Scary, Google may destroy anyone online business just overnight

Hi King444, apart the fact I'm completely in accord with TheBlogger comment, I can just advising you to build the site not based on Google traffic, but with all the services that are born around it.

Think for example about the power of social, including social media, social networks and social bookmarking. Then there is Squidoo, Hubpages, Alexa, other search engines like Bing and Yahoo just to name the best two.
Then you can count also on paid to click for advertising your site.

Don't be scared about Google, it follows its rules, but everything could be arranged.
Also I got two websites banned, but after showing I was the owner of original copyright I got them relisted in first place, with copies removed.

Anyway, it's great to build websites using the top of different platforms.

See you soon,
Alessandro Zamboni

I used to love the concept of SEO. Fighting for 10 spots out of hundreds to thousands to millions of competitors is just not what I want to spend my days doing no matter how many tools I have.

This is exactly why you need to develop your traffic from sources other than Google. Any search engine can tweak their algorithms and overnight your traffic vanishes.

The best way to lessen your dependence on Google for traffic is to use article marketing in its true sense and build a list of niche relevant syndication partners. They will send you hoards of buying visitors.

The only people who will be destroyed by Google will be those who put all of their eggs in the Google SEO basket.

The future is just PPC - You know it, I know it, Google knows it and Google it's working to achieve THAT goal.

They want money, we want targeted traffic. PPC is the answer.

The price of traffic will increase for those non-seo businesses if Google traffic were to dry up.

Even the stable list builder types will be effected. The money is in the back end of the list (repeat buyers) and the front end (freshest leads) with a stale middle. When the freshest leads supply dries up all that will be left is the back end.

Of course there are going to be some new strategies, as well as revisited classic traffic tactics. if such a blow were to be delivered. I seriously doubt the sky is falling.

Google might want everyone to click on their adds, however the problem they are facing is that there are people out there that want to get add free results. When Google started that was the focus. Trying to find a way to organize the content on the web in an easy way to find.

Now lately they have made the add results on the top page look very similar to the SEO results. What is to stop the difference to disappear?

The challenge of internet marketers is the same regardless of what changes are coming: Make sure you have a diversified traffic strategy.

Also, Google might be the giant today, however if they grow out of efficiency, better alternatives will come and fight for market-share.

That's why you can't rely solely on Google for your traffic. Use forum signatures, forum Buy/Sell sections, solo ads, targeted banner ads, etc.

I personally think that in the next few years we're going to see a HUGE increase in people taking traffic from Social Networks seriously.

Google was for the past decade... The next decade will be social networks... Unfortunately for Google, I feel the Google+ Network is a FLOP... A BIG ONE!

The Google Network (the Search Network and the Display Network) reaches more than 80% of Internet users. Via Wikipedia: the number of monthly unique visitors to Google surpassed 1 billion in May 2011.

Referral traffic doesn't even begin to compare (take a look at your own google analytics to see).

Well, then we have video. We're on to video this year, full speed, and I am amazed how fast Youtube conquered the world. Seriously!

I believe Google will go down at some point, they are trying to push their Google+ BS because they are afraid of Facebook creating their search engine, imagine if Facebook will have a search engine that is available if you go to facebook.com without registration or if you r signed in to your account you will see the search box...

I see Facebook doing that sometime soon and I believe that will hit Google big time, since users would prefer a site that can provide everything.. why go to Google if I can do it from facebook?

this is why i always say you need to have a google proof business

theres nothing wrong with building some niche and affiliate sites for income but for heaven sake dont just keep doing it and think just because your good at it keep doing it

a sales funnel with a list of customers is the best way to go with an authority blog to attract traffic. And as some of you guys say above, its true, try and get referral traffic and social traffic too

be a bit diverse with your traffic and then if the clowns over at google make some more seemingly stupid updates to there algo you will not lose any sleep over it if you were happen to get hit

paul

The sky is falling. :rolleyes:

Don't have all your eggs in the same basket... branch out and do some PPC and Social Marketing.

Regardless, I still make bank from Google. I also have 3 adsense accounts just incase one does get the dreaded message!

Fear Fear Fear! Be Afraid! The World is Ending!

One word: Adapt.

After I learned my lesson this last summer, no matter how "bad" things get - YOU decide your success.

Not Google.

Not PayPal.

Not even the FTC.

Rob

You still have Bing and Yahoo that you can optimize for. Plus, you should be using a wide variety of marketing strategies anyway in your business... just in case Google does run you out of business.

According to the stats provided by Google, their site is only one of billions of sites on the web.

I am always blown away by people who can only see Google in the traffic equation...

Skate to where the puck is GOING to be, not where it is now.

Even though we slowly (or already have) begun to hate Google for the way they are handling things and for their direction of totally dominating the internet, we still can't deny how it has helped millions of people earn money as well as helped many consumers find what they want.

Seeing this though, we can't reverse this trend because once you get into internet marketing, ALMOST everything revolves around SERPs.

If history has taught us anything, is that monopolies do not last. They get taken down either through internal dissent or govt actions.

Remember Microsoft many years back? Same domination by Google, but it will not last, you can take it to the bank.

Yes, and then we'll live happily ever after. :rolleyes:

How is a Google penalty any different than major construction on a busy intersection that a brick and mortar business relies upon? It's NOT!

As a business-person you need to learn how to adapt, sometimes on the fly. Google penalties are rarely forever, and even then, there are other ways to find traffic. In this analogy, say the brick and mortar business needs to move locations.

Far fetched? Not really. I've seen city streets under construction for months! How do you think that effects the businesses that line the street? About the same way it does when your site is penalized within Google.

Running a business is a scary thing. This is why most can't run a successful business. Because they are scared of the "what ifs."

Successful business people don't bother themselves with the "what ifs," they simply plan ahead and look to their contingency plan if a "what if" occurs.

How is Google any different than this website? There are hundreds of business owners that create products and services specifically for users on this forum. What happens when it goes down? That's right, they lose traffic and potential sales.

So should we just come out and say that the WF could destroy your business over night? Puh-leeze.

That is why you should work on 2 things:
*Making as much money as you can from what's working now.
*Building a real solid website that gives real value. ebay will survive any google algorithm change...

If your business all from network, it's really terrible

Reality check:

If someone is saying 'Google destroyed my business' he's should quickly add:

'Oh, I didn't build a business in the first place - I relied on Google to do that for me. Nice they sent free traffic for years, I probably have nothing to complain about.'

:-)

Google can only destroy your business if you let it. If one was running an off-line business one wouldn't rely on just one supplier. That is really all google is - a supplier. For example, if you ran a Pizza Shop on wouldn't just rely on one supplier for getting something vital, like for example flour. You would know if the guy selling you flour went out of business you could buy it elsewhere.

In internet marketing that vital ingredient to our success is traffic. Google and the other search engines supply tons of traffic, but it is just one supplier. In order to stay successful in the long run you need to have redundant traffic sources. A good mix between referrals, social media etc.

And still to this day I believe the best tool your business can have is a mailing list - if you own your own list there is nobody who can deprive you of sales.

If your profit only relies in SERP and SERP alone without gaining loyal clients because of the quality of your service/products then I guess that's not considered a legit business.

"The Google I was passionate about was a technology company that empowered its employees to innovate. The Google I left was an advertising company with a single corporate-mandated focus."

That's just sad to read. I was just watching a video hours ago of how things are at a Google headquarters and I thought, "Wow! These people really love working there!" It was just like an employee paradise. By the by, let's not rely too much on ranking on Google. There are many different ways. Learn new things and adapt to changes. Survival tip 101.

After being online for five years, there is one thing that is certain! All things online change and they change often.

Don't put all of your eggs in Google, Amazon or anything else but diversify your online presence and then you can sleep at night!

-Chris

P.S. The only people here who are effected by Googles actions are those who are silly enough to make themselves dependent on them in the first place.

Syndication ftw!

if we use other network like FB, google, twitter, etc we have that risk, the safest one is building our list and then grow our business online and offline

George O is back to haunt you all! 1984

Regardless of the soothsayer opinions, at the end of the day, if your business is crap and you have built it around crap, the big G will eventually dump it anyway!

IF you are going to rely on web input, mix it 50% with NO web input, that way, if your website gets shot like a little bunny in the dark, at least you can still trade!

Remember G started in 1998, the web was around 18+ years before that (in various forms!) and calling people on the phone has been around since the late 19th Century!

Just do not put all your duck eggs in one basket!

I guess that just means don't depend your whole life on google. Big G is good for additional source of traffic or biz, but if you have multiple sources and treat it as just one stem, then no worries.

Yes it's scary if you think of it. But as an entrepreneur, big company like google is a big opportunity to begin with. Why scared if you get money from them? You should thank them for making such a good search engine.

Google is getting crappier. For SEO's that means we are going to have to fight it. But it's been like this for years.

They are more of an advertising company than a search engine nowadays. Get used to it. You don't like it? Use Bing.

It more important than ever to not put all your eggs in the Google basket for sure. I have already started looking for alternative things to Google and to You Tube. I don't like giving anyone that much control over my money. We will have to be well rounded in many ways to make it.

Heres the deal I believe in yes of course you should build a list google cant take that away... But thats not really what you are talking about is it.. So here is my take ...Offer up quality content .. Structure your site in a very SEO white hat way and then build quality backlinks don't link spam , and guess what ... Your site is not coming down. I hear all of this fear crap about google and that ...Hmmm not one of my sites have ever been penalized for anything why?? I do things accordingly its very simple

I think google policies of showing results has been changed completely. Now google is only focusing on earning money and its every algorithm change brings new problems for webmasters.

I think that the reason why Google would ever take down a website is only mainly they find out that the content featured on the webmasters site is crappy. I mean lets face it, aren't we all turned off by the lack of quality content featured on a website? Those are the sites in my opinion the ones that Google slaps without warning. I hope this helps

Basically, if you make sure that the content you put out there is for the benefit of your potential customers and legit, you don't have to worry about Google. Now if you site/blog is full of farm content and duplicate stuff, you'd better worry about Google and if this were the case, most likely such sites would nowhere to be found anymore on Google.

But also, as it was mentioned above, referrals is a very important part of the business, online as much as any other businesses. Google is not our only source of traffic. Thanks goodness J

Yes it is scaring but Google is not everything to depend on for traffic. There are other sources that can be utilized in a better way. We are worried because we are only talking about traffic from A Search Engine that is leading one. We should look for other sources as well.

This just goes to show that you shouldn't rely on SEO for your main source of traffic. One algorithm change could mean dropping multiple pages in ranking overnight.

For sure, it is real, many business destroy after Google panda. If we depend our whole traffic on Google, we may get big lose.

tried PPC with Google Adwords and eventually got banned by the big G....for violating TOC's. No warning but hey that's business. Now I choose to take my business elsewhere and am diversifying my whole business operation so that it has NO reliance on Google.

I'm gradually moving more of my business to be more social media orientated...so I will be at least somewhat prepared when G totally flips da script on the SERPS.

Not only Google. The problem is over dependency on single company or single asset. It could always bring bad news if you are dependent on anything 'Single' and you don't have any alternatives.

Same is the case for Google also. If anyone is 'only' dependent on Google, he is inviting danger.

I mainly deal in ppc ads and I have stopped dealing with google adwords a long time ago.

I understand everyone is going crazy for google`s changes that can ruin someones business, but shouldn`t we continue SEO irregardless? I mean, this is been known in order for you to do well in general.

Whittaker has a book coming out shortly so the timing of his letter is suspicious. He is going from Google, back to Microsoft (not sure if that is a good move) and as far as Google is concerned his main issue is that it is becoming more professional, making money so he can be paid (he may want to get back to the real world) - anyway his main quibble is that his own passion has changed, it happens.

I doubt social networking will ever replace Google.

I mean when you research for topics your friends have no clue about... you SEARCH for it.

When you want to chat and have fun, you go Facebooking.

But for SERIOUS things, you don't ask your friends because most of the time they don't know...

Doesnt DARPA and the U.S. dept of defence pretty much run google anyway?

I believe a good rule of thumb is to never base your entire business' income on another business. No matter what kind of business you have, you should always plan enough to be able to survive if any company you work with goes out of business or decides not to work with you.

Thinking like that will help you avoid pitfalls such as Google Blacklisting and random Google drops or algorithm changes. That way if worst case scenario that does happen you, your business will survive.

Google killed my adsense account over the weekend, but I'm definitely going to bounce back and not depend on them anymore.

This was definitely the wakeup call I needed to *not* put all my eggs in one basket.

Exactly. First of all, when you add content you are an expert on, you eventually start to rank for words and terms you had no intentions of ranking for. The method is simple. You take your link and you put it where people can see it. Google isn't always necessary if your content is sufficient.

definitely agreed to use other branches regarding internet marketing, yes seo on google but also social networking, forums, guest blogging etc and word of mouth

Looks like they may have had an update in the past couple days because my traffic has gone down yet again.

My love for Google has gone out of the window over the past year. I loved their mission, I loved their products, and I loved the people behind the company. I don't know exactly what is going through their heads now, but it seems to me like they are forgetting about user experience, and concentrating more on increasing profits.

A company I used to work for managed to get all of their 100+ domains banned and removed from Google's indexes for spamming backlinks between their many owned domains. In this instance I think that Google did the right thing. I am totally for creating good content, aimed at the user rather than exploiting ever closing gaps in search engine algorithms. I think the secret is to be user-centric rather than rank-centric.

I think it's been this way for a long time.

If you're in IM a lot of us still need to use them, but I'm trying to get away from them as much as possible. Telling family and friends to start using bing or other search engines for their personal use. We gotta even this out some, they're a monopoly that is "being evil" with their insane privacy issues, littering organic search with more and more verticals and ads taking up space, gearing search towards the big players etc. Run!