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Being dropped from Google can result in the quick death of a startup company, or lead to the laying off of employees in a well established company.
Take our company for example. We are one of the market leaders in our industry. We have never used SEO or spam techniques, but after 5 years in Google, we were suddenly dropped from the index.
This being dropped from the index, leads to a cascade effect on other search engines, as we were dropped from the Google web hosted results from Yahoo.
The end result, is a 25% drop in traffic despite being well diversified.
For our company, this means I have to layoff 2 people in our order fullfillment department.
Google must address issues, where well established companies, are suddenly dropped from the index for no apparent reason.
I have two employees who are laid off, and I can't tell them when they will be hired back on, as I have no mechanism to contact Google to get the problem fix.
I would gladly pay several hundred dollars to place a google support call, to get the problem fixed.
I pay for support calls to my ISP, the phone company and for payment gateway services.
When they mess up, I can get the problem resolve in a matter of hours or less.
Google must realize that their inaction on technical issues, and the inability to have problems rectified, is having an effect on the economy.
We need to have a pay for support service for Google.
No body should lose their job because Google made a technical mistake.
Although I sympathise with you as I would be in exactly the same situation if Google would do that to me,you have to carry on. It will make you stronger. Sometimes a kick in the ass like this makes you realise how flimsy a business model you have just relying on one source of marketing.
Like I say, this will make you stronger and next time you will be prepared.
Google must address issues, where well established companies, are suddenly dropped from the index for no apparent reason.
The forums are loaded with comments from folk who have been
dropped for no apparent reason. Google is trying hard to get it right and eventually will.
But Google is not funded by governments, the UN, or funded by the taxpayer - there are many alternatives.
And once Y! stops using them, will you be saying the same thing about Y!/Ink? Or will we be blaming Google because our sites are no longer in Y! and they had a "responsibility" to provide us with free exposure..?
Natural selection has a funny way of weakening companies that become too strong and havent needed to compete for a while. In the process a lot of us little monkeys may get caught. But life goes on. But its another step to talk about corporate responsibility (which Google does in many ways i think right from free public service ads to providing links to thousands of non-profit sites and charities) and economy as a whole.
Its all about PPC now and PAYING for your advertising, just like any mature industry that has devloped beyond the cottage. The golden age of free listings is WAY behind us now, and with the M&A activity in the arena, this will just be reinforced with the new Yahoo and new MSN. Google 2003 will be remembered as the last of the real free rides.
Dont build you house on sand, or at least build a few of them!
The regulation comments are interesting... because that is what often follows when organizations fail to live expectations in an important market.
I have to say though that, thus far, Google has actually been very good indeed (especially compared to most others). There are one or two worrying signs though (eg: the spAmazon flood), and I sincerely hope they are glitches. Time will tell of course.
And Google isn't a free ride. It costs money to build and monitor a business website even if Google doesn't charge for admission. Heck, millions of people would gladly pay for admission if they could (like the few dollars it costs to get into Inktomi's index) but the option with Google isn't there.
[edited by: Patrick_Taylor at 11:37 am (utc) on Aug. 19, 2003]
The Google Dance (whether monthly or rolling) should first appear on www2 and www3 for a time. This allows for debugging by Google and time for webmasters to submit their feedback. Only after this period would the new index propagate to the public datacenters.
It just doesn't make any sense for the Dance to initially play out on all the public datacenters!
Major highway construction work should be done in the wee hours of the morning, not during rush hour. Webmasters should test site upgrades on their desktop PCs, not directly on their website during peak traffic hours! So why has Google stopped testing the Dance privately on www2 and www3?
I sincerely hope that Google has learned a lesson from the last few weeks. Otherwise, there will be more Wall Street Journal articles pointing out Google Spam, and it all goes downhill from there.
I pay for support calls to my ISP, the phone company and for payment gateway services. "
Seems to me that all ign is really asking for is access to a support team. There are plenty of others that have done that in Googleguy's suggestion box thread.
No, it isn't Google that's charging. It's the sites that are selling links, sponsorships and adverts on pages to transfer Page Rank that are charging.
Whose responsibility is that?
And certain companies need to get off their rear and realize that search engines like Google don't owe them a living. Google is a business too. If a company has put all their eggs into one basket where their entire business is dependent on a 3rd party for survival, then they were doomed for other reasons long long before anything happened with their yellow pages or google listing..
Come on! That is very callous and rude! It's Google fault they have the monopoply, not anyone else's. This is THE very reason why Goverments interfere in private enteprise.
Hope the same happens to you one day Brett_Tabke.
Dave
What a crock!
Google is nothing like a phone company or any other business where reliable service is begotten by PAYING for that service. If we were paying Google $x.xx a month for them to keep us in their index that would be different. If you're not using AdWords then you're not paying for their service. As many people have pointed out in this thread - Google owes you nothing unless you're paying for their service.
Another complete crock....
Let's all say this together:
Google is not a monopoly!
I find it incredulous that people keep saying this. There is no evidence that google is monopolistic in any way. Contrary to the posts on these forums over the last couple of months, the definition of a monopoly is NOT:
"Any company that doesn't do exactly what an individual or business wants them to free of charge."
Unbelieveable.
Although some are getting spun up all over this, has anyone bothered to check out the sites of those being dropped? Are they all really innocent victims of a tech glitch or maybe they're victims of Google's clean up effort.
Basically ive seen two different worldviews here in these types of threads, and never the twain will meet! Its sorta like the Republicans vs the Democrats, or the Whigs vs the Tories. So i dont expect much of any value to us to come out of this, but yep, its a nice and sometimes entertaining debate to watch and to try to force myself not to participate in!
I see you need to practice your self-control :o)
Dave
Dave
Who is John Galt?
Start an Adwords campaign while your out of the index.
Find the reason why you were dropped. (there will most likely be one)
Once your listings are back in Google, ramp down your Adwords.
Hell, give one of your ex-staff the job of setting it up.
It is only the free listings that are poor at moment. Adwords totally on topic and relevant, as per overture business model. Look at your own surfing behaviour; I have noticed myself clicking far more to the right recently to avoid the pdfs and irrelevant results to get what I want.
They are in business to make money just as you are. It is up to us to work out our own business model and what our ROI is or might be.
Only one constant in this life change!
And is that not one of the reasons we hang out here, to get the breaking news and insights in to what the future may hold, and learn from our peers.
Googles corporate responsibility is to itself and its investors.
I think of myself as a little pilot fish jostling for position at the side of a big shark hoping for some juicy morsel to drop from his jaws. There is however a symbiotic relationship between the little fish and the shark, so big shark beware.
Although some are getting spun up all over this, has anyone bothered to check out the sites of those being dropped? Are they all really innocent victims of a tech glitch or maybe they're victims of Google's clean up effort.
Yes Bluesky, Googleguy has started looking into these sites. A couple days later, some of the "victims" found their index pages restored. It seemed to be a technical glitch that was finally fixed for some sites.
because I use this forum to find and and hopefully give useful information and help in the SEO realm and I have to wade through lots of #@*& from whiners to find possible tidbits of info. Also the site search doesn't have a checkbox to exclude whiner posts. That's why I whine about the whiners.
Actually I think Webmaster World is a becoming a monopoly. They don't provide me with everything I need to do my work and earn a living from SEO. I think I smell a lawsuit coming on! :-)
It's Google fault they have the monopoply....
Sorry but I cannot agree with that. We all need to play the game. This game just happens to be free to play. I find that refreashing.
They also allow you to pay for attention and they let evereyone know that you did.
What more can we ask for.
jb
Yes, I can see how that would be good for society.
