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Those of us who make a living from our website face each dance with some trepidation. This months cutting edge SEO could be the target of tomorrows spam filter. We all live with it because we get terrific traffic from Google, when everything is working.
Surprise! that day we have been dreading happened. Things are changing and we must follow. We are powerless to stop or change progress. In fact, why would you want to?
This change or mistake or whatever you want to call Dominic has simply exposed the weakness in all of our web businesses. Some of us were smart from the beginning or maybe just lucky up to this point, but the day is coming when change will get them too.
I've heard people say "diversify! it's the only way!". Well, that is a good idea but what does it mean? How do you go about it? Can you do without Google traffic? Well, the answer for me now was "let's find out".
PPC: My experience with PPC shows that a profit can be made. I now get about 25% of my total traffic from PPC. However, It's not free, but still profitable. Also, anyone notice that Dominic seems to have increased Adwords costs? Looks like Google profits from situations like this one. Maybe they should do this once a year just to boost PPC profits.
PPI: By using PPI SE's I now get over 40% of all traffic from SE's other than Google. My converion is slightly better too. However, it's not free, but still profitable.
Other media: I've now started using other media to drive traffic as well. I'll let you know how it works out.
Dominic has made me seriously look at my business model. I was just in my blissful little world expecting each dance to bring me decent results. That worked for quite a while, until I came to depend on it. Now, after Dominic, I have started experimenting more, started using other search engines more, started looking at other advertising media and in short started considering ALL options available to me. That can't be a bad thing.
If you want to make good money off the web you need to do it all now. The day of the "free ride" is being quickly taken away. Even the guys making a 100k per month are looking to rely much less on Google's free traffic. Looks like we must diversify by using PPI, PPC, free listings, print ad's, etc.., most of it is not free, but can be profitable.
The difference is that the traffic you PAY for is more reliable and stable. This means that the income is much more stable. It's how "real world" business works. It takes money to make money.
Don't get me wrong. There is still lot's of money to be made using Google's free traffic. You just can't RELY on it. Remember Google owe's us nothing and they NEED to continue moving forward. It's up to US to make the most of what Google has to offer.
Google is still #1 and will remain so for some time to come.
So, when someone asks me "How do you like Google now?" I simply say "Google is great, they supply me with 35% of my traffic, it's free, and that works for me."
I would like to say that too many people are obsessing over one search engine.
Do yourself a favor:
Do a few searches at Altavista, study it, talk about it, recommend it if you want.
Do a few searches at Alltheweb, study it, talk about it, recommend it if you want.
Do a few searches at Gigablast, study it, talk about it, recommend it if you want.
Do a few searches at MSN, study it, talk about it, recommend it if you want.
Just do it.
Searchers are not "seeing" what you are, you are seeing traffic, they just want search results, I can and do wholeheartedly recommend other engines to clients, friends, and family, and they appreciate it.
Of course, you can continue to obsess, propogate more obsession, and generally act ditzy, but you will be reading the same thread in two years (how boring).
[edited by: john316 at 9:46 pm (utc) on June 8, 2003]
In light of that Google's transitions may never be over as new technologies/innovations constantly emerge.
Regardless of what Google does it still makes a ton of sense to look for traffic wherever you can.
deanril in yet another of his alarmist and emotive-with-no-basis-in-fact posts writes: >>Yahoo/Inkomi will be #1 if Aol and Netscape come on board.<<
How do you work that out? Given the latest figures if Yahoo replaced Google 100% with Ink (still debateable how they will actually implement ink technology), Y! will still not have close to the market share of Google and other partners. That's not counting those Y! users who may move to using G! for search.You may also care to remember that Y! itself was "the absolute pits" with a group of very vocal webmasters here and elsewhere when they changed the way they dispayed paid directory listings a year or so back. So was OV the subject of much abuse when they raised their prices. They seem to have survived the ire of webmasters, and that may well be the case with google too.
You have a problem with a opinion you dont like? Then state that, we dont need this crap > deanril in yet another of his alarmist and emotive-with-no-basis-in-fact posts writes<
What did I say? "Yahoo/Inkomi will be #1 if Aol and Netscape come on board."
If Netscape and Aol jump ship and go Inkomi, Yahoo/Inkomi will be #1.
Lets go into detail here, because I dont think you fully understand this, at all.
Google owns 80% becasue > Google/Yahoo/Aol/Netscape
Yahoo/Inkomi will own 40-50% in a short while because Yahoo/Inkomi is Yahoo/Msn/Aol/Netscape, I said IF Aol and Netscape jump ship and go Inkomi.
Lets think a little before we post next time ok.......
I spent months preparing for the crawl in April and the results haven't made it into the index yet.
I attempt to optimize some pages but Freshie doesn't go that deep.
I can't afford to pay for all of the traffic I need.
Sound like I'm whinning?
Surprisingly, no. Actually, the thing I keep reminding myself is that it has always been a slow process to get large quantities of pages indexed in Google, I choose to rely on them, they are a free service, and most of the time their index returns great results (whether I like them from a business standpoint or not - shoot I do almost all of my personal searching in Google and almost always find what I need)
So, my answer would have to be - I like Google fine. I just wish they liked me as much :)
Regardless of what Google does it still makes a ton of sense to look for traffic wherever you can.
If I ran an e-commerce site, you can bet I would be working at other options.
It's kind of entertaining when you get the "I would never pay for traffic" posts. The big brands all pay for advertising. Search for "cast iron pans" and you get an ebay ad. Search on "dvds" and who is advertising? ebay, half, b&n, bamm, columbia house, netflix.
Yeah, free is better, but profit is profit.
A business that is successful is a smart business.
However when something is Free, it is overlooked. So many companies are strugling because of the economy ect... And are paying this and that, and things are tight.
They have always ranked good, so Google free is heavilly overlooked. Now they are dropped for a month solid 80% traffic gone, things were allready tight because of the economy ect..
Now you have a failed business. Ultimately it is the business's falt. But can you really fault them 100%.
Or another way, guy sells Exotic widgets, nobody can find or get them anywhere. Google actually looks good because when you type in these widgets here's a place that actuallty sells these things. Wow I found them, and I found them on Google!
So this guy was doing Google a favor even though google was listing him for free. Ah.... most people here just say shadup and go buy Adwords.....
Im supposing this comment was directed at yourself. However i am not surprised at the tone of your response. You tend to state opinions as facts without providing any evidence, even ad hoc.
deanril IId give you some facts. (tell me if im wrong but these are my understanding) at present around 50% of all search queries come from google direct. the estimate varies but thats fairly conservative. The rest come from Y! (including yahoogle), MSN AOL etc etc. Even if google lost all of their listings on Y! there would still command around half of the search queries, despite losing the yahoogle queries and the rest will still be divided between Y! and MSN/AOL etc
Now my logic and maths tells me that Y! therefore cannot "beat" google in terms of numbers of query results delivered by providing to AOL and using ink.
Google will indeed lose a lot of their current 70% to 85% market share of queries if they lose Y! and AOL. But it aint anough for Y! to top them just by that action. G! may also one day lose the top qury deliver mantle, but it wont be simply because of losing AOL and Y! and netscape, which is what you stated.
[edited by: chiyo at 4:13 am (utc) on June 9, 2003]
Yahoo takes a walk, there goes 25% of 80% that leaves 55%, Aol and Netsape walk over to Yahoo/Inkomi (maybe as I stated before) There goes anither 15% atleast.
Google is now left with 40% at best, whilist Yahoo/Inkomi empire now have Yahoo+Aol+Netscape+Msn Filler + some smaller engines.
Any body feel free to correct me on my numbers. I feel they are fairly accurate.
Neither is guarateed month to month, but i'd go for B anytime.
Both free money as far as i'm concerned...
Some people say that Google has 85%, not 80% now.
Plus I dont think its 100% sure that Y! will drop all G listings.
Another way to look at it is that queries from google DIRECT i think is around 50%, the lowest ive seen quoted are around 45%. Its not a two horse race. MSN is a player too. Logically and mathematically therefore, I just cant see Y! delivering more than Google unless they provided to almost every significant engine on the net except for Google.
you need to take 40 % off googles 80% total
google would lose 48%, still have 52% of searches
25% of 80% (25/100 * 80/100) is 20%, that leaves 60%
MSN is highly likely to drop ink. they already said they are producing their own engine soon. That will be in the negative side of the ledger for Y! And then of course, OV/Fast/ATW will be making inroads.
edited: sorry 1 milehigh aleady said it,
[edited by: chiyo at 4:47 am (utc) on June 9, 2003]
I think Googles business partners know exactly what is happening and why. And I think they've known for months. To make out they have no clue and are about to "jump ship and go Inktomi" is a little far fetched.
Have a read of Danny Sullivan's very good summation of the renewal of the Yahoo/Google contract last October, titled "Yahoo Renews With Google, Changes Results". Try searching for it in Google.
And if you read the Google/AOL press releasse - "May 1, 2002 -- America Online, Inc., the world's leading interactive services company, and Google Inc., developer of the industry-leading Google search engine, today announced a multi-year agreement that will make Google's popular search technology and targeted paid listings available on America Online brands."
I think that 'multi year' means more than one year - so 'taking a walk' probably isn't an option.
Business for these guys is a long term thing.
I highly doubt google owns 85%.
One must remember Yahoo is extremly popular, they offer alot to their customers/search engine users for free, far more then google ever will.
I get a lot of emails, a lot are from Yahoo. My Web logs shows Yahoo the same as google, one day google 100 more visitors, the next Yahoo 100 more then google. But that could just be for me and my product.
Ill refer you to this topic msg #26 is good enough [webmasterworld.com...]
google: 54.77%
Yahoo: 32.87%%
AOL: 10.13%
Netscape: 2.25From all engines:
39.97% google (fallen about 3% in 6 months)
23.97% Yahoo (fallen about 8% in 6 months)
18.34% MSN (increased by 12 % in 6 months)
7.37% AOL (increased by 2% in 6 months)
2.03% AskJeeves
1.63% Netscape (slow death in progress)
1.1% Altavista (slow death in progress)
0.86% EarthLink
0.86% Overture
0.66% Lycos
0.46% Excite
0.44% IWon
0.37% Comcast
0.35% Looksmart (would be dead without MSN)
0.3% ATT
0.24% C-Net
0.22% HotBot
0.15% Mamma
0.14% AllTheWeb
0.11% WebCrawler
0.09% ixquick
0.09% Freeserve
0.07% CometWebSearch
0.04% Teoma
0.04% About
0.04% Kanoodle
0.01% Profusion
0.01% Alexa
0.01% 7Search
0.01% Business
0.01% WiseNut
0.01% Searchalot
0.01% Dmoz (The number of webmasters looking for links?)
0% ah-ha
0% Pageseeker
0% Webfile
0% ePilot
0% GoClick
0% FindWhat
0% NorthernLight (RIP)
My numbers seem close enough
Im 100% positive AOL protected itself and has plenty of clauses to the effect of providing relevant searches.
Last month Google broke that clause in two. Who knows if AOL will go, I think they will. Thats my opinion.
These Percentage reflect the entire internet
Google results 80% of all search engines.
www.google.com = 40% of the internet search engine Market Share
www.yahoo.com = 25% of the internet search engine Market Share
AOL/Netscape = 15% of the internet search engine Market Share
40+25+15 = 80% of the internet search engine Market Share
You take Yahoo and Netscape/Aol away what does google have left?
40% of the internet search engine Market Share
You want me to explain it again?
anyway this is giving me a headache
you win
No.
But where are your figures from?
AND
your message number #49 included an uncited quote of search engines with percentages next to them -towhit..
>>google: 54.77%
Yahoo: 32.87%%
AOL: 10.13%
Netscape: 2.25 <<
That would suggest to me that if yahoo serviced Y!, netscape and AOL, and used ink instead of google, google will still have 54.77%. Which means that Y! will not be yet the number 1 search engine in terms of search queries delivered which is what you claimed.
Was from post #26 here
[webmasterworld.com...]
He was breaking down 100% of Google and where it goes, not 100% of the internet as I was doing.
So google would have 54% of 100% of 80% of the internet search engine Market Share, you do the math i thinks its roughly 41% ..........
In my case if Yahoo were to change to using just Ink (which I doubt, considering that they also own a stake in Google) and if they were to convince AOL to switch to Ink (which would put AOL in the same boat as MSN, so I also doubt that it would happen), Google would still hold over a 2:1 edge.
Google 67.5%
Yahoo 21.8%
MSN 5.2%
AOL 1.8%
AltaVista 0.7%
Netscape 0.7%
Or Google 67.5%, Yahoo/MSN/AOL/Netscape 29.5%
What this tells me, since my Yahoo, AOL and Netscape numbers are way lower than others even though they are served by Google, is that the sort of people that search for the sort of information that I have mostly use Google.
I've heard tell of several sites that get more AOL and MSN traffic than Google traffic. And this was before Dominic.
So, I really don't think that any of the numbers I have seen are valid. They certainly are not for me.
I will continue to get 60% of my traffic from links, and 60+% of my search engine traffic from Google even in the unlikely event of mass defections to Ink.
Also Ranking would play a big role in traffic, for instance one of my searches Im #2 and #3 on MSN, but #11(page 2) on Google. So I do get alot of traffic because of those positions on MSN, and that influences greatly where my overall traffic comes from.
