How do you go about creating traffic in a world without Google?

Enough of Big Daddy

[must learn more]

I don't know how you big guys with big sites are taking it , but Big Daddy is driving me insane. Yesterday mid-day my Google sent traffic dropped to 0. Today I got a grand total of 1 visitor from Google! Can you believe that?

I am a big fan of Google and all and I understand that they are improving their engine and all...but this is driving me insane! Every half and hour I am frantically looking to see if some one came to my site.

(Forget Google! Let's make our own search engine. We go some really smart people here don't we. We are the webmasters and we have been making websites for soooo long now, so we really know all the tricks of the trade and we can really differentiate the good sites from the bad. Let's make our own search engine ;-)

Okay, forgive my extremist immature paragraph on top.

My real question is, how do you go about getting your self some real traffic in these bad times. Basically I want something to work towards. This wait is driving me insane!

[blue_eagle]

The best thing that will give you peave of mind without worrying about Google is to create a very informational web site and get repeat visitors and bookmark visitors. That way even if you lose google rankings people will come to your web site directly and you will receive new visitors from word to mouth.

Believe me including me, Google worries so many webmasters. Because of this one of my new web site project is creating such a web site and get a peace of mind.

[ronburk]

Interesting point: some websites just don't work without Google.

• For many topics, traffic from non-Google search engines is a mere trickle.
  
• For many websites, repeat visitor traffic is virtually non-existent. In stark contrast to "community" sites, these sites typically have reference material that people look up once, get the info they need, and then rarely if ever need to come back unless they're looking up some related piece of information in the future.
  

Some websites, by their very nature, just can't get significant traffic from any source but Google. They can be quite profitable, but are at the mercy of Google's algorithm changes for traffic.

[Essex_boy]

Having had G kill off a business of mine I started building Affilates and links to teh site, while not perfect and time consuming its the best way forward.

[texasville]

The best advice I can give is to go to msn (I no longer say "google it") and enter "social bookmarking". It does not fit for all sites but for a lot it will and I have seen some phenomenal results and exposure. As for G, if traffic patterns are indeed going to become significant influence in the serps ranking, then this should eventually give you a boost. If done right, you won't have to worry about google any more.
However, it can have it's drawbacks. If bandwidth cost can be an expensive surprise for you, be prepared.

[Matt Probert]

Traditional advertising. Word of mouth. TV advertising. Radio advertising. Magazine adverts. Banner adverts on other web sites. Free giveaway promotional items such as t-shirts, mugs, mouse mats and the like.

Businesses generally don't rely upon search engines to deliver traffic to their web site, they advertise for it.

Matt

[Rosalind]

No-one has mentioned directories, perhaps because their value is perceived to have declined lately. But a good quality niche directory can be a direct source of traffic. It's still worthwhile to allocate some time to submitting to these.

[Porter5Forces]

Traditional advertising. Word of mouth. TV advertising. Radio advertising. Magazine adverts. Banner adverts on other web sites. Free giveaway promotional items such as t-shirts, mugs, mouse mats and the like.

Good idea. I've thought of giving away free items but still can't figure out the strategy to give away free items and yet able to get sales.

Hope you can give some tips here. Appreciated!

[piatkow]

While Google is the main source of earch engine traffic on my site, I seem to maintain an acceptable base level of traffic without search engines.

1. Inbound links (site is for an arts organisation so performers, venues and other organisations all link)
2. Email newsletter to members.
3. URL in our printed publications

Without search engine traffic visitors tend to be repeats which does hit our Adsense income but thats a topic for a different forum.

[iProgram]

You have to face it that google plays a major role for sending traffic to a website. If you can get 1000 bookmark/ad visitors everyday, you should be able to get 5000 visitors from Google. If not, there must be something wrong with your website. You can not creating traffic in a world without gooogle, because you can not find a world in which people do not use google.

[must learn more]

Thanks for your responses. Maybe my original question did not convey what I really meant to convey properly. I did not really mean "in a world without Google" I meant something like, in a world where the following is accepted as true:
1. ) Google is a major search engine
2. ) For some reason or the other, large no. of people still use Google.
3. ) Google does not much like your site so you don't show up anywhere in the SERPS. (or like the recent madness, Google has dropped half your pages from the index)

So if this is the situation, like it is today, how do you get traffic in these troubled times.

One obvious ans would be AdWords. But that is going to be really costly. Any other ideas?

must_learn_more

[Eazygoin]

If you can get 1000 bookmark/ad visitors everyday, you should be able to get 5000 visitors from Google. If not, there must be something wrong with your website.

I disagree with this comment. Firstly, it depends on the age of a site. A new or recent site cannot expect to achieve that number.

Secondly, it depends on the type of site. Many sites are not bookmarked for a number of reasons, such as adult sites, so other users of a computer can't see where you have been!

Thirdly, a site being used by a student to gain information is much more likely to be bookmarked than a one off look at a camera for sale.

In conclusion, the statement does not make allowances for variations.

[JuniorOptimizer]

I have one word for you, son. In the 1960s, it was plastics. Now the word is BLOGS. Get one today.

[smokeybarnable]

blogs are dead.

[avalanche101]

If you sell physical products - then ebay etc.

Concentrate on msn and yahoo maybe? 40% of something is worth more than 60% of nothing

[wanderingmind]

For the kind of traffic you can get from Google for a good site, I suspect there are no equivalent alternatives. If you want that kind of traffic, you will probably be talking a large investment in time or money.

[proboscis]

40% from yahoo and msn combined? Is that really what people are getting? I only get 12% from them, most of the rest is from the googles, google.com, .co.uk, .ca, .de, etc.

[LifeinAsia]

One obvious ans would be AdWords. But that is going to be really costly.

Well, compute your "cost" of lost revenue if you don't have any traffic. Zero cost and 0 income = break even. Do you really have such a low margin product that you can't even break even with some paid advertising? If so, then I strongly suggest you abandon your site as a money making machine- your marging is just too low to make it work.

Getting "free" traffic (from Google or otherwise) is not a right, nor should it be expected. If you want a free ride, then don't get upset when you get dropped off at some place other than the destination you wanted. Go ahead and ask for your money back if you're not satisfied.

Millions of people grew their businesses long before search engines. A small few of them may have grown very slowly by word of mouth or other cheap advertising. But the vast majority of them grew by investing money in their business in terms of advertising (yellow pages, newspapers, magazines, radio, tv, billboards, direct mail, etc.).

[ZoltanTheBold]

I have one word for you, son. In the 1960s, it was plastics. Now the word is BLOGS. Get one today.

On the whole blogs are a waste of time. The effort required to make a good blog that is evenly vaguely interesting would be better spent on your own site.

In addition you have to promote and market your blog too, and extra hassle nobody really needs.

Anyway, I don't know a single person who actually reads blogs, and certainly nobody who would bookmark them. On the whole they fall completely below the radar. The only people who are really plugging them are SEO people and Web 2.0 fans.

[Phil_Payne]

> You have to face it that google plays a major role for sending traffic to a website.

On the sites I manage, it varies by site.

Looking to the future, I have three sites that the Googlebot has ignored for over two weeks. Not one visit until yesterday, and that did nothing useful.

But I have almost hourly visits from MSN and Yahoo - and a whole shedload of other search engines I've never heard of.

The upshot is - what's been happening on these three sites is simply not known to Google users. But it _is_ known to MSN, Yahoo, Ask, etc., users. Repeat for all the other sites Google has hit.

It won't be very long before word gets around. Someone in a bar will say "I found this on Google" and someone else will say "I found this on MSN" - and it will be much better.

Google's silence on this issue is an insult to those webmasters who've tried to co-operate with them over the years.

[ZoltanTheBold]

Google's silence on this issue is an insult to those webmasters who've tried to co-operate with them over the years.

Actually, I'd go further. Google's silence is a reflection of their immaturity as a company. Their entire approach to communication is based on a small-time mentality that views anyone with a website as a potential spammer. How confident are we supposed to believe they are (in their algorithms etc) if they publicise so little, and show a total contempt for people working within their guidelines raising legitimate issues. It can't last.

[zCat]

On the whole blogs are a waste of time. The effort required to make a good blog that is evenly vaguely interesting would be better spent on your own site.

My "blogs" are all integral parts of my websites. If it walks like a blog, talks like a blog and smells like a blog, it's a blog even if it doesn't use any blogging packages (i.e. software like Wordpress or 3rd party services like blogspot). It's another content presentation method which is what many site users expect to see.

[Iguana]

Three ways I get traffic since Google began to hate me:

Blogs (easy to promote and get PR)
RSS Feeds (if you are preapred to syndicate and promote)
MySpace (for music sites)

[avalanche101]

Also,
Re: other search engines.
Go cold turkey on google for 3 days. Use Yahoo or MSN instead.
I get the feeling that a lot of people are trying to find other ways of getting traffic outside google due to them finding google results completely out of wack for their area, but are still doing searches on google for everything else.
Try the other search engines for your own general searches.
I think you'll find the results they give aren't bad and certainly worth working on to imporve your own site's position within them.
Then just recommend that search engine to your customers/colleagues/etc.
I think what kicked started google's rise was webmasters refering surfers to google, back in the day when Yahoo was number 1.

Anyway just a thought...

[catch2948]

Google's silence on this issue is an insult to those webmasters who've tried to co-operate with them over the years.

I think I mentioned a couple of days ago that I was dumbfounded because we have not heard from GoogleGuy is quite some time. As a matter of fact, I don't think he has posted much of anything in any of the major forums. Why?

Personally, I have always enjoyed his posts. And i'm sure that most everyone will agree that his posts, although purposely vague at times, always contained something that was useful to everyone. While everyone understands that he must be a very busy person, I can't fathom why he wouldn't at least stop by & say everything will be ok shortly ...

[avalanche101]

Maybe Big Daddy Got GG too!

[JuniorOptimizer]

Google is a Web 1.0 company living on borrowed time. The static internet is fading fast.

[Hissingsid]

Many/most rdinary folks don't realise that the "Sponsored Links" at the top of Google are pay per click Adwords. Nor do they realise that the "Sponsored Links" on Yahoo are pay per click whatever they call Overture ads now.

Therefore if you want to be #1 on the top search engines you can just pay for it. Before the Florida disaster (sorry update) we spent very little on pay per click. Now we spend more on that than all of the magazine advertising that we do. The number of conversions is now roughly 4 times what it was pre Florida. It might not work for everyone but it costs you very little to test it and if you plan and implement a tracking URL system its easy to calculate the true return on expenditure.

Of course if you are not selling something this model will not work.

Best wishes

Sid

[wanderingmind]

Hmm, LifeinAsia,

How is zero traffic = zero cost?

Unless you have an absolutely static website, I dont think thats true.

[LifeinAsia]

How is zero traffic = zero cost?

On the PPC side. If you don't receive any PPC traffic, your PPC cosr = zero.