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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.
1) Stop Google from spidering the site(s). Hence loose 70%+ traffic
2) Pay a LOT of money to prevent all our eggs going in one basket by using PPC.
Whether we enjoy, dislike or are indifferent to this situation doesn't change the fact.
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
eztrip, Everybody else in this thread is contributing (be it to your liking or not)you are the only one "Whining". Just don't post to, or read, the thread and everyone is happy!
Dave
Really? If what you posted below isn't whining - I don't know what is.. Over and out.
>>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.
It's all very well harping on about eggs and baskets, but when there really is just one big fat egg it's very hard to diversify. But it IS possible, depending on your target industry and your ability to work with the problem.
Where responsibly does lie with Google is with their banning and penalty policies. There is no doubt that innocent or stupid (me as the latter) webmasters have gotten themselves in the worst state of affairs by following certain amounts of SEO advise on the Internet. Sure - Cross-linking is fine! Get 15-25 sites on there with good anchor text! Put it on every index page of every site! It will help you! OTHER SITES ARE DOING IT WITH NO PENALTIES SO IT MUST BE OKAY! ;)
*BOOM!*
To Google's credit, they have lifted all of them following enquiries - but it did take a long, long time. They have also, at certain times, been good at responding to penalty-lifting pleads via E-mail. Long may this continue!
I absolutely agree that you should go with Adwords if Google is that important - believe me, with the right tweaking it can be a wonderful tool. Experiment with it. Be prepared to lose money at first but stick at it.
Go with Overture and Espotting too. You will be amazed how many people prefer paid-for-listings compared to Google when it comes to buying a product.
Lastly - never give up finding new ways to make your business work on-line with Google. If something is working now - keep finding the next thing as knowing how Google is, it will trip you up 6 months down the line. ALWAYS have a back-up plan with this mighty beast!
Google does not charge.
Google is no where close to the only search engine.
Google is a private company.
America is free market society.
Please, spare us the regulate this, regulate that. Buy some books on American socio-economics or something and learn why what you propose is utterly insane. Sorry for the slight rant, but this repetitious ignorance is beginning to bore me.
To deny that is to deny morality. Deny morality, and that is exactly the point at which regulation is required (regardless of what the gung-ho right may say).
The net is evolving, just as other industries have in the past. In all those that I have ever studied, the start point was unbridled freedom... which in some cases sadly became freedom to exploit and destroy others. In many of these industries regulation is now the norm and the need for it is universally accepted.
It's impossible to say whether that is where the net will end, but it might. Failure to exercise responsibility will certainly be a prime driver in that direction.
That's all generic... in the case of Google, I'm not saying there is a need regulation yet... thus far they have acted pretty responsibly. However, to reject it as a possibility down the road is simply to bury your head in the sand.
From this position, the business will think much more seriously about site-promotion, avoid over-reliance on search engines and should Google or any other search engine drop the site for a couple of months it won't make a blind bit of difference to the progress of the business model.
How many business websites can genuinely say they see search engine traffic as an added bonus rather than something 'deserved'?
Possibly true, but I'm not whining about the whining. Get my point? :o)
Dave
any organization that can destroy countless others at the flick of a switch has to exercise responsibility
If you were destroyed by Google, it is your fault, not Google's.....I think the people that complain about this need to exercise responsibility.
- Jimi Hendrix
Can't wait until I read about the Google users complaining because they were forcibly redirected to AV in order to meet the Government enforced "search quotas"!
If you were one of those who previously warned against putting all your eggs in one basket, or building a castle on sand, then I will consider your silence to be an admission of hypocrisy.
[edited by: Umbra at 2:55 pm (utc) on Aug. 19, 2003]
Oh I see... there's another ready access point to 70% of search engine traffic is there? I didn't realize!
I think you missed the point on the history of emerging monopolies, responsibility and subsequent regulation.
I have had my ups and downs with Google. Am I currently receiving good traffic from Google - yes. What am I doing with the revenue I get from that free traffic? Investing in more sticky and useful content for my website. Is this working? Yes - I am steadily increasing the number of visitors I get from direct hits and external links and not through SEs.
The bottom line is my website could fail, but if it does it won't be because of Google; it will be because it wasn't good, or useful, enough to attract and maintain a user base.
Oh I see... there's another ready access point to 70% of search engine traffic is there? I didn't realize!I think you missed the point on the history of emerging monopolies
I think you missed the point.
Whether or not your website is built properly and optimized properly to rank well is YOUR responsibility, not Google's. The decision is yours.
Stop looking for handouts and start working to make your business and website the best.
And yes, there are other forms of online marketing and advertising, and they have been mentioned time and time again on WebmasterWorld.
[edited by: agerhart at 3:10 pm (utc) on Aug. 19, 2003]
The bottom line is my website could fail, but if it does it won't be because of Google; it will be because it wasn't good, or useful, enough to attract and maintain a user base.
Merlin30, that may be true for the future, but not for the past.
I think that if you had NEVER been indexed in Google, you never would have had the traffic and therefore the budget to reinvest in your site, and never built the website content you have now. Yes, I know that's alot of IFs, but the fact is, your current assets ARE based on past Google traffic.
The bottom line is: You did depend on Google.
Can anybody else prove to me that your present-day castle was not built on Google sand? Brett, Crush, BlueSky, chiyo, Marcia, eztrip, Terrier, jbinbpt, TheRealTerry, ronin, agerhart, bcolflesh... anybody?
[edited by: Umbra at 3:15 pm (utc) on Aug. 19, 2003]
Can anybody else prove to me that your present-day castle was not built on Google sand?
No need - we'll just keep doing what we do and marvelling at threads like this...
Can anybody else prove to me that your present-day castle was not built on Google sand?
I know many profitable and industry leading businesses that aren't listed in the first 100.
I first built my website to advertise an offline venture. I noticed that I was well indexed in Google and that I could leverage that position for other revenue streams. I also knew that being well indexed in Google is not a long term strategy. So I also continued with my offline venture, advertising locally. My offline venture is doing OK now. Obviously, some of the revenue from Google has helped me promote this venture; had I not had that revenue it would have taken me longer (or I would have had to forgo other non essential expenditure).
Yes I have benefitted from Google - call it luck. But I never for one minute assumed I had a right to be well indexed or that I would remain well indexed ad infinitum.
I know many profitable and industry leading businesses that aren't listed in the first 100
agerhart, I don't care about these profitable business you speak of. I am speaking of you guys who are heaping scorn on ign, warning not to put all your eggs in one basket. Now I don't necessarily agree with ign's post, but if there's one thing I can't abide.. it's a hypocrite.
Now I don't necessarily agree with ign's post, but if there's one thing I can't abide.. it's a hyprocite.
I'm not being hypocritical. It took a long time for me to learn how to rank well in the search engines, including Google.
Just because my websites do well in Google, doesn't mean that I rely on my Google rankings, as we have good listings in other search engines and directories, and we pursue other forms of online marketing and advertising. Diversify.
1. Tell its Windows customers that it won't provide the security patches for them since they bought the product as is and Microsft has no legal responsibility towards them.
2. Close down its entire operations effective immediately since Bill Gates had it enough and decided to become a monk in Himalayas. (Only warranties for recently-purchased products will be honored for warrantee durations.)
Is this ok for Microsoft to do so? If not, why should Google - the Microsoft of Search Engines - will allowed to act arbitrarily.
(Note: I am a fan of Google and support their attempts to tweak their alogos but some warnings and gradual changes are more responsible.)
Now who built the house on "sand"?
The general public is just now getting an inkling that serps are influenced by $, how long can a pure pay-for-play SE command the marketshare that google has?
Sand,sand,sand.
I believe there is a direct correlation between the amount of paid inclusion and consumer loyalty, the more PPC, the less loyalty. As consumer awareness increases, so to will the demand for "free, unbiased listings".
Free listings are here to stay, don't get bullied by the "you are a silly twit for leveraging them" crowd. Find out what happened and fix it.
Some people usually suggest to someone their website has been dropped, start using Adwords, not every start-up can afford to spend £££ using Adwords. If someone website gets dropped, people should feel a little more smpathtic because it could happen to any of us by "one tweak of the google algo" Please Come out with something constructive instead of saying why did you put your "EGGS IN ONE BASKET".
If my website fails, I will not go hungry neither will my family. I have other sources of income, established before I published a website.
Demonstrably, I do not have all my eggs in one basket.
And if you then get dropped anyway?
The concept of responsibility embraces stability for those sites that broadly play by commonly accepted norms. I don't think too many people are talking about sites which abuse.
I think the Microsoft situation is actually moot. If IE refused to display Google for instance, there would be litigation. It would be unreasonable and irresponsible. Isn't there a parallel here?
Am talking stricty about a website, not whether you have other sources of personal income. Strictly business. read the post before YOU REPLY
How do we get back in google if a router was down when Google was crawling? We are out but it was in no way google's fault.
It really would be great if things never went wrong, but they do.
Google doesn't want to drop your site, and they do not want you to have to layoff your employees. They are no more responsible for your employees than they are for the employees of the site that you nudged out of the paying spots when you went into business.
The end result, is a 25% drop in traffic despite being well diversified
Lets look at it from another angle: You have a site which is well established, has reasonable links coming in, and is commercial in nature. You will get the vast majority of traffic from Google, thus putting most of your eggs in their basket, if you like it or not. The only way to prevent that would be by actively blocking Googlebot :)
As long as Google indexes commercial pages and as long as they have such a massive marketshare they are indeed a huge economic factor in the ecommerce sector.
