Yep, I completely stopped SEO and dove right into paid traffic. Now I'm getting more opt-ins and conversions than ever before. My Amazon sites with SEO are still going great though.

Nio93 - have you found a good source of paid traffic? I've tried AdWords. It was pretty good but I wonder if there are cheaper sources of good traffic out there.

I really wish there was an effective substitute to Google Adwords but for now, there isn't. The next best seems to be Bing Marketing (now inclusive of Yahoo Search Marketing) but it is still a far cry from the quality of Google Adwords. It is cheaper but the traffic quality and volume is much lower.

Many smaller PPC's exist such as ExactSeek which when i tried it out was a complete fiasco. Of course, they are much cheaper but the quality and traffic volume very low.

This article better illustrates ==> Google Adwords Marketing Is It!

I think now EMD sites should start concentrating on Paid traffic.
Here are few advertising networks
Performance-Driven Search Advertising | adMarketplace.com
Pay Per View PPV Cost Per View CPV Contextual Online Advertising Network
https://ads.pof.com/
adBrite Exchange
Chitika - Online Advertising Network | Search Targeted Ads, Mobile Ads & Local Ads for websites, blogs, apps & mobile
Social Media Marketing Company : IZEA
Online Contextual Advertising and Behavioral Marketing Company

Thanks for the list. But which ones are any good?

I suspect we need to do some playing around. But if you're selling widgets, then Chitika could be good. Adbrite seems popular, but I've seen too many of its ads on porn sites, and porn traffic is junk.

PoF is great, but you'd better have a good offer or you'll waste your cash.

Yes its the end unfortunately. Time to NOT build a business that relies on search engines. We might not like it, but we must respect Googles right to do whatever the hell they want with THEIR own search engine.

Do they have a moral obligation to care about what happens to other peoples online businesses? Well who knows the answer to that but we obviously know they don't care. They are in it for themselves. They're a business after all.

Things are going to get a lot tougher online. I believe eventually it will be who ever has the largest advertising budget that wins the traffic. It's going to be tough for the little guy, yet quality of websites shall improve.

We need to start focusing on other traffic sources instead of worrying about seo, unless you don't mind having a business built on ice.

It is better if we target Yahoo and other local search engines, Google is really not too good for us.

Lesson learned: don't put all your eggs into one basket. If you were solely reliant on Google traffic, especially with Panda and Penguin having already happened, you knew full well this could happen to you. It's the same with people that based their online presence off a Facebook page and then get shut down. You want your success in your hands, not someone else's.

Relying heavily only on EMDs was a bad move for many people. Yes EMDs still have a factor in rankings and I never see them not holding some credibility, but you should be focusing on other LONGTERM methods of ranking, especially social signals and onsite content.

Yep my EDMS just took a dump! The content wasn't weak (maybe a little on the thin side). I'll abour 10 more pages to each and see what happens but I'll mainly focus on my membership site now

You know when you ask a someone a question and then they tell you to 'Google it' - there is your answer, Google is what 99% rely on for their information on a daily basis! So attemmpting to rank in Yahoo n Bing and to sod Google off wouldn't benefit your website at all.