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I have put in an ENOURMOUS amount of effort to build up my business over the last 2 years and have done everything in my power not to offend the google gods in anyway by following all the basic do's and don'ts that they suggest on their website.
I operate ONE website with enourmous amounts of content, have a good internal linking structure and a decent on-topic reciprocal linking program.
I have for the last year remained on either page one or two for many important keyword searches(occasionally slipping down to page 3 or 4), which is quite acceptable.
BUT BEING BLOWN FROM MANY NUMBER ONE POSITIONS TO NOWHERE TO BE FOUND IS SIMPLY UNBELIEVABLE AND UNFAIR.
My business supports over 20 familes around the world and now I really dont know what to tell them now - cos I just dont know anymore!
I am sure that I am just one example of millions in the same position.
How in the world can Google be so cruel?
You may say dont ONLY RELY on google for ALL your traffic and my answer to that is I DONT! I held top ten positions in Altavista, Inktomi and other engines but still 90% of traffic came from Google!
You may also say try PAID ADVERTISING!
Well I am afraid that just aint an option. How does a little guy like myself compete with the giants that are quite obviously throwing money down the drain.
Paying $4 per click when you need 100 clicks for a sale and you only average $20 profit per sale` is LUDICROUS!
Doesnt Google get it!
They need us as much as we need them!
They want quality sites - we build them - but how can they expect us to run businesses where we can be destroyed OVERNIGHT!
As I said before going from page 1 to page 2 or even page 3 is quite acceptable but going from number one positions to page 10 and beyond is extreme and UNJUST! especially where no spam tactics have been employed!
Wishing you all the best of luck with the next UPDATE!
I guess that its the travel industry that has been most severly affected.
I have a site where ahead of it (all on third page) are four of the same exact site. All are airline affiliates (affiliatename.airline.com)
There are also two from a different airline.
UInfortunately I had just started working with this company so I don't know if it was new to the last update. I have reported it so we'll see.
Good point. But Amateurs On Line and Yahoo users tend to be internet "virgins." IMO. Do they know any better? As they become more proficient, their research becomes diversified. At least I hope that is what happens. My guess is a lot of them don't know, don't care where the results are coming from. Powered by Google or Inktomi. My parents wouldn't know the difference. They buy the computer, see the AOL disc and say "hey, this looks like a good deal!"
Diveristy and more choices mean competition which drives the economy. Remove those and things go flat.
If your business model relies on one external supplier, over which you have no control, then it is your business model that is the problem, not the actions of the supplier.
You have exposed yourself to a high degree of risk, now it's time to pay the price. That's life.
This situation is no different from the "real" world. Go back to the drawing board and look to diversify.
You see.. until there is people thinking only "Ha! I caught my competitor doing spam, let's report it",
when dropped/banned/penalized, instead of doing some analysis and/or diversifying,
you see that "Divide et impera" is still a wonderful weapon, thinking of a "Google against SEOs" scenario.
Add to this some random "death sentences", et voila we're miles away from building an alliance.
nervous_seo:
Your sites may go annihilated by loss of Google traffic.
Your SEO experience-competence, no.
Remember this. :)
cminblues
Diveristy and more choices mean competition which drives the economy. Remove those and things go flat.
There are really two discussion going on here.
Both however, revolve around "reaching your target market".
Internet (WWW) diversity "search results" and partnerships is IMO the lesser issue. No one has control over where people search. The vast major may indeed be "virgins" and don't really care where they get results, as long as they get it.
If these people are your target, and the Internet (WWW) is the medium you'd had better move where they move or you don't have face value.
I agree that diversity and more choices mean competition which drives the economy, and removing this, things go flat, but flankly most of us "here" are not search engines (including directories) nor are we the direct competitors of search engines, thereofore we do not have any control on how or why a search engine chances.
We use search engine as the messenger to reach out targets, and we "must" target them primarily on Google and Google related result. This may suck but... our primary focus is not to reach a market to explain why they're using the wrong results.
The second issue is something we can control more effectively, and that is keyphrase diversity.
Targeting "widget" according to this discussion is less diversity and less choice to reach the markets.
A business solely relying on the singular competitiveness has 1 in 10 changes of superb returns, 1 in 10 change of good returns and a 1 in 10 change of fair returns.
Against that, your direct competition is attempting to do the same and this could be ten's of millions for 30 positions.
And if by chance you happen to "place" like nervous_seo, one little change (which could be just about anything) and it's all gone.
We can risk management this issue fairly well, you can't with the other, at all.
Period.
Fortunately, I was diversified fairly well and it didn't kill me. I am working to diversify myself even more.
Radiosky
These however, do not impact on us directly, but some guy, somewhere has the same complaint.
Diversify? You bet your a** I am.. ink, msn are becoming friendlier day by day.. many routes including special directiories..you name it.. one must diverisfy greatly but also we must not let google hold the cards
but one who holds all the cards needs to be brought down from power.. plain and simple!
No.
One who abuses their power needs to be brought down, whether or not they dominate an industry.
You are targeting the wrong part of the equation.
I have put in an ENOURMOUS amount of effort to build up my business over the last 2 years and have done everything in my power not to offend the google gods in anyway by following all the basic do's and don'ts that they suggest on their website.
I worry somewhat that after 2 years of trading, with an operation that employs 20 families worldwide, you are so reliant on search traffic. Don't you get repeat custom? Don't you have 2 years worth of satisfied customers spreading the good word? If not, then that's a far bigger problem for you than a change in the Google algorithm.
Remember, Google wants for sites that no-one comes back to to stop appearing in the SERPs. If your site is one of those, then from the Google POV they have improved.
If you've simply forgotten about repeat custom, about CRM and leveraging customer satisfaction, then consider this as a major (and overdue) wake-up call.
However for majority of sites, Google sends over 50% of traffic and if that traffic disappears overnight, your business will take a hit no matter what ... One ought to consider this into equation ..
I especially recommend the idea of diversification across different verticals with no cross linking, no C class IPs in common ...
cminblues
[edited by: cminblues at 2:00 am (utc) on Oct. 27, 2002]
People talk about their "Ranking" on Google a lot. Enough to make me think they are looking at only a few keywords. I have found that over the past 12 months, we are attracting 2 to 3 uniques each for a mass of keywords. Having lots of pages with unqiue slightly different foci helps. So make sure you are targeting lots of keywords makes much sense to me.
But the key conttibution i want to make here is about portfolio management. Every company has a portfolio of producs. Some are "rising stars" - new proucts that are increasing in sales, but have yet to make a profit - Some are core products that have gone well in the past, are either slowly decreasing per the product life cycle, (every product/service has a life span that is "squeezed in timing" for a new industry) but are bringing in the profits that sustain overall revenue.
This product portfolio model makes a lot of sense for large companies, but for small companies (like most of us) in a very new and nascent industry (the Web), it is absolutely essential.
Two implications...
1. Use the profits from your core products/service to fund new "rising stars" that will become your profitable services in future when your existing ones start to die.
2. The one product/service company is doomed to failure on the Web. For sure focus is important, but not on the product, but in your benefits to the consumer. That "benefit" can be expressed in a portfolio of products that may not necessarilly be related to each other and have different sources, bebaviour, threats, and opportunities. Diversify
More than anything else, the Web is about coming up with new ideas and strategies daily. It's that fast.
As Bob Dylan said "He who is not busy being born is busy dying"
And seeing I am in quoting mode... the serenity prayer..
Yep some of us need to GET SERENE!
[edited by: chiyo at 2:11 am (utc) on Oct. 27, 2002]
This is the mom-and-pop organization that has no idea that it's their Google listing that is now providing their sales.
All they have is a 1-800-widgets number on their website...but it's now #1 due to a new algo.
Now Google gives them a nice boost in their listing for a month or two or even worse: 3 or 4 months.. The sales are outstanding. They hire more employees. They take out a new mortgage. BUT- they don't know what a 'log' is..they use Yah00 for hosting..and have had the site up for 2 years with nothing new on it. Then...ooops...Google drops them.
Families out of work and everyone is wondering what happened. Thanks for nothing.
Dylan lyrics and prayers...lol
For the times they are a-changin
Now Google gives them a nice boost in their listing for a month or two or even worse: 3 or 4 months.. The sales are outstanding. They hire more employees. They take out a new mortgage. BUT- they don't know what a 'log' is..they use Yah00 for hosting..and have had the site up for 2 years with nothing new on it. Then...ooops...Google drops them.
If any company, mom and pops included, doesn't know WHY their business has increased or decreased fast, and makes investment decisions based on SYMPTOMS rather than CAUSES, they deserve to fail. Instead of putting all profits into new staff or a new mortage they should invest in some "market research and intelligence"!
I get the feeling now that many small (and big) operators on the Web are great at the Internet, but abysmal as business men. Almost the opposite of what caused the first dot com bust.
[edited by: chiyo at 2:24 am (utc) on Oct. 27, 2002]
...not a good replacement for a solid foundation!
House, business, or otherwise! :)
See this one [from 'Blonde on Blonde']:
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or sad eyed lady, should I wait?
Useless to say, who's sad-eyed-lady? :)
cminblues
Many have built their houses on Google's land. The fact that Google never asked for rent, never meant that they couldnt redevelop that land as they wish, cause they own it. We never had a contract with Google. We are opportunistics! Great for short term, but useless for long term.
Lesson -
Own your own land before building a luxury mansion on it! But it makes great sense to use it while the sun shines, as long as you dont base your future on it.
OK. Iid shut up now.
Not wise to rip out your own foundation.
Do you remember that this happened at the same time of new big $$ revenue's plains?
And now, my clues:
If you want now top # in Google ->
1] Big 'Content-optimizing' SEOing does'nt work, or is at risk.
2] Diversifying, yes, works very well.
What this means, from serps POV?
It means lot of crappy pseudo-diversified off-radars content.
Is this better than sites produced by a honest, on-focus keyw-content optimizing tactic?
[I mean, from a Google-user POV]
Sure with all its new AOL & YAHOO users, Google can expect lot of people being satisfied with the actual serps.
But also a good 10% of webmaster/SEO doing true old spam.
My definition of 'true old spam':
When you get ranked for something different than the 'declared' content of your 'pages'.
cminblues
If any company, mom and pops included, doesn't know WHY their business has increased or decreased fast, and makes investment decisions based on SYMPTOMS rather than CAUSES, they deserve to fail.You know that's a pretty lousy statement to make. Are people that hard today and so unsympathetic? This world sucks sometimes and it's people with that attitude that make this world stink.
It might be true that people should take precautions and make good business desisions--we all know that. Please think before you make remarks like that or people may just not give a rats' “you know what” about you too. Some some humility!
Re: Google and their market share,
However you slice the cake, if 3/5 of it is taken away, you sure don't have much to work with no matter how much you diversify amongst the engines because you can have top listings in all the engines and you can still loose 3/5 of your traffic overnight and basically sink any web-based business and put people out of jobs.
It makes me nervous that one Engine can have such a large piece of the pie. Yes I'm appreciative of the little traffic I get from GG--it's Good but all it takes is one algo change and bang site drops 3/5 of the traffic and it's very hard to compensate for that, short of dumping lots of ad dollars that perhaps a startup company just does not have.
One day, the internet marketing will be just like one big newspaper. You'll have to buy a spot on every web site just to get seen. In short, the big companies and smart one's will win and choke out the small fries. The adage the rich get richer and poor get poorer seems to hold true. It's one greedy world we live in and cares not who gets hurt.
Add this line to all your files
<meta name="googlebot" content="noindex,nofollow">
That way you will never have to worry about google changing their algo and ruining your life. You don't want such an evil company sending you traffic anyway.
Hit Google where it hurts. Reduce the size of their index and allow the others to grow.
Yeah, you will take a traffic hit, but it's the principal that counts!
Or is it really the money after all? Is a company that provides you with >50% of your traffic really worthy of being called your enemy?
And when you are hit with some sort of a penalty, do you expect GoogleGuy to put in any extra effort on your behalf when you badmouth something that he cares very much about?
For sure focus is important, but not on the product, but in your benefits to the consumer. That "benefit" can be expressed in a portfolio of products that may not necessarilly be related to each other and have different sources, bebaviour, threats, and opportunities.
chiyo, what a great quote and sums up everything I have been thinking while following this thread.
We should remember that the member profile can be somewhat different here too.
Professional SEO gets hit by Google, shrugs their shoulders, says "It's a fair cop" and moves on.
Siteowner whose three sites got good position by reading forums, "blue widget, red widget, black widget, yellow widget.." keyword overtargeting and guestbook entries gets hit and says Google is the enemy of the honest businessman.
Come on, guys, you can't say you weren't warned - GoogleGuy has been specific enough on a number of occasions about the dangers of SEO...and, if you rode the wave and are now getting hurt, then it's time to take the losses and move on too.
If Google thinks I'm an enemy [SEO -> spammer], why on the earth I must not think the same about him?
Should I say
Oops, you're right, I'm a spammer, now I quietly stop in reaching yours # , and sorry if I've corrupted your wonderful index. Now I'll admit, all the www biz is your, and I was too proud. Now I'll go out of your land. Thanks. Google is great.?
The point here is your land.
Nothing personal Sasquatch, only trying also a little of humour :)
cminblues
