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Any comments?
I think a better question would be: If Google were to shut down tomorrow, how would you survive? Or, if your site was permanently banned from Google tomorrow, how would you survive?
My answer: Even though I don't get nearly as much traffic from other search engines, there is sure to be a formidable Google competitor sooner or later. First, I try to make sure I'm ranking well at other places. These include: Inktomi, Alltheweb, and Teoma. I think it is important to stay informed of developments by the "Tier 2" search engines.
Secondly, I try to stay informed on paid advertising. I'm sure most people in this forum are worried that the end of free advertising through search engines may one day come to an end. For that reason, it is always good to have a plan ready if the need to pay for advertising arises. BTW, I don't currently pay for advertising. I prefer to spend money on site development.
Finally, no matter how careful you may be, there is always the possibilty that a site can be banned or not get spidered due to an outage. For that reason, I think it is important to have at least one other domain on a different server as a backup as insurance.
Anyone here worried about what Froogle may do to your business?
Sometimes google can go as high as 45% but Yahoo (google results) never seem to go above 25%
Altavista runs at 1-2%
MSN runs about 1%
Looksmart runs about 1%
10-15% comes from top sites lists related to the topic of each site.
5-10% comes from topical search engines which search multiple related sites and are attached to each site.
Most of the rest comes from links in the mailing lists and direct visitors.
These results are highly seasonal and highly volatile.
Repeat visitors and word of mouth help a lot when people are not searching for "Christmas <widgets>"
Results can also change radically right after each dance, as we all know.
Sometimes a new index will cause a big drop in traffic but then the people seem to come back in a week or two as they learn to "work around" the new index and start finding what they really want again.
The trick is to find alternate ways to bring in web traffic. Being totatly dependent on one search engine, and worst a small set of keywords is a recipe for failure.
If your web site is relatively new, your Google and Yahoo numbers will by high (if you are well ranked). However with time, they should drop as you find alternative sources of traffic.
The word is diversify.
Google 48%
MSN 14%
Google
Partners 12%
Links 9%
Others 17%
DVDUVAL, if Google shut down people would have to use other search engines.
Finally, although our site is rated 2 on All The Web, we get practically nothing in terms of hits from them.
Umm... Froogle doesn't allow affiliate sites. How many of us both rely on Google for traffic and also run affiliate sites?
I think a better question would be: If Google were to shut down tomorrow, how would you survive? Or, if your site was permanently banned from Google tomorrow, how would you survive?
I cannot more strongly echo the sentiments already expressed by fathom, drduval, and lgn.
If Google is directly providing more than 50% of your business revenue I highly recommend taking a healthy portion of your proceeds and investing them into the development of more stable income streams.
You also need to think about leveraging your current traffic into a long term benefit beyond the SE's.
For example... having a top 5 site in your niche with heavy traffic can be capitalized upon when negotiating the near infinite range of Joint Venture possibilities that exist.
Sit down and try to think of at least 5 ways in which you can leverage your current SE success into benefits that will last far beyond today's traffic.
Your current SE traffic can be your business life-line, or a springboard driving you business on to even greater things.
Personally, I think it's folly to hang the life or death of your financial well being on shifting sands.
Do everything you can to mix the sand with some cement paste, and you'll wind up with a concrete foundation... rather than quicksand.
[edited by: Dante_Maure at 9:03 pm (utc) on Dec. 30, 2002]
They play the return customer game very smart. They also work hard on alternate marketing methods.
Their prices are low, but not the lowest. They have great customer service. They have a set UPS ground shipping charge, no matter how much you buy.
They send out a weekly email newsletter that I always open to read their cartoons. It also has a list of health related articles that they link to at the bottom, and of course a column of ads along the side that I mostly ignore.
They also have a monthly newsletter with articles written specifically for them.
All their item pages have a quick description and the nutritional label from the product, then at the bottom there is often a more indepth article about the product, and links to other pages if you want even more information.
If you spend over $50 you get a sports bottle or a t-shirt. If you spend over $200 you get a decent quality gym bag with their URL plastered on it.
They have an afiliate program that pays quite well.
I will occasionally do a search on what I buy to see how much others are charging. There are lower prices, but by the time I'm done it would cost as much or more, so I go with the company I know, that has earned my trust.
While doing my searches, the site I do business with rarely comes up in the first few pages. It is a competitive field. But of the people i know that order online, most of them buy from this company due to word of mouth marketing and customer loyalty.
I personally think that the weekly e-mails with the cartoons is their best marketing gimmick. it is something that you want to open, and it reminds you that they are there. I rarely read the rest of the e-mail, but I am reminded of the company weekly.
Google cannot provide you with a guaranteed income as well as return shoppers.
As to the posed question "What if Google shut down?" this is pointless
The problem is not "What if Google shuts down" but "What if Google ban/drops me". In the first case, people would use other search engines, so if your are good positioned there you'd have no problems. What I think we are discussing here is more the second case. If Google is your main source of referrals, and you get dropped/banned, you're out of business.
The problem is not "What if Google shuts down" but "What if Google ban/drops me". In the first case, people would use other search engines, so if your are good positioned there you'd have no problems. What I think we are discussing here is more the second case. If Google is your main source of referrals, and you get dropped/banned, you're out of business.
I suppose then it would also depend on how many sites you own. Unless you own a big huge link farm, then you shouldn't lose all of your sites no matter what the worst case scenario.
Most of my traffic comes from Google, Yahoogle, AOL...because that's what surfers use the most. I have excellent rankings at ATW, but they're currently useless. If Google disappears, I would expect other search engines, which don't send much traffic now, to start sending a lot more traffic. Those that are using search engines currently *have* to go somewhere if they're not using Google.
If I get one site banned (for whatever reason), then I have one waiting in the wings to replace it. That said, I hope to keep my record pristine and not ever have to deal with a ban.
AAnn
It would be interesting to know how many actual occurrences there are of legitimate sites dropped NOT through their own errors (there is a current example on another thread of over imaginative scripting that inadventently blocked Googlebot).
Um, I'm not positive what example you are referring to, but that sure sounds like it IS through their own error.
From http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
Use a text browser such as Lynx to examine your site, because most search engine spiders see your site much as Lynx would. If fancy features such as Javascript, cookies, session ID's, frames, DHTML, or Flash keep you from seeing all of your site in a text browser, then search engine spiders may have trouble crawling your site.
on the topic open for discussion - which is referrals from SE's - I am currently dependent on Google referrals.
This thread's topic is not about what SE's you are dependent upon for referrals.
How many of you entirely depend on Google for survival?
"survival" implies a specific inquiry into whether one's business is dependent upon what is currently the internet's number one source of search engine referrals.
This doesn't ask whether you are dependent on Google vs. other engines for search referrals. It asks whether the survival of your business hangs upon Google referrals alone.
As such, I believe a discussion about diversification (far beyond just the SE's) is entirely on topic, and a natural response to the issue being raised.
Is our survival dependent upon Google? That will depend on our ability to quickly build up traffic offsetting this huge loss from other sources, using PPC, PR, and other methods.
You aren't banned. Saying that you were just adds to the hysteria. You were dropped due to a network issue. There is a huge difference.
If you were banned, you should go ahead and have those layoffs now, or switch domains.
You might be right that we are not 'banned' but I don't think you can be absolutely sure at this point, right? I think your diagnosis that our problem has been caused by slow Google DNS updates may be accurate. Hard to know at this point.
I am getting 2 conflicting viewpoints (no one seems absolutely sure) from various SEO forums regarding why our site had its listings completely disappear from Google and why our domain is non-existent when you search on it with Google:
1. Google has a very slow DNS updating schedule (your diagnosis of this situation) - a problem with Google;
2. Google has banned the site due to not meeting its content quality standards - a problem with us not understanding or properly implementing Google's 'rules' for inclusion (and the experts we've shown this to can't seem to find which 'rule' we are breaking);
Time will tell which one is correct - or if both are correct.
The effect is the same: 4 months without traffic from Google has dramatically affected our traffic.
I am sure that you should not be using the word banned when you are *almost certainly* not banned. If you say you were dropped it would cover both possiblities.
If you read the message from google, you will notice that they do not say you were banned, they say it was lacking in quality to receive PageRank. Being unable to find the page would definitely be a lack of quality issue.
Banning is not what happens to people who commit minor offences, they receive a penalty. Banning happens when you do something really, really bad.
It is not in your best interest to refer to yourself as being banned, unless you are certain that you have been. Googlebot has returned to your site, it is looking at pages other than / , I would have to say that I am 98%+ certain that you have not been banned. Is that sure enough for you?
Once again, saying you are banned when you are not banned just adds to the general paranoia that it is in fact a common occurance.
At the moment I am dependent on Google. But if Google went away tomorrow, people would search somewhere else. And they would still find my site.
my understanding is that yahoo is positioning to buy another major search engine and go into competition w/ google. i cant remember the name - i am sure its the inka..whatever search engine..
It happened a week ago papercut...
Yahoo Purchases Inktomi [webmasterworld.com]
I would survive without google. I get enough traffic from established links that the website can exist without any search engine traffic.
But i would have to cut back on updates, and content. Most of my valuable traffic (which pays for the effort) only needs the information untill they buy. then they don't need it again for many years (at least thats their hope, the affiliates hope, and mine).
Search engine traffic is very important because that provides the <metaphoricly> new leads </metaphoricly> It may take a month or two for those leads close but search engines provide most of them.
So with that big a lose i would need to cut back on what i put into the websites.
His fledgling ad agency was offered the British Airways account, but its value would have made up more than 20% of his total turnover. As he had a rule (I call it the Ogilvy Rule) to the effect that "if you have more than 20% of your income coming from a single source, then you should either get more business which will dilute the value of the account or decline the business". (He declined the business at the time!)
I thought it was very sensible when I first read it many years ago, and find it useful to remember the "Ogilvy Rule" when analysing the many number crunching aspects of our business.
It means I work hard on reciprocal links, regional directories, newsgroups and email lists to get traffic to the sites I'm responsible for, to ensure that the Olgilvy threshold doesn't get breached. (A task increasingly time consuming with the closures, mergers and machinations going on in the SE world!)
BTW, you all know by now that google.com.au is alive and well?
A peaceful and prosperous 2003 to all.
Hooroo
JP
