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  • SEO
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It seems more and more webmasters are getting frustrated with the Google updates and loss of rankings. Not to mention the unreliable search results and confusing algorithms. What's even more of a slap to the face is Sponsored Listings (Adwords) which take a considerable amount of traffic from relevant websites.

Me personally, I've been using Yahoo and Bing as much as possible just because I've about had it with trying to please Google. I've been focusing much more on paid advertisements (which Google hates) but gives targeted traffic regardless. Plus it puts money in the pockets of webmasters that work hard to provide quality content and build loyal subscribers.
#advertisements #adwords #dead #google #paid
  • Profile picture of the author SEO Haven
    Google will never die and neither will SEO. People give up too easily in general. Unfortunately, hardly anyone uses Yahoo and Bing, so Google will always (at least, for now) be the SE king.

    The changes they're making are to:

    1. Protect their interest/business.
    2. Make more money (and be smarter about it)

    People tend to blame bad rankings on Google algorithms, when the actual reason is bad content ((on-page SEO) or not as good as your competitors') and poor linking structures (off-page SEO).
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    • Profile picture of the author Magic Mike IM
      The only thing that can slow Google down for now is probably the antitrust issues they are having at the moment both in the U.S. and in Europe. For now, they provide the traffic and they have successfully marketed themselves so that "Google" is almost synonomous with "search engine" for many people other than the IM crowd.

      For selfish reasons, I hope they last a long time... in the market I am in they are still incredibly easy to take advantage of... but, in any event, I think they are far from dead.
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      • Profile picture of the author Prady N
        If you read google's philosophy. First Point is
        "Focus on the user and all else will follow"
        They are making sure with their changes in algorithms that they are giving quality
        to their visitors.They really don't care about anything else.
        They can not DIE until they care for their USERS
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        • Profile picture of the author santosantinie
          I'm seeing a lot of questions like this since last week. Asking that ranges from Google to facebook to Twitter claiming that those sites are dead or dying.

          Maybe Google, and other sites will come to an end if they failed to give satisfaction on internet users and businesses. So far in our generation, no such theory will make this prediction will come into reality. Google will stay as the authority in the internet in the coming years. Facebook alone with other social media sites will remain vibrant in the netizens.

          We only have to be aware of the things and events that will change the internet landscape. We all knew that nothing is permanent except for change. So we have to deal on those changes,learn from it and continue to deliver our own creativity and sharing what we have learned, experienced and our success in internet.

          I do hope that this will be the last thread that asks if a major sites die out.

          Well that is my only opinion. I respect yours, but you have to respect mine.
          Deal?
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        • Profile picture of the author ElaineBedfordd
          Originally Posted by Prady N View Post

          If you read google's philosophy. First Point is
          "Focus on the user and all else will follow"
          They are making sure with their changes in algorithms that they are giving quality
          to their visitors.They really don't care about anything else.
          They can not DIE until they care for their USERS

          They don't care about quality, they care about maximizing profits, hence the millions of YouTube videos on page one. As for "they will never die," every single SE in the past has died from Altavista to Dogpile (or whatever that SE was called), so Google won't be any different
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    • Profile picture of the author kindsvater
      Originally Posted by SEO Haven View Post

      People tend to blame bad rankings on Google algorithms....
      What do you think creates the rankings?

      .
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  • Profile picture of the author DotComBum
    No it's far from dead, as long as people from around the world keep using it to search it will survive as the most popular search engine, and also majority of the webmasters depends solely on Google to drive traffic to their sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author pheonix44
    I do not believe Google is dead. What I do believe is that you cannot put all of your eggs in one basket with them. You have to have multiple avenues to generate traffic and focus on building them up.
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    • Profile picture of the author SEO Haven
      Originally Posted by pheonix44 View Post

      I do not believe Google is dead. What I do believe is that you cannot put all of your eggs in one basket with them. You have to have multiple avenues to generate traffic and focus on building them up.
      Very true what you say there.
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  • Profile picture of the author denysapu
    Ohh ya, the title "Is Google Dead?" is really suck.
    Google dead for someone doesn't mean dead for anyone at all
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  • Profile picture of the author KingMedia
    Not yet... but they are doing a lot of things to piss off the general surfers and Bing is trying hard to get more eyeballs.

    Plus they favor their own networks (youtube, g+) as they take up the whole front page along with wikipedia (my hunch is they are trying to cripple them with hoards of traffic so they can get adsense on there...)

    Still, all the traffic is on googz - things change, so who knows what will go down in the coming year.
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  • Profile picture of the author UMS
    Originally Posted by enterscope View Post

    It seems more and more webmasters are getting frustrated with the Google updates and loss of rankings. Not to mention the unreliable search results and confusing algorithms. What's even more of a slap to the face is Sponsored Listings (Adwords) which take a considerable amount of traffic from relevant websites.
    Keep in mind that there are many, many, many more users who aren't webmasters.

    Me personally, I've been using Yahoo and Bing as much as possible just because I've about had it with trying to please Google.
    That's nice, but it makes no difference to Google.

    I've been focusing much more on paid advertisements (which Google hates) but gives targeted traffic regardless.
    You seriously think Google hates paid advertisements? You really need to take a reality check. Paid ads are one of the major revenue sources for Google.
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  • Profile picture of the author miklanderson2
    Google is a source of frustration for a lot of webmasters and Internet marketers, but most of the people using it aren't webmasters or Internet marketers. The average person doesn't know the first thing about SERPs. All they care about is being able to type something into the search box and get relevant results. For the most part, Google delivers on this and isn't going to die anytime soon.
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    • Profile picture of the author SEO Haven
      Originally Posted by miklanderson2 View Post

      The average person doesn't know the first thing about SERPs. All they care about is being able to type something into the search box and get relevant results.
      Very true. That's why content and other on-page factors should be the first step towards setting up a successful SEO campaign.
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  • Profile picture of the author mywebwork
    What a ridiculous question!

    I'd hardly call a company that had assets of over 72 billion dollars at the start of this year dead!

    Alexa ranked Google's US site as the second most visited website on the Internet.

    And a company that processes over 24 petabytes (that's 24 million terabytes) of user data EVERY DAY doesn't seem to be experiencing rigor mortis!

    How can you even ask such a question? Do you honestly think that just because a handful of Internet Marketers have chosen not to focus their marketing efforts on Google traffic that the company is about to fold up and die?

    Get real!

    Bill
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  • Profile picture of the author Vikram73
    People who constantly hate on Google are living in the "affiliate bubble".

    They think that they are relevant to Google and somehow their actions are going to negatively impact Google's bottom line.

    AdWords (in spite of going after affiliates) grows in revenue quarter after quarter. Google owns the web's two largest search engines - Google.com and YouTube (yes, YouTube is 2nd).

    Now Google is losing some search traffic to Bing/Yahoo but certainly not because some affiliates are whining on forums about algorithm updates. They're losing traffic to Bing/Yahoo because Bing is investing tens of millions of dollars in advertising to get people to use their search engine.

    Lots of SEO techniques still work (tiered link building comes to mind) but don't bet on it working forever. I get a lot of traffic from Google but realize it's one algo change away from going away forever.

    So I diversify my traffic and always drive it to my opt-in page to get people onto my list.

    I think the SEO techniques I'm using will continue to work for quite some time into the future but it's still too risky to depend too much on just one source of traffic.
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  • Profile picture of the author BudaBrit
    I tried searching on someone else's computer recently, where entering the term into the URL bar used Yahoo! instead of Google. Well, that showed me the top reason why Google is ahead of the others. The result I was looking for was nowhere to be seen. When I navigated to Google and searched, it was top.

    Google's algorithms hurting you are probably because you're not providing something of value to Google's customers (and therefore Google), while someone else is. Try providing content that will engage the audience and not the SE and you'll find better results.
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    • Profile picture of the author JL8
      Google doesn't always reward people with good content. There are plenty of searches that yield really dumb results.

      I think their algorithm is really messed and they want to make it difficult to game them, so they make things really wonky and crazy.

      But basically, to avoid all this crap, build real authority sites. You know, a website that people actually use, and if your site actually disappeared, people around the world will go WTF, where did the site go?

      Build a site that matters and you will rank for literally everything related.
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      • Profile picture of the author BudaBrit
        Originally Posted by JL8 View Post

        Google doesn't always reward people with good content. There are plenty of searches that yield really dumb results.

        I think their algorithm is really messed and they want to make it difficult to game them, so they make things really wonky and crazy.

        But basically, to avoid all this crap, build real authority sites. You know, a website that people actually use, and if your site actually disappeared, people around the world will go WTF, where did the site go?

        Build a site that matters and you will rank for literally everything related.
        The only one I can really think of is hotels, but that's because it suits the hotels to allow it and it suits Google to display those affiliates. What other crazy results are there?
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        • Profile picture of the author miklanderson2
          Originally Posted by BudaBrit View Post

          The only one I can really think of is hotels, but that's because it suits the hotels to allow it and it suits Google to display those affiliates. What other crazy results are there?
          When I search hotels, I see orbitz, travelocity, hotels.com, etc. Pretty much all sites I'd expect to see when I search hotels. The average person isn't going to be upset by seeing these sites on page one. They're getting what they want-a bunch of sites where they can search for the cheapest hotels.
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          • Profile picture of the author Haroon Ballim
            Google is a business . Their customers are the people who search , hence their drive to improve the customer experience by de-ranking poor sites . If a searcher keeps finding poor irrelevant sites when searching he might just start searching elsewhere . That's Google's main concern , they dont want their customer base eroded . Those are the people that click on adverts and bring the advertisers to Google .

            You need to look at it from Google's perspective , safeguarding their business . Webmasters are not Google's main client base . They have just been trying to game Google all along and are now upset that Google has decided to hit back .

            Google relies on people placing information on the web . They just try and make that information easy to find . But they want the information that is found to be relevant when users search via their search engine .

            The only drawback is that these are robots checking on websites quality so in some cases some good sites have been hit , and some poor ones survived . Hence Google's continuing updates .

            Webmasters will without a doubt continue to try and game Google . We see that all the time on this forum . So its an ongoing war , but Google is far from dead . What may threaten Google is the rise of a strong rival in the search engine arena. At the moment no strong competitor is on the horizon .
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      • Profile picture of the author mywebwork
        Originally Posted by JL8 View Post

        There are plenty of searches that yield really dumb results.

        I think their algorithm is really messed and they want to make it difficult to game them, so they make things really wonky and crazy
        Can you provide some examples of some searches that yield "really dumb results" please? My experience with Google has been exactly the opposite and I use Google a lot.

        Thanks

        Bill
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  • Profile picture of the author JerrickYeoh
    People is still fighting for SEO because prove that 94 percent of searcher prefer to click on organic result and only 6 percent of searcher will click on google adwords.
    So if you give up and you only able to grab the 6% of the market. That is why people still struggle for SEO even it difficulties now.
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  • Profile picture of the author akowally
    Google vs IM

    Funny fight here.

    Google wants searchers to get the best possible results.

    Internet Marketers want all their sites on top of Google.

    This ended up putting shoddy sites on Google's top results.

    I am an internet marketer but I love the updates.

    Post top quality content and use other methods to get visitors to your site and you'll never have to worry about being on page 1 of Google.

    I also advise you get a professional SEO or buy a product such as Mark Ling's Affiloblueprint 3. It has all you need to create expert sites that will never be affected by Google's stuff.

    All the best.
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  • Profile picture of the author aarthielumalai
    I don't think Google is dead. IMers are finding it difficult to get rankings fast, that's true, but the search engine in itself is not dead. They still get a lot of traffic, and I'm pretty sure that's going to continue well into the future.

    I'm not focusing on SEO at the moment, but I plan on including it in my marketing campaigns in the future. Don't focus on SEO alone; diversify your traffic as much as you can.

    There are hordes of methods out there: Forums, blog commenting, social media, video marketing etc, and people do get a lot of traffic from these methods. Have SEO only as one of your traffic methods, and I'm sure you'll not even notice if you lose your rankings.
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  • Profile picture of the author troy23
    Google is tied to big business - it's little to do with content.
    How do sites like Microsoft rank so high when they have little content on the site?
    There's not much room now for the little guy.
    There's plenty of traction to be had from Yahoo and Bing.
    Some run their business solely on Bing Ads.
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  • Profile picture of the author hirithk
    Hi,
    All webmasters are frustated from google algorithm updates, even though the algorithm is being updated it is effected only in few regions. The yahoo and bing are good search engines compare to google these are not more user friendly what i felt was. PPC Gives more traffic compare to organic.
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  • Profile picture of the author wleach1992
    google cares about the end user, not webmasters, hence why it won't die and hence why we have to accommodate ourselves to their changes, they're the boss of us i'm afraid.
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  • Profile picture of the author Chirdpong
    Absolutely not dead. The objective of Google algorithm is to make great people experience when using Google search. However, Google use ROBOT not human. So, sometime the Great quality website are not easy to judge by ROBOT. So, sometime our website has been hit, some site is going up......

    However, if we step back as a User (not IM). When I search something to do research, I always see the GOOGLE bring the great site at the TOP of the First page.

    So, Google is not dead but it is more difficult to IM to make money with GOOGLE organic SERP.
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  • Profile picture of the author seobro
    Google will survive. However, article marketing will soon be gone. I got today a message. Hey, it was from a "Porfessional Writing Sorvice" what ever that is. He promises a mega rankings increase. Love those promises. What can we say on the owner. Probably this one works in a 7-11 for the minimum wage.

    He should at least do a spell check on his copy. However, that will not save him as he is an expert in Widows 2000 and NT sewer.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
      Originally Posted by SEO Haven View Post

      Google will never die and neither will SEO.
      Originally Posted by TheFBGuy View Post

      1: Google is not dead and will never be dead.
      That's some seriously funny stuff. Thanks for the laughs this morning.

      Never say never...


      Originally Posted by shifat View Post

      SEO is not dead nor will it ever be!
      Need to be careful when making absolute statements like that.


      Originally Posted by SEO Haven View Post

      Unfortunately, hardly anyone uses Yahoo and Bing, so Google will always (at least, for now) be the SE king.
      Yet I've typically managed to get a higher number of buyers from Yahoo and Bing. So, even if they send less traffic, they send higher quality, better targeted traffic. Given user complaints about the irrelevancy of so many Google results, that makes sense.

      Originally Posted by seobro View Post

      Google will survive. However, article marketing will soon be gone.
      Article syndication (what IMers typically refer to as "article marketing") predates SEO and Google. It will very likely outlast them as well.
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  • Profile picture of the author webmarket
    Google is certainly not dead but SEO is largely dead - unless of course you make a significant portion of your money from SEO in which case you'll continue to defend it to the death.

    The truth is that if you want good rankings you have to put in the work and produce quality content which you keep up-to-date. That takes time of course and the longer your business has been around the better your chances of ranking.

    Google does not like 'small' website owners and the secret to success these days lies in diversifying your business so that your dependence on Google is minimal. Google might still be a big player but they are not the only game in town.
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  • Profile picture of the author kaytav
    Originally Posted by enterscope View Post

    It seems more and more webmasters are getting frustrated with the Google updates and loss of rankings. Not to mention the unreliable search results and confusing algorithms. What's even more of a slap to the face is Sponsored Listings (Adwords) which take a considerable amount of traffic from relevant websites.

    Me personally, I've been using Yahoo and Bing as much as possible just because I've about had it with trying to please Google. I've been focusing much more on paid advertisements (which Google hates) but gives targeted traffic regardless. Plus it puts money in the pockets of webmasters that work hard to provide quality content and build loyal subscribers.
    If Google dies, where would we go??
    No doubt Google brings something new and frustrates SEO's frequently, but I believe this is the challenge we can take up to improve our SEO.
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  • Profile picture of the author nealhart
    Google's not dead but sometimes, when they change their rules, I wish they were
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  • Profile picture of the author vikashmunda
    Banned
    Originally Posted by enterscope View Post

    What's even more of a slap to the face is Sponsored Listings (Adwords) which take a considerable amount of traffic from relevant websites.
    .
    Good point and not to forget about google places and video results and many others i am afraid time will come when our sites will be buried under 2nd pages and all the top 10 spots will be all about google and it's products.
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  • Profile picture of the author shifat
    SEO is not dead nor will it ever be! It just evolving like everything else,either you learn to adopt with this new changes or quit this business for good.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dazzling Content
      SEO is dead, Facebook is dead, YouTube is dead, Google is dead...

      What's next? Internet is dead? :confused:
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  • Profile picture of the author brettb
    Google is not dead, but if other people are getting the junk results I've been seeing lately then their shareholders are in for a shocking '13. Remember that Google have done very little that's profitable. Take out search and AdSense, and there isn't much left on the bone.

    All those spammy HubPages and niche sites may have been junk, but if my recent searches for business mailboxes and VPN services are the best Google can return then I'll eat my hat.

    Google's most lucrative business is wide open for Apple or Facebook to take off of them in '13.
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  • Profile picture of the author TheFBGuy
    Originally Posted by enterscope View Post

    It seems more and more webmasters are getting frustrated with the Google updates and loss of rankings. Not to mention the unreliable search results and confusing algorithms. What's even more of a slap to the face is Sponsored Listings (Adwords) which take a considerable amount of traffic from relevant websites.

    Me personally, I've been using Yahoo and Bing as much as possible just because I've about had it with trying to please Google. I've been focusing much more on paid advertisements (which Google hates) but gives targeted traffic regardless. Plus it puts money in the pockets of webmasters that work hard to provide quality content and build loyal subscribers.
    1: Google is not dead and will never be dead.

    2: There is absolutely NOTHING confusing about its algorithms.
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  • Profile picture of the author webproishere
    What pisses me off is that i had lots of old sites with unique content, niche/targeted that were showing up on first page for YEARS that were wiped away just like that ?

    And i don't even know what the hell for ?
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  • Profile picture of the author DerekGann
    Google is dead for Black hat people
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  • Profile picture of the author scrofford
    Originally Posted by enterscope View Post

    It seems more and more webmasters are getting frustrated with the Google updates and loss of rankings. Not to mention the unreliable search results and confusing algorithms. What's even more of a slap to the face is Sponsored Listings (Adwords) which take a considerable amount of traffic from relevant websites.

    Me personally, I've been using Yahoo and Bing as much as possible just because I've about had it with trying to please Google. I've been focusing much more on paid advertisements (which Google hates) but gives targeted traffic regardless. Plus it puts money in the pockets of webmasters that work hard to provide quality content and build loyal subscribers.
    Google doesn't care about you. Google doesn't care about merchants at all. What Google cares about are it's customers and users of their search engine. Google is far from dead. They just could care less about you and are doing what benefits them.

    If you want Google to work for you then play by their rules and you won't have problems. If you don't want to play by their rules, go somewhere else for traffic.

    Google also does not hate paid advertisements AS LONG as you pay them to advertise your stuff.
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  • Profile picture of the author akowally
    It just surpassed Facebook again in terms of traffic. It is now the website with the most traffic in the world.

    No way to say Google is dead, nor is white hat SEO.

    Diversify your link building and marketing campaigns and you'll be fine.
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  • Profile picture of the author ceenote100
    Google is still the number one search engine in the world so no it's not dead. It's just harder to get ranked on it.
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  • Profile picture of the author TimothyTorrents
    I still use Google everyday just like billions of other people. Google is not going anywhere. You just need to make sure that your websites provide quality to their visitors.
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  • Profile picture of the author TheFBGuy
    Dan C: Not sure if you are quoting people just for fun... but you are very welcome, glad it made you giggle
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  • Profile picture of the author sunray
    Originally Posted by Ken_Caudill View Post

    Google's customers are its advertisers. As long as image advertisers care to waste their money on Google, Google will thrive.
    And for advertisers audience is important. Audience who knows that its search results are the most accurate. In a way Google is an IM business like any other. Not that different from a small blog that tries to give good content in order to get Adsense clicks or Clickbank sales. And just as this small blog removes spam comments, so does Google... whence the infamous updates that where merely intended to improve search results by removing the spam sites.
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    • Profile picture of the author sunray
      Originally Posted by Ken_Caudill View Post

      It delivers eyes to sites for money. Of course it prefers its ads to be on quality sites. Who wouldn't?

      If you need to compare it to another business model, it's more like a broadcast TV network. The big difference is that it underpays its programmers (content producers) via adsense, or doesn't pay them at all.

      Google is a parasite.
      This would be true if Google ONLY displayed paid results, but it certainly doesn't. If it one day will, then we can indeed talk about a search engine being dead, since--if we compare it to a TV broadcast as you proposed--very few people open their TV sets just to watch commercials.
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    • Profile picture of the author leighs31
      Love the quote below and damn right too. Most people do the same things to rank their sites and then complain, jump from one link building solution to another and wonder why nothing works.

      Google is a search engine at the end of the day and nothing else. Without our input, content, videos etc they do not have a business. If it goes completely to paid ads people will recognise and skip the ads to the real content that matters.

      Concentrate on one thing and master it. Only then can you complain if something doesn't work, but then we always have to forward think and adapt too and then dominate hoooooohhhhhaaaaaaa in a crazy mad hatters voice lol

      Originally Posted by SEO Haven View Post

      Google will never die and neither will SEO. People give up too easily in general. Unfortunately, hardly anyone uses Yahoo and Bing, so Google will always (at least, for now) be the SE king.

      The changes they're making are to:

      1. Protect their interest/business.
      2. Make more money (and be smarter about it)

      People tend to blame bad rankings on Google algorithms, when the actual reason is bad content ((on-page SEO) or not as good as your competitors') and poor linking structures (off-page SEO).
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    • Profile picture of the author Steve B
      Most things that are dead really stink and are pretty much lifeless, worthless, valueless, and should be buried.

      Google's Stock price: $697/share
      Outstanding shares: 328.6 million
      Market cap: 229 billion
      Annual sales: $48 billion
      2012 sales: up 29.3%
      2012 income growth: 14.5%
      Net profit margin: 22.2%
      Debt to equity: .09

      . . . ah, no. Google is not dead!

      Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author Rod Cortez
    Okay, I'll bite.

    Google is far from dead and these financials prove it:

    http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/goog/financials

    Bear in mind that the SEO world / market / whatever you want to call it is a drop in the proverbial Google bucket. There are tons of businesses and marketers that do not dabble in any SEO techniques. Many of them buy advertising through Google and it's not just PPC (they have mobile, tv, etc. ads).

    One of the first things I do with my corporate clients is have them devise a marketing plan that has Google at only 10% of their overall traffic. One of the fastest ways I've seen new marketers (not newbies, an important distinction) build their businesses is through paid advertising. Google only has 2 to 5% of the overall advertising inventory (some advertising execs put it at 1%, but hey, I'm trying to be somewhat objective here).

    SEO is very much alive and well today. SEO is far from dead, it's merely changing. I see people crushing it using SEO techiques because they know how to adapt and give Google what they want (fresh, useful content).

    Google is far from dead. Annoying at times? Yes, but far from dead. They are very much alive.

    RoD
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    • Profile picture of the author yourreviewer
      The type of threads people start here sometimes is unbelievable.
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  • Profile picture of the author chadbmmo
    I believe bing is working hard to bring all of us over.... but i also think that if google is used right it still works.... I always want more than one bullet in the gun When I go hunting...lol
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  • Profile picture of the author Stuart Walker
    I say this all the time. Who cares what Google says or does? I know I don't. Google is not the internet, they are just one means to get traffic. 90% of my traffic for all my sites does NOT come from Google...and I'm not talking about Yahoo or Bing either.

    Move away from your reliance on trying to game the search engines and focus on getting traffic from elsewhere to build a much healthier business. If all your traffic comes from Google and you suddenly get slapped you're business is dead.

    There are tons of ways to get traffic, banner ads, PPC, email list, forums, WSOs, social media, video sites, document sharing sites, Q&A, articles etc etc etc. Why do so many people just focus on Google? SEO is temperamental and unpredictable at the best of times let alone in the current climate.

    Google isn't dead but it's as good as dead TO ME.
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    • Profile picture of the author Anton543
      Originally Posted by RockingLastsForever View Post

      I say this all the time. Who cares what Google says or does? I know I don't. Google is not the internet, they are just one means to get traffic. 90% of my traffic for all my sites does NOT come from Google...and I'm not talking about Yahoo or Bing either.

      Move away from your reliance on trying to game the search engines and focus on getting traffic from elsewhere to build a much healthier business. If all your traffic comes from Google and you suddenly get slapped you're business is dead.

      There are tons of ways to get traffic, banner ads, PPC, email list, forums, WSOs, social media, video sites, document sharing sites, Q&A, articles etc etc etc. Why do so many people just focus on Google? SEO is temperamental and unpredictable at the best of times let alone in the current climate.

      Google isn't dead but it's as good as dead TO ME.
      Actually, if you look at it objectively, Google is main way to get traffic; it is actually Google which recycles probably 75% of the world's traffic. Google, Google Adwords, advertising on sites which in turn get traffic from Google, as well as other ways. In most cases whereever you get traffic from Google is involved in the chain somewhere.
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  • Profile picture of the author Anton543
    We are all guilty in some way. We all want Google to have competition yet we all keep using Google search.
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    • Profile picture of the author emini_guy
      Originally Posted by Anton543 View Post

      We are all guilty in some way. We all want Google to have competition yet we all keep using Google search.
      Yes, we are guilty. Sort of. We use it because we have got used to it.

      But I am using other search engines more and more often and advise others to do the same. Diversity is good and, as I said elsewhere, Google is serving more and more garbage from YouTube and Blogger that simply compromises the quality of its results, so relying only on Google is just not a good idea. Not as good as it used to be, at least.
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  • Profile picture of the author Anton543
    Whichever way you look at it, a search engine (be it Google or/and others) is needed because it is they who principally sort out the world's information. Without Google and other search engines indexing content we would go back to a world where information would be dominated by big media companies. To use one example, we could have missed out on a lot of great news stories that were first reported to the world by individuals rather than big media. It is Google that provides peoples opinions to be heard, especially that in written form. Google has given even the smallest guy the chance to be of relevance on the world stage.

    So whether its Google or some other search engine, we need content indexed. And Google does this better than anyone else. I applaud Google in fighting spam because they (spam manufacturers) should not be able to take shortcuts at the expense of genuine people. Unfortunately, n fighting spam, sometimes a few genuine people will get hurt.
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    • Profile picture of the author emini_guy
      Originally Posted by Anton543 View Post


      I applaud Google in fighting spam because they (spam manufacturers) should not be able to take shortcuts at the expense of genuine people.
      Fighting spam is okay. I don't have a problem with that. I just don't see Google improving in this respect. It adds its own spam, for instance, and I think Yahoo and Bing are simply doing it better. Their results are cleaner, more relevant. Google is a spam peddler more and more while pretending to be a spam fighter.
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  • Profile picture of the author johnben1444
    Is google dead?
    No, your SEO only sucks to Google now.
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    • Profile picture of the author mervp
      Originally Posted by johnben1444 View Post

      No, your SEO only sucks to Google now.
      Actually, ALL SEO is frowned upon by Google. It supports (or says it supports) natural looking content pages and link structures, meaning it does not support artificial optimization of sites, no matter how well done. A "natural" looking page with so-so quality content will likely rank higher than a well-written article on a page that has been too-obviously SEOed to the max. Likewise, too many backlinks to a site over too short a time frame, with the same anchor text, may be more optimized than sites with fewer links, but the unnatural linking will probably lead to it being deranked by Google.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Is Google Dead?

    Hey look, I found this weeks "Is Google Dead" thread!
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  • Profile picture of the author zoritey87
    The thing is Google is been used from newbies or despearte ppl, ppl who click the first result they see (the google adds) so in this time, optimizing your website for Google will be an stupid idea, the new era is Bing, and yahoo in my humble opinion.
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    Finally back.

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  • Profile picture of the author Lightlysalted
    I agree that Google is annoying a lot of people and we have to put up with them for the moment, but it will reach a tipping point where other search engines will start to gain market share and cause less fustration to hard working webmasters
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  • Profile picture of the author MaxNiche
    Google is not going to die in the near future.But it is good news that bing is catching up slowly.
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  • Profile picture of the author andyredsox
    Google isn't dead for millions of people, it's still alive and kicking.

    You have a point there when you say its not working that good.

    But we can't deny the fact that Google has been helpful most of the time.

    Well, we have the freedom to use it or not.

    Just use the most convenient one for yourself.
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  • Profile picture of the author jessiem
    The question "Is Google dead?" is very similar to "Is Facebook dead?", which I've read many times already...and the answer to that is simply "NO".
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  • Profile picture of the author bigdaleln
    Google has a long life ahead if it. If you do well in Yahoo and Bing, Google takes notice and will raise you in their rankings and the game continues. A lot of people get dinged by Google which I don't think is fair but it is the game. If you want to win on Google play the game hard.
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  • Profile picture of the author HorseStall
    I was talking to someone the other day, and they seemed to think that Google was going to become a "marketplace". Interesting never thought that search would evolve that way....
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  • Profile picture of the author emini_guy
    No, it's not dead yet, but if the Maya are right, it will be on December 21st, 2012
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  • Profile picture of the author paulgl
    Originally Posted by enterscope View Post

    It seems more and more webmasters are getting frustrated with the Google updates and loss of rankings.
    Actually, that's exactly what google wants. They detest webmasters trying
    to shmooze their results and especially feeling like they are entitled to
    ANY google listing.


    Google would love it if the lot of you went your merry ways...

    Can't wait for the

    is apple dead
    is MS dead
    is FB dead

    threads.

    Paul
    Signature

    If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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  • Profile picture of the author falcott
    Google isn't dead, obviously. I don't know what the official figure is, but I imagine that about 70% of all searches are through Google.

    Also Google does not hate paid advertising as the OP stated - they are primarily an advertising company that offers a free online search function.

    However, Google might be considered by some as being dead as a traffic generation method. I put myself in that category. I was an SEO guy, concentrating all my efforts on getting traffic from Google. My sites were white hat and had pretty good content. But they had exact match domains. Guess what happened at the end of September? Literally overnight my rankings fell like a hot potato, traffic dropped by 80 - 90% and income dropped by more than 50%. There is a moral in there somewhere...

    Over the following weeks I re-imagined my business as if Google doesn't exist. It has given me more focus as well as a broader vision. I'm now building traffic from non-search engine sources. It's back to basics and the ground floor for me now.
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    • Profile picture of the author MaxNiche
      Originally Posted by falcott View Post

      Google isn't dead, obviously. I don't know what the official figure is, but I imagine that about 70% of all searches are through Google.

      Also Google does not hate paid advertising as the OP stated - they are primarily an advertising company that offers a free online search function.

      However, Google might be considered by some as being dead as a traffic generation method. I put myself in that category. I was an SEO guy, concentrating all my efforts on getting traffic from Google. My sites were white hat and had pretty good content. But they had exact match domains. Guess what happened at the end of September? Literally overnight my rankings fell like a hot potato, traffic dropped by 80 - 90% and income dropped by more than 50%. There is a moral in there somewhere...

      Over the following weeks I re-imagined my business as if Google doesn't exist. It has given me more focus as well as a broader vision. I'm now building traffic from non-search engine sources. It's back to basics and the ground floor for me now.
      Generating traffic without google might be tough.But it is a very good idea and is very much recommended.Initially it might be tough,But you'll have a steady business which is google-proof.
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      Originally Posted by falcott View Post


      Also Google does not hate paid advertising as the OP stated - they are primarily an advertising company that offers a free online search function.
      They are hardly primarily an advertising company that offers free search.

      They offer a plethora of free things, from youtube to blogger, to gmail
      and maps. They own frommers, zagat, motorola, and run the
      biggest OS of smartphones on the planet, android. I cannot
      even begin to list the other things they own. Like a wind farm in Iowa
      and that spam preventer, captcha.

      So funny to even hear of the death of google.

      Those apple users who got google maps back are sure glad google
      is not just an advertising company.

      Paul
      Signature

      If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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