taberstruths - 1:54 pm on Nov 3, 2012 (gmt 0)

Hi Pete,
Thanks for responding. I hear what you are saying about the believing I am missing out on a huge audience. I guess that all depends on the business model you are using. Mine depends on raw traffic. I sell advertising and fill the empty spots with other ad networks.

Google is still my largest referrer but it will lose that spot shortly. Chasing Google is like chasing the wind. They are like a bride that promises to meet you at the altar if you will rise up to a certain standard and as soon as you do, they change the standards. I can't base my business on fickleness.

3 times I watched my impressions in WMT rise to 50k per day (week?) only to see my rankings drop and impressions back down to 10k regardless of an update or not.

You guys have talked about throttling. I believe they have set a metric on how many "free" impressions they are going to give a certain site based on who knows what. Thus the insane everflux we all see in the serps.

I have also noticed that after the March/April plummet I experienced, that prime time for my site switched from evenings in the US being the prime time to mornings in the US being prime time. I can only assume that this is caused by Google expanding adwords targeting to include time frames. More ads in the evening means serps are pushed down the page or have more competition.

Is Google a traffic source and a player. Absolutely! Are they a profitable traffic source both in time and money? That is questionable. This is seen by major news organizations in other countries demanding that Google pay them for their content now. Google News has become unprofitable for them.

Will Facebook replace search? No! Can Facebook build a loyal following of readers, customers and eventually buyers who are already interested in your niche? I believe so. The difference is that with social media, you are in control. With Google, they are in control. That is why I stopped courting Google.

Ended up yesterday up 4% with search down 14% from the day before. No noticeable change in serps. Typical Friday except increases in direct traffic and social media.