google

          This without the obvious point that for business targeted traffic beats the junk out of untargeted traffic which you seldom get with social networks.
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          • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
            Only a true believer - or some sort of idiot - would have a problem understanding why Google search referrals are declining.

            I'll point out three obvious reasons:
            1. The addition of Google Knowledge Graph. This changed many searches permanently and cut the space above the fold.
            2. Paid only search appears "above the fold." A recent post illustrated how organic now only took up 13% of the space.
            3. Google Image search stopped redirecting people.

            These are just three things that Google has done that are directly reducing the amount of traffic derived from organic search.

            But we can add to that the landscape change to social. Facebook, Google+, Tumblr, YouTube, Instagram are all integral parts of people's lives.

            Although the complete collapse of Google search has not happened, obviously the people at Google are worried about. They made all these changes in order to enhance paid search at the expense of organic. Organic is no longer the growth engine it was, and it's irrelevant to their long-term goals in many ways. Paid search is their main concern.

            The people reading this who are still doing well with organic search will not want to hear this. But it's worth considering.
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            • Profile picture of the author NewbieLifer
              Originally Posted by PerformanceMan View Post

              Only a true believer - or some sort of idiot - would have a problem understanding why Google search referrals are declining.

              I'll point out three obvious reasons:
              1. The addition of Google Knowledge Graph. This changed many searches permanently and cut the space above the fold.
              2. Paid only search appears "above the fold." A recent post illustrated how organic now only took up 13% of the space.
              3. Google Image search stopped redirecting people.

              These are just three things that Google has done that are directly reducing the amount of traffic derived from organic search.

              But we can add to that the landscape change to social. Facebook, Google+, Tumblr, YouTube, Instagram are all integral parts of people's lives.

              Although the complete collapse of Google search has not happened, obviously the people at Google are worried about. They made all these changes in order to enhance paid search at the expense of organic. Organic is no longer the growth engine it was, and it's irrelevant to their long-term goals in many ways. Paid search is their main concern.

              The people reading this who are still doing well with organic search will not want to hear this. But it's worth considering.
              Thank you, thank you, thank you for posting this. I have relied on organic search for a year now and within the last couple of months it went caplooey. I have noticed that it's not even just with my own websites. It is also when I do a search for something I need info on. Completely irrelevant results come up. I had considered switching my personal use searches to Bing but notice that so many poor quality and spammy sites come up. I have been pulling my hair out for a month now with any search results & have considered sitting back & doing nothing about my sites ranking since nothing relevant comes up when I test relevant keywords. How do you work on organic ranking when the current search engine results bring up irrelevant junk & spammy looking sites?
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              • Profile picture of the author RedShifted
                Originally Posted by NewbieLifer View Post

                Thank you, thank you, thank you for posting this. I have relied on organic search for a year now and within the last couple of months it went caplooey. I have noticed that it's not even just with my own websites. It is also when I do a search for something I need info on. Completely irrelevant results come up. I had considered switching my personal use searches to Bing but notice that so many poor quality and spammy sites come up. I have been pulling my hair out for a month now with any search results & have considered sitting back & doing nothing about my sites ranking since nothing relevant comes up when I test relevant keywords. How do you work on organic ranking when the current search engine results bring up irrelevant junk & spammy looking sites?
                "Nothing relevant"?

                What in the world are you talking about?

                Google makes >>> 29 billion a year. You really think you can do a better job then they are?
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                • Profile picture of the author NewbieLifer
                  Originally Posted by RedShifted View Post

                  "Nothing relevant"?

                  What in the world are you talking about?

                  Google makes >>> 29 billion a year. You really think you can do a better job then they are?
                  LOL- No, and thanks for throwing a comment that i often use in my face. LOL ( they make xyz billion a year and you think you can do a better job than they can") lol. Maybe it's just in my stupid niche that I am experiencing irrelevant search results. Currently all of my keywords are bringing up weird results. Example- "pet report cards" . The 1st result on the page is good. The rest of the results on the page are spammy, ad ridden sites. I have 2 sites that have page titles w/ this keyword phrase & rich content with it and they are on page 3&4. Same with the rest of my keywords. The search results bring back poor sites that are full of ads, pop-ups, just basically sites that you would not want to click on.
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              • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
                NO offense but if you can't find relevant results in your regular use of Google then something is off about what you search for. Most of the time I read stuff like this its just sour grapes from a site owner with a not very good website.

                Originally Posted by NewbieLifer View Post

                when I do a search for something I need info on. Completely irrelevant results come up. I had considered switching my personal use searches to Bing but notice that so many poor quality and spammy sites come up. I have been pulling my hair out for a month now with any search results & have considered sitting back & doing nothing about my sites ranking since nothing relevant comes up when I test relevant keywords. How do you work on organic ranking when the current search engine results bring up irrelevant junk & spammy looking sites?
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    Originally Posted by PerformanceMan View Post

    3) Google is changing the rules too often for the average person to keep up.

    Oh, and as far as this... that is not true at all. They are just getting better at enforcing what they have always preached.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
    Originally Posted by PerformanceMan View Post


    What are your thoughts?
    My thoughts? That you are just junking up the forums with your various posts and threads pushing your do not link build business proposition

    Oh and that its destined to fail based on anyone looking at the real data.
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    • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
      Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

      My thoughts? That you are just junking up the forums with your various posts and threads pushing your do not link build business proposition

      Oh and that its destined to fail based on anyone looking at the real data.
      I couldn't possibly 'junk up' this forum. Look around you for a second. I'm not the one creating hundreds of useless threads.

      I have no 'proposition.' You do, though. You're an advocate of building 'phony blog networks' to inflate Google rankings.

      You aren't looking at 'real data.' You're a mosquito on the pimple of the ass of the Internet world. Your view of 'data' is so tiny as to not merit consideration at all.

      Your days are numbered - you should be dealing with it now rather than when it's too late.
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      • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
        Originally Posted by PerformanceMan View Post


        I have no 'proposition.' You do, though. You're an advocate of building 'phony blog networks' to inflate Google rankings.
        LOL. You think that because your PRESENTLY have no signature that you can float you have no proposition. We both know what your "Academy" is all about.

        You aren't looking at 'real data.'
        Sure I am. I just pointed out the bits of REAL data that were left out of that study and heres some more data to munch on

        https://blog.compete.com/2013/06/18/...-2-from-yahoo/

        Where does facebook come in

        Your days are numbered - you should be dealing with it now rather than when it's too late.
        Too silly. I am into far more than what I advertise on WF. Social has been part of the fabric of things for awhile now and will be to come but that doesn't mean I can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Intelligent people Do what works not what they hope will work in the future. You can and should do both SEO and social. The REAL DATA shows that clearly. It also shows that for TARGETED traffic nothing presently comes close to matching search engines.

        People advocating that you should stop SEO/linkbuilding because they have some fantasy that Google is about to tumble out of delivering huge targeted traffic are being silly. They are trying to position themselves as the new angry I-be-going-social-since-I-can't-rank guru for the next WSO, launch or service and are only going to waste the dollars of thsoe who hire them or buy their products or services.
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        • Profile picture of the author Backlinko
          Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post


          People advocating that you should stop SEO/linkbuilding because they have some fantasy that Google is about to tumble out of the delivering huge target traffic are being silly. They are trying to position themselves as the new fad for the next WSO, launch or service and are only going to waste the dollars of thsoe who hire them or buy their products or services.
          To add to that, Moz came out with their correlation study yesterday.

          And guess what?

          Despite the INSANE amount of chatter about social signals, authorship and co-citations -- LINKS -- made up 40% of the ranking correlations.

          Google is doing fine and SEO is business as usual. The rules haven't changed a bit. Yes, the algo is always in flux but it's still the same basic framework circa 1998: links and on-page content rank sites.
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          • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
            Originally Posted by Backlinko View Post

            To add to that, Moz came out with their correlation study yesterday.

            And guess what?

            Despite the INSANE amount of chatter about social signals, authorship and co-citations -- LINKS -- made up 40% of the ranking correlations.

            Google is doing fine and SEO is business as usual. The rules haven't changed a bit. Yes, the algo is always in flux but it's still the same basic framework circa 1998: links and on-page content rank sites.
            Moz came out with a muddled mess of a 'study' that was actually based on how SEOs feel about the subject. Even the guy who wrote up that travesty on Moz.com admitted correlation does not equal causation. In other words, 'we don't have a clue' what any of this means.

            It's only 'business as usual' for people who have their heads buried in the sand. But I'll tell you one thing, I saw your Google Head commenting on Google+ about that very article. Obviously you're not ignoring the trend completely because you're so convinced that things are going to stay the same forever.

            The web is a place of enormous changes - ones that happen rapidly when tastes change. Yes, Google search is still a very big deal, but the signs of the decline of the peak of search are everywhere. People didn't want to believe the 'Peak Oil Theory' in the 70's either, until they were lining up to buy gas from Iran.

            And while we're on the subject: "The Rules" also known as the Google Webmaster Guidelines have CHANGED. They have dramatically altered their rules many times in the last few years. I guess you missed out on the whole 'there's almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your rankings' controversy last year and the 'build quality sites' from 'build quality links' this year. That recent on just happened on June 19th..

            Previously, the article had a line that read:

            In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages.
            We've bolded the key part, which was changed on May 27th to say:

            In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by creating high-quality sites that users will want to use and share.

            So yeah, actually the rules have changed. What hasn't changed is the rhetoric. That's a huge change. Build a quality site and not links - straight from the horse's mouth.
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            • Profile picture of the author Backlinko
              Originally Posted by PerformanceMan View Post


              It's only 'business as usual' for people who have their heads buried in the sand. But I'll tell you one thing, I saw your Google Head commenting on Google+ about that very article. Obviously you're not ignoring the trend completely because you're so convinced that things are going to stay the same forever.
              Yes my handsome Google+ head was commenting on it yesterday.

              Why?

              Because I think Google+ followers is important for traffic and may be a future ranking signal.

              I don't feel threatened by the changes in the algorithm. As you said, they're inevitable.

              Your problem is that for you, there's no grey area. Links/SEO are totally "dead" instead of "less important".

              Or instead of building spammy link pyramids, we shouldn't start doing email outreach or switch things up a bit...we should kill the whole idea of link building.

              I'm not sure how anyone can do well in business with such a limited outlook on things.
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              • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
                Originally Posted by Backlinko View Post

                Yes my handsome Google+ head was commenting on it yesterday.

                Why?

                Because I think Google+ followers is important for traffic and may be a future ranking signal.

                I don't feel threatened by the changes in the algorithm. As you said, they're inevitable.

                Your problem is that for you, there's no grey area. Links/SEO are totally "dead" instead of "less important".

                Or instead of building spammy link pyramids, we shouldn't start doing email outreach or switch things up a bit...we should kill the whole idea of link building.

                I'm not sure how anyone can do well in business with such a limited outlook on things.
                There are plenty of gray areas as far as I'm concerned.

                I never once said 'links are dead.' To me they are, but not to everyone else. I personally feel like the time spent link building could be spent on many other areas of marketing, and that's what I'm doing. I don't expect anyone to follow what I'm doing and I only post to Warrior Forum for the conversation.

                That said, most forms of link building are completely dead. The few areas that aren't yet, will be soon enough. And there's no doubt Google is compiling the data necessary to boost social signals right now. As always, they'll release their new version of search with no warning. People who have relied on link building only will feel the pain. Those who have expanded into various other areas will weather the storm.

                There's no harm in thinking ahead - especially if things are going well for you now.
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            • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
              Do you even know how to make a good point? A change in wording is no policy change. Trying selling the newbs that google has ever wanted people to get high quality links to lousy content. The entire premise of things like pagerank is that high authority sites would link to other noteworthy sites. The only difference in what you cited was a difference on emphasis in the wording.

              You are getting nearly (but not quite) to the same logic where you declared yesterday Google would penalize all sites that pass PR in contextual links.



              Originally Posted by PerformanceMan View Post

              Previously, the article had a line that read:

              In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages.
              We've bolded the key part, which was changed on May 27th to say:

              In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by creating high-quality sites that users will want to use and share.

              So yeah, actually the rules have changed. What hasn't changed is the rhetoric. That's a huge change. Build a quality site and not links - straight from the horse's mouth.
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              • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
                Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

                Do you even know how to make a good point? A change in wording is no policy change. Trying selling the newbs that google has ever wanted people to get high quality links to lousy content. The entire premise of things like pagerank is that high authority sites would link to other noteworthy sites. The only difference in what you cited was a difference on emphasis in the wording.

                You are getting nearly (but not quite) to the same logic where you declared yesterday Google would penalize all sites that pass PR in contextual links.
                'The Quan' has added another of his zero content posts

                Was your second sentence there even in English? If it was, it was barely legible. Anywho, back to class...

                There's a complete emphasis on 'different wording' AKA a guideline change! They changed it. They don't want you to get 'quality links' any more. They want you to build a quality site. Google, unlike you, doesn't just talk for the sake of hearing their own voice. When they change their Guidelines, it matters.

                There is no reason that anyone in 2013 is advocating 'building links' as a primary marketing tactic. In fact, those people with 'great sites' are having no trouble building their brands and readership using social media. They don't need search to do it.

                The people who are attracted to 'link building' as evidenced by many of the posters here, do not have quality websites. They're hoping to inflate their link popularity in order to fool Google into thinking their page is somehow better than it is.

                That's all you advocate as well. Build a network of blogs and link them to your money page. What's implied there is that your 'money page' is nothing special and requires a whole network of expired domains to make it look worthwhile. I think it may be worth it for people who are starting sites in 2013 to forget this type of idea and focus on making a great site and marketing it directly to their target audience.

                Start with higher quality and link building is not nearly as important. The quality of your social connections matter just as much. This way you can build authority naturally and avoid link penalties, which are common.

                That's my point in a nutshell. I didn't say anyone has to stop link building, but it probably should not be their primary technique for promotion, especially with poor website quality.
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                • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
                  Originally Posted by PerformanceMan View Post

                  '[I]
                  There's a complete emphasis on 'different wording' AKA a guideline change! They changed it. They don't want you to get 'quality links' any more. They want you to build a quality site.
                  Yes oh mighty mushroom. Google just decided recently they wanted you to build a quality site. :rolleyes:. They just decided that they don't want just links :rolleyes:

                  In fact, those people with 'great sites' are having no trouble building their brands and readership using social media. They don't need search to do it.
                  LOL...Okay we will just ignore that the study YOU referenced in your OP states the sites in the study get most of their traffic from search. Anything to pretend your point has any facts behind them

                  The people who are attracted to 'link building' as evidenced by many of the posters here, do not have quality websites.
                  Yes that is why fortune 500 companies have hired SEOs to do link building, (some unfortunately like JC Penney who hired the wrong ones a couple years back) because they all do not have "quality websites". :rolleyes:

                  That's all you advocate as well.
                  Stop your bare faced lying. The regulars here know I have talked about having quality sites more than you. I've even gone to the point of saying that adsense AS A BUSINESS MODEL perpetuates crappy sites which Yukon and others have not liked me saying at all.

                  Build a network of blogs and link them to your money page. What's implied there is that your 'money page' is nothing special and requires a whole network of expired domains to make it look worthwhile
                  Well lets see now. I don't do SEO for MFA or affiliate sites (turn them away every week) and almost all my clients (I say almost because I can't think of any but who knows?) are real businesses with pretty decent sites. So umm your "implied" is as usual total babbling nonsense. Now do they or I subscribe to the fairy tale that if you build it they will come in SEO? Nope.


                  I think it may be worth it for people who are starting sites in 2013 to forget this type of idea and focus on making a great site and marketing it directly to their target audience.
                  I think its just silly to ignore the number one site in the world and the only kind of free organic traffic that is targeted. Backlinko said it best

                  "'I'm not sure how anyone can do well in business with such a limited outlook on things."

                  Start with higher quality and link building is not nearly as important.
                  Yes because Google has invented an online magnet. Wherever there is a site with great content it draws links automatically to it no matter whether people know it is there or not. Or is it if you put a site up on social networks the webmaster's of top authority sites just link to it?

                  That's my point in a nutshell. I didn't say anyone has to stop link building,
                  In this thread? No in other places however you have definitely said they should top building links
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  • Profile picture of the author PBScott
    A few more should be on the list, but probably more to the bottom than the top.

    1 Google's traffic is down
    2 More users are using do not track
    3 Google has become more accurate. (My conversion % has gone up)
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    • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
      Originally Posted by PBScott View Post

      A few more should be on the list, but probably more to the bottom than the top.

      1 Google's traffic is down
      2 More users are using do not track
      3 Google has become more accurate. (My conversion % has gone up)
      Number 3 is interesting to me. Has it been a dramatic increase? When did it start?
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      • Profile picture of the author PBScott
        Originally Posted by PerformanceMan View Post

        Number 3 is interesting to me. Has it been a dramatic increase? When did it start?
        It started with the first Penguin, which although it devastated our traffic overall, and our sales, the closing ratio of the visitors we did get almost doubled.

        I came to the conclusion the visitors we lost were due to low quality links that had been devalued by Google. Of course it is always a mystery, but that is what I feel was the most likely for us.

        ** On another note maybe due to my customers having to actually click on "Visit Website" in image search these days, maybe they were just more determined in the first place, I used to load the webpage in the background with a redirect previously.
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  • Profile picture of the author paulgl
    It can't be 30% less space. That's ridiculous.
    it's the same amount of space that 10 organic results have
    always taken. 30% less space, overall, but that's misleading.

    They have expanded to include more stuff, but that means the
    page expanded as well. They did not shrink organic to make more
    room. They made more room.

    Sure, it takes up less space now that the page has expanded.

    One thing people forget is apps. Most major websites, like huffington,
    offer apps. Naturally your organic might shrink. And some major
    websites, like WSJ, do not offer more than a few free peaks, so
    what good is organic search in that case when people get a
    signup page?

    Google is expanding with the times. Why aren't webmasters?

    Google could care less about the average webmaster. Never have,
    never will. Will people ever get over this?

    Google's traffic is not down. It's steady. Yahoo's is down, bing up.
    Google own's mobile search.

    That mobile is probably one reason why even though they were flat,
    their market share of search, actually grew.

    Let's not let facts get in the way.

    Paul
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  • Profile picture of the author Kevin Maguire
    YAY for deconstructing and squishing of wannabe online marketers.

    Google changing the rules dramatically and often
    When was the last rule change? Their rules to me haven't changed a bit since their founding.

    Do No Evil
    Do not build sites to mislead, defraud or harm people.
    Do not build and maintain BS sites in general. (The real meaning of updating content)
    Do not build backlinks for the sole purpose of manipulating our Algo.
    Do not Spam
    Do not Hack

    Have I missed something they added, or took away from my abridged version?

    For years, business owners have relied heavily on Google to generate online sales or inquiries.
    That's a very big assumption.

    They danced the Google dance. They did what Google wanted. They invested heavily in SEO, either financially or by pouring their valuable time into making their site the way Google wanted it.

    And it worked. Consistently.

    Then something happened!

    Google decided to change the rules dramatically and regularly. Suddenly, what worked, no longer worked. What was once within Google's guidelines, was suddenly outside their guidelines. It's causing a lot of small business owners a lot of pain, as they fall lower and lower down the rankings.
    The only dancing they did, Was the day they danced around with their wallets open, throwing money at nickle and dime Link builders (Not SEO consultants) East of Istanbul.
    I dropped a $5k a month client last year. When He so happily informed me, that He had just spent $6.5k on Fiverr Gigs in 4 days. Just to help me out. He was 5th for probably one of the most competitive terms on the planet. He's now 1234532344309th for that term.
    See my rules above to find out what He did wrong, while He "Danced The Dance".

    The best SEO experts are starting to figure out how to work with the new search engine landscape. If you can't afford the best, it may be some time before the rest of the SEO industry catch up.
    The "Best", don't need to figure out anything. They have not lost so much as a Gay Porn Midget in monthly UV volume. What worked 5 years ago, still works today.
    See my rules above to find out what worked 5 years ago and still today.

    Google has made your organic search results less visible
    At the same time as Google changed the way it ranks sites, it made those sites that do rank, harder for prospective customers to find.

    How?

    By burying your organic search results below an increasing number of Google ads. Now, for many valuable search terms, your prospective customers will see a page full of ads from your competitors, BEFORE they see your organic search results. All the results in the screen below are paid ads.

    For instance: On my MacBook Pro, I needed to scroll down the screen, past ELEVEN paid ads, to see the first organic search result!
    Another big assumption based on a single keyword search. Sure enough, Google have increased Ad placement numbers over the years. But not only is this move a 0 numbers game. But long term, it will probably turn out to be their very own self destruct button. Turning themselves into, what could only be described as a "Paid Website Directory" rather than a "Search Engine". Will undoubtedly lead users away from Google altogether.

    When every website with commercial intent, Is forced to use Adwords, as their only means of accessing traffic from Google. The Adwords competition and ROI will simply become too high. And business owners will quickly move away. This will mark the end of the road for Google as an advertising medium. Hows that for an assumption of my own?

    he third change: Google sends less traffic to sites than before
    The third change, is that Google search may be becoming less relevant with fewer people using it. Google search traffic could be 30% down on last year, according to a huge study!

    This report from buzzfeed looked at Google search traffic to leading sites, including: The Huffington Post, The Daily Mail, Newsweek, Time, Sports Illustrated and Rolling Stone. In total, the sites it tracked have a readership of 300 million. That's a lot of data. They found that between August 2012 and March 2013, search traffic from Google nosedived an incredible 30%. That's a huge drop in such a short time.
    WOW 300 MILLIONS. That' like 1..2...3.. Well it's alot of people. But hardly something, I could base God's existence on. I would really need to look at this data, to get a better idea.

    Web pages, websites, and web hosting
    634 million - Number of websites (December).
    51 million - Number of websites added during the year.
    43% - Share of the top 1 million websites that are hosted in the U.S.
    48% - Share of the the top 100 blogs that run WordPress.
    75% - Share of the top 10,000 websites that are served by open source software.
    87.8 million - Number of Tumblr blogs.
    17.8 billion - Number of page views for Tumblr.
    59.4 million - Number of WordPress sites around the world.
    3.5 billion - Number of webpages run by WordPress viewed each month.
    37 billion - Number of pageviews for Reddit.com in 2012.
    35% - The average web page became this much larger during 2012.
    4% - The average web page became this much slower to load during 2012.
    191 million - Number of visitors to Google Sites, the number 1 web property in the U.S. in November.

    Internet 2012 in numbers

    Not to mention that the sites they took the stats from, probably have a huge and daily growing amount of "bookmarked" traffic, and not "Search Traffic". They are News sites right? I like my daily news Bookmarked, Don't you?

    I've left out the rest. Because it's been an hour since my last smoke, and I'm itching.
    To summarize it for anyone.

    It's all BS from some wannabe SEO, Trying to sell new social IM to guys who got toasted by Panda, Penguin. Selling more BS to the already burned victims.
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    • Profile picture of the author online only
      Originally Posted by Kevin Maguire View Post

      When was the last rule change? Their rules to me haven't changed a bit since their founding.

      Do No Evil
      Do not build sites to mislead, defraud or harm people.
      Do not build and maintain BS sites in general. (The real meaning of updating content)
      Do not build backlinks for the sole purpose of manipulating our Algo.
      Do not Spam
      Do not Hack
      This should be "must read" and sticky post before people start making threads like:

      "OMG GOOGLE DESTROYED MY SITE FFFUUUU"
      "HOW TO BUILD BACKLINKS"
      "SITE VANISHED FROM SERPS... WHAT NEXT?"
      etc.
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      • Profile picture of the author Kevin Maguire
        Originally Posted by online only View Post

        This should be "must read" and sticky post before people start making threads like:

        "OMG GOOGLE DESTROYED MY SITE FFFUUUU"
        "HOW TO BUILD BACKLINKS"
        "SITE VANISHED FROM SERPS... WHAT NEXT?"
        etc.
        And, I didn't add one damn meme
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    • Profile picture of the author freelanceronline
      Originally Posted by Kevin Maguire View Post

      YAY for deconstructing and squishing of wannabe online marketers.



      When was the last rule change? Their rules to me haven't changed a bit since their founding.

      Do No Evil
      Do not build sites to mislead, defraud or harm people.
      Do not build and maintain BS sites in general. (The real meaning of updating content)
      Do not build backlinks for the sole purpose of manipulating our Algo.
      Do not Spam
      Do not Hack

      Have I missed something they added, or took away from my abridged version?



      That's a very big assumption.



      The only dancing they did, Was the day they danced around with their wallets open, throwing money at nickle and dime Link builders (Not SEO consultants) East of Istanbul.
      I dropped a $5k a month client last year. When He so happily informed me, that He had just spent $6.5k on Fiverr Gigs in 4 days. Just to help me out. He was 5th for probably one of the most competitive terms on the planet. He's now 1234532344309th for that term.
      See my rules above to find out what He did wrong, while He "Danced The Dance".



      The "Best", don't need to figure out anything. They have not lost so much as a Gay Porn Midget in monthly UV volume. What worked 5 years ago, still works today.
      See my rules above to find out what worked 5 years ago and still today.



      Another big assumption based on a single keyword search. Sure enough, Google have increased Ad placement numbers over the years. But not only is this move a 0 numbers game. But long term, it will probably turn out to be their very own self destruct button. Turning themselves into, what could only be described as a "Paid Website Directory" rather than a "Search Engine". Will undoubtedly lead users away from Google altogether.

      When every website with commercial intent, Is forced to use Adwords, as their only means of accessing traffic from Google. The Adwords competition and ROI will simply become too high. And business owners will quickly move away. This will mark the end of the road for Google as an advertising medium. Hows that for an assumption of my own?



      WOW 300 MILLIONS. That' like 1..2...3.. Well it's alot of people. But hardly something, I could base God's existence on. I would really need to look at this data, to get a better idea.

      Web pages, websites, and web hosting
      634 million - Number of websites (December).
      51 million - Number of websites added during the year.
      43% - Share of the top 1 million websites that are hosted in the U.S.
      48% - Share of the the top 100 blogs that run WordPress.
      75% - Share of the top 10,000 websites that are served by open source software.
      87.8 million - Number of Tumblr blogs.
      17.8 billion - Number of page views for Tumblr.
      59.4 million - Number of WordPress sites around the world.
      3.5 billion - Number of webpages run by WordPress viewed each month.
      37 billion - Number of pageviews for Reddit.com in 2012.
      35% - The average web page became this much larger during 2012.
      4% - The average web page became this much slower to load during 2012.
      191 million - Number of visitors to Google Sites, the number 1 web property in the U.S. in November.

      Internet 2012 in numbers

      Not to mention that the sites they took the stats from, probably have a huge and daily growing amount of "bookmarked" traffic, and not "Search Traffic". They are News sites right? I like my daily news Bookmarked, Don't you?

      I've left out the rest. Because it's been an hour since my last smoke, and I'm itching.
      To summarize it for anyone.

      It's all BS from some wannabe SEO, Trying to sell new social IM to guys who got toasted by Panda, Penguin. Selling more BS to the already burned victims.
      I appreciate your Effort on explaining such briefly.
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  • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
    Organic search declined for the first time officially October of last year. See Forbes for details.

    Notably, total core organic searches declined 4 percent y/y, representing the first decline in total search volume since we began tracking the data in 2006. While this month marks the first y/y decline in total search volume, growth rates have been decelerating since February's recent peak at 14 percent y/y growth (for the prior two years, growth rates were largely stable in the high single-digit to low double-digit range).

    That's a decline in the number of people searching. Couple that with a decline in the number of referrers Google is sending and UH - you get a decline!

    With search declining and social increasing, why exactly wouldn't marketers focus more on social going forward?

    Social is a perfectly legit way to find new clients, where they exist. That's just good common sense.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Every time someone mentions moz & SEO in the same comment, a possum dies.

    Ooops,





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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      Dude I have been meaning to tell you. Leave the images to Kevin Maguire. Your images aren't funny. They are just creepy.
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      • Profile picture of the author paulgl
        The Ronald McDonald image was the best, as far as ROTFLMAO funny...

        Anyone else live in So Cal? Famer Boys is introducing one creepy
        looking scarecrow...



        I know. Way off topic...sorry.

        Paul
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

        Dude I have been meaning to tell you. Leave the images to Kevin Maguire. Your images aren't funny. They are just creepy.
        Your just sucking up to moz, you'll get over it (maybe).





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        • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
          Dude like I said

          Your images?

          Boring.

          You have the whole Internets with billions of images and thats the best you can do?
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          • Profile picture of the author yukon
            Banned
            Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

            Dude like I said

            Your images?

            Boring.

            You have the whole Internets with billions of images and thats the best you can do?


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  • Profile picture of the author RedShifted
    The title should read "If You Suck At Google I Will Pretend To Know Why You Suck".

    My traffic has done nothing but increase over the last few months. If your traffic is decreasing, you're not good at SEO. You're not good at converting visitors. So find someone who can do it for you or STFU.

    What else can really be said?
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  • Profile picture of the author Pawprints34
    Oh my goodness! All this arguing!

    I can only comment on my personal situation.

    I am an Australian business owner (dog grooming business) in the largest city outside of a capital city in Australia. So I have a real world business (not BS internet marketing or weight loss affiliate or something) and I am not big business, just an average tradesperson type gal.

    I am ranking Number 2 on Google (behind yellow pages) and my phone rings off the hook. It didn't before my site hit #5 on the first page. I am sitting above the Google Adwords lite ads from my competitors but it was an easy rank as my competition here has no idea about Google search.

    I also have a Facebook page that gets some attention but I haven't pushed it much. I know of another groomer in another town that says she has built up a Facebook following and it works well for her to get new customers and send messages to her existing customers so I know it can work.

    Me personally, I wouldn't ask my Facebook friends for a recommendation for a dentist, groomer, whatever as from what I've seen on Facebook people seem to say anything and everything. I even had someone comment on my services that were not even a customer of mine so how can these be genuine trustworthy recommendations? But some people will believe them.

    So the jury is out for me whether Facebook is the way to go to build up a following. Will they be good customers that will spend money with my business? Remains to be seen. I am not fully convinced as yet. I suspect maybe the answer to that is no. The people I personally know who hang out on Facebook all day and all night are a bit odd ball IMO

    Anyway that is an answer from a genuine real world business owner whose bread and butter of business enquiries still relies on Google search and it is going well. I know anything can happen in the world of search but it has saved spending a fortune on committing to a contract with Yellow Pages for a digital listing with them to be on a page with 15 other businesses. They wanted $100 per month and committment to a 12 month contract! I have't spent anywhere near $100 ranking my website.

    What does the future hold? Am I putting all my eggs in one basket? Who knows....

    But right now Google search gives me the most profitable leads and cost very little of my time and money to rank. I may be a special case being in such a low competition niche that is isolated from the effect of big players. There are no Walmarts in the dog grooming world.

    That is just my take on things from the average tradie perspective.
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    • Profile picture of the author NewbieLifer
      Pawprints34- If you have a business with a physical address, it is VERY easy to rank on the first page of Google. I do it for multiple businesses in my area & they show up on there within a week. It is however very difficult to show up well in search results if you don't have a local brick & mortar business. To rank nation-wide for certain keywords on subject matter, rather than a local business is very difficult. Since you have a local business, related to my niche (dog grooming), I wanted to urge you to try the Facebook method. It is a high converting option. I have about a dozen free tips for groomers that want to use facebook to get more clients if you want to explore it. They are on the Facebook tab of my website at GroomersSocialMedia dot com.
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  • Profile picture of the author Pawprints34
    Thanks Newbielifr .... I will check it out.

    While I am a mobile groomer I listed my home address so I can have a brick and mortar address. Yes it is easier to rank this way which is why I did it

    I have even thought of coming up with a directory style site for my home town listing tradespeople here because I know I could rank all the tradie keywords easily and I have a physical address here I can quote. I could either monitize it with Adsense or banner ads or offer paid listings in my directory because I know how much a top listing in Google has actually helped my business in terms of real dollars and I'm hoping as something so low competition and so local I would be more immune to nasty Google animals as there just isn't much else as far as competition?
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    • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
      Originally Posted by Pawprints34 View Post

      Thanks Newbielifr .... I will check it out.

      While I am a mobile groomer I listed my home address so I can have a brick and mortar address. Yes it is easier to rank this way which is why I did it

      I have even thought of coming up with a directory style site for my home town listing tradespeople here because I know I could rank all the tradie keywords easily and I have a physical address here I can quote. I could either monitize it with Adsense or banner ads or offer paid listings in my directory because I know how much a top listing in Google has actually helped my business in terms of real dollars and I'm hoping as something so low competition and so local I would be more immune to nasty Google animals as there just isn't much else as far as competition?
      Yelp and Manta are way ahead of you unfortunately. Their directories get premium placement in Google search.
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      • Profile picture of the author Pawprints34
        Originally Posted by PerformanceMan View Post

        Yelp and Manta are way ahead of you unfortunately. Their directories get premium placement in Google search.
        I'm afraid I can't agree with that. I am Number #2 for my keywords (could easily take number 1 but just haven't pursued it as I don't know whether my business could handle the customer volume).

        Yelp is no-where to be found on the first page and neither is Manta. None of my competitors have a Yelp listing on the first page either.

        Maybe so for other keywords but not in my particular case (and for alot of other tradie type keywords for my town.... I've been researching them as I'm thinking of putting together a directory of tradies for my town).
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        • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
          Originally Posted by Pawprints34 View Post

          I'm afraid I can't agree with that. I am Number #2 for my keywords (could easily take number 1 but just haven't pursued it as I don't know whether my business could handle the customer volume).

          Yelp is no-where to be found on the first page and neither is Manta. None of my competitors have a Yelp listing on the first page either.

          Maybe so for other keywords but not in my particular case (and for alot of other tradie type keywords for my town.... I've been researching them as I'm thinking of putting together a directory of tradies for my town).
          I meant they're way ahead of you in developing a local directory. They have scraped every business listing around and many appear in searches for company names.
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  • Profile picture of the author nik0
    Banned
    Originally Posted by PerformanceMan View Post

    2) Organic search traffic is down 30% according to one major study!

    What are your thoughts?
    That's still 70% left.

    And that's a lot of money when you translate it to Adwords Clicks.
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  • Profile picture of the author smodha
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    I Sell What People Want. The Money Is A Bonus..
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  • Profile picture of the author patco
    Google updates so often those important RANKING factors... So I don't think with ONE SEO strategy we would be able to be up to date. Until today I changed my strategy about 3-4 times to keep up with the updates
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