In face of Google search monopoly, what can individuals do?

[cnvi]

The following message was cut out of May 2019 Updates and SERP changes thread at:
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4944194.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 3:18 am on May 17, 2019 - (PDT -8)



So many asking questions that are completely un-answerable in 2019 because an (illegal) monopoly totally controls web search.

The US DOJ does nothing because we say nothing ... what do you expect? What is stopping you from shouting/saying/speaking up/filing complaints/talking to attorneys/ demanding PUBCON has realistic discussions on this topic?

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 11:39 am (utc) on May 17, 2019]
[edit reason] Cleanup after thread split to new thread [/edit]

[StoneSolid]

@iamlost

We can complain to the high heavens about Google

Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful, but you're misdirecting your complaints.

@Mark_A

So other than...
Bing - which isn't a thing to rely on due to monopoly of the other..

You listed 5 methods of PAID marketing and...

"links that bring traffic" - I don't think I ever heard of links that bring in so much traffic to the point where they become a viable alternative to google in the big picture.
Maybe you're thinking of buying banner spaces instead (another paid marketing option) ?

Or should I summarize what you said...
Pay for ads so that your website doesn't rely on google?

[Mark_A]

@StoneSolid, there is no free marketing effort, it all has to be paid for. SEO and reliance on G Organic results is not free, even if you do it yourself, add up the hours you spend doing SEO, building content etc etc, charge a fair wage for your time - and the costs will soon add up.

[StoneSolid]

You are trying to equalize work and resources spent on own site and content versus money paid solely for traffic.

Nope.

[Mark_A]

You are trying to equalize work and resources spent on own site and content versus money paid solely for traffic.

No I really am not. I am just emphasising that SEO, even on your own site, is not free. And as for traffic, what is the point? What do you want from it? If it is orders and sales, there are ways of generating sales which don't require a website. What is your objective from your activity? and what are the alternatives?

[NickMNS]

I am just emphasising that SEO, even on your own site, is not free.

True, and a very valid point, but there is a fundamental difference between SEO and PPC, PPC requires cash. Many people can afford to spend time on SEO, but do not have the means the finance a PPC campaign. Moreover, not using cash often makes people forget to consider the value of their time in the profit loss calculations.

It makes me think of UBER, where in the early days drivers would say, "I can work a few hours and $200. I'm earning way more than in my old job". Sure, if you don't consider the value of the car that you are using, insurance, etc... But after a few month when your car breaks down, you suddenly realize that $200 for a few hours a day is really worth less than $10/hour.

[StoneSolid]

there are ways of generating sales which don't require a website

When I open up a bakery, I'll stand in the middle of the street and shout about my fresh bread and croissants. That just might do the trick.
I'll write all about it on a bakerworld forums.

Meanwhile, I'm a webmaster that owns and operates... gee whiz, try to guess what. I'm making it too easy.

Seriously, people, what the hell is up with this kind of arguments?
You're really going down that road to justify google monopoly?

A month ago someone "advised" that one should use adwords if one wants traffic from google.
Today, you don't even need a website.

This is escalating rather quickly. What is next?
"You don't need google or a website, you can get a phone book and call everybody to advertise your product!"

[tangor]

You're really going down that road to justify google monopoly?

Pretty sure if you go back and read the thread with an open mind you might see that all have said g IS a monopoly -- and if you are to survive to go in other directions, seek different methods, and don't keep sucking at the g teat which is drying up.

[iamlost]

:)

There is no free lunch whether it is paid in time or in cash and both should be accounted so as to have a true understanding of the actual cost. Yes, sometimes time is more available than money but it should still be counted in monetary terms. Your effort on your own behalf is worth at least that that would be billed another. And without inclusion can greatly distort ROI calculations.

As I've mentioned I do not consider any of Google's services, including search, a monopoly; rather an oligopoly. Regardless, I have never justified it, simply accepted it as what it is, one my best to understand what it was becoming and might eventually be, and worked with, around, under, and over it for years to build diversified traffic referrers. I pulled April's stats for my English language sites:

Note: how one markets to achieve both external links and referral traffic is a business decision.
Note: as is how one best converts said traffic.
Note: numbers rounded; CR == average Conversion Rate.

Organic Search (40% of traffic ... CR: 3.4%):
* Google: 55% of search . CR: 2.7%.
* Bing: 30% of search .... CR: 4.8%.
* Yahoo: 10% of search .. CR: 3.8%.
* DDG: 3% of search ...... CR: 2.5%.
* Other: 2% of search ..... CR: 3%.

Organic SMM (20% of traffic ... CR: 13%):
* Pinterest: 30% of SM ... CR: 13%.
* FaceBook: 25% of SM .. CR: 17%.
* Instagram: 15% of SM . CR: 12%.
* Youtube: 15% of SM..... CR: 4%.
* Twitter: 5% of SM ....... CR: 19%.
* Reddit: 5% of SM ........ CR: 3%.
* Second Life: 2% of SM.. CR: 45%.
* Other: 3% of SM ......... CR: 2.5%.

APP (14% of traffic ... CR: 20%):
* Android native: 45% of app ... CR: 17%.
* iOS native: 35% of app ......... CR 24%.
* PWA: 20% of app ................. CR: 19%.

Other (backlinks): 12% of traffic ... CR: 6%.

Newsletter: 5% of traffic ... CR: 8%.

Direct: 9% of traffic ... CR: 6%.

RSS: <1% of traffic ... CR: 4%.

-------------------------
Total traffic CR: 8.4%.

A main impetus, from the beginning, has been the knowledge, from analytics such as above, that search traffic is pretty much the least converting traffic and Google pretty much the least converting of that. Yes, volume makes up for a lot but diversification has made even that moot.

Final notes:
* to my sites the value of Bing's referred traffic is almost identical to that of Googles.
* SM referred traffic is roughly twice as valuable as that referred from SEs.
* App traffic is the most valuable of all.

[Mark_A]

@StoneSolid

Meanwhile, I'm a webmaster that owns and operates... gee whiz, try to guess what. I'm making it too easy.

I don't know what your website does nor how you make money, we have a website also and getting the right traffic to it does increase sales or rather it increases enquiries, we have to do work to convert enquiries into orders and sales.

But we don't rely on G organic / SEO because that would be putting all our eggs into one basket and anyhow we only get 28% of our sessions from G Organic, despite having spent quite a lot of money on G SEO quite recently.

So we also do G and Bing PPC, LinkedIn, direct mail, direct marketing etc etc .. They all go into the mix in our hunt for enquiries. And they all have to achieve expected ROI or we discard them.

And we are almost bypassing our website now, as soon as a visitor arrives they are picked up by a chat program with the intention of getting into a human - human dialog as soon as possible. Often we have won our enquiry before the visitor has visited even a second page on our site.

[Mark_A]

@NickMNS

True, and a very valid point, but there is a fundamental difference between SEO and PPC, PPC requires cash.

Yes initially it does, but if it makes you sales then you can offset it against those and in the second period you should be in profit.

Now that the top positions on G SERPS are PPC, and that is where the mass of the traffic is going I think that is what is driving most businesses to want to be there.

[Mark_A]

Hi iamlost, interesting post especially the CR figures, but under social you didn't mention LinkedIn which interests me. We are technical B2B and don't for example feel fb and the like are right for us, too B2C really.

[JesterMagic]

@iamlost - Interesting numbers thanks for sharing. Your Bing % is pretty high especially for the search engine market share Bing has when compared to Google. (or I guess you can think of it as your Google % is low) (all things being equal)

As I've mentioned I do not consider any of Google's services, including search, a monopoly; rather an oligopoly.

Not sure why you think Google search is an oligopoly. Sure there are a number of other search engines but their market share compare to Google is miniscule. Google has over 90% market share worldwide.

[tangor]

Google has over 90% market share worldwide.

And? My experience, much like @imalost is that bing is more productive in a general sense.

g is on the path to implosion (my opinion) as they are stretched too thin, have fingers in too many pies, and have other issues (delving into political which we don't generally discuss at ww) which are trimming value from their product by leaps and bounds.

The OP was "In face of Google search monopoly, what can individuals do?" and the best answer is do ANYTHING except g. ... or more simply: take whatever g gives while building up everything else that is out there.

This is not an "either/or" kind of thing. Commonsense is chase what WORKS, find NEW DIRECTIONS, and SEEK the end user, however one might do that.

Hints will be offered, but no one will reveal blueprints on how they did it. Been that way for the last 10 years. :)

[iamlost]

@Mark_A:
My sites are evergreen information monetised by ads (now all direct) and affiliate marketing (Amazon and direct) including coupons. So primarily indirect B2C and negligible B2B.

There are so many SM platforms for good reason: there are so many different ways in which people and businesses form communities. Which work best in what ways varies greatly by niche, site, business model, time, etc. Hypothesise, test, rinse, repeat.

One reason I separate out numbers monthly is to get a handle on not so much where my audiences are but where they might be going. And how my SMM efforts are working, or not. Some, such as Reddit, tend to pop up for a week or month or three and then disappear for a time, others are fairly constant if fluctuating.

----------------------------

@JesterMagic:
Yes, Google has a generally high usage percentage in many/most countries. However:
* there are decent other options in most languages so as Google changes, and the rate of that change is increasing, it isn't as if there are no other options. Back in the day they broke up the Bell system because AT&T truly was an overarching over reaching monopoly such that separating the regional operating companies was the only practical way forward.

* while the majority of traffic that Google gets is real a rather large portion is automated, simply by virtue of being top dog it gets more than it's share. I know how many bots I get referred by Google search, I see how many SEO tools scrape search results... Personally, I'd be shocked if less than 20% of Google world traffic is bots of one sort or another and only mildly surprised if it topped 40%. I do know that a significant proportion of Google search referred traffic is blocked by my sites as bots and so not counted as Google traffic.

* it gets a ton of pushback but there are also differences in the rationale and value of traffic. I've accumulated a fair number of studies, such as one shared [webmasterworld.com] back in 2016.

In the UK Google has ~90.5% of search, Bing ~5.5%, Yahoo ~2.5%
BUT
in transactional UK search it is Yahoo with ~34%, Bing ~33%, Google ~31% (via Experian).
Yup, that ~8% of the UK general search market accounts for upwards of two-thirds of UK transactional search.

By optimising for one particular algorithm one gets the tree one is looking for but likely misses the rest of the forest as a result.
Note: I have no problem with being told iamlost.

Google is formidable, however a great deal of that is being a conglomerate able to leverage each by the others. However, the man behind the curtain aka it's ad business, has been and is increasingly under threat on several fronts, which will be fun to watch over the coming years.

The problem, in our sphere, is not so much the power of Google but the wilful weakness of those in it's thrall. Addiction is hard to break even when it hurts.

[tangor]

Addiction is hard to break even when it hurts.

Another blunt truth.

Needs be said!

[JesterMagic]

@iamlost It comes down to what you define as a search engine (and not just traffic sources). Google tries to index the entire internet including Apps and Social Media. Social Media services tend to be a closed system and only return results from their own service and not any others.

In terms of an internet search engine from a content providers point of view Google is a monopoly. While the statistics from your site may not show this most other stats do. They also control many ways to access the internet via search including Chrome, Android OS, and paying off Apple to be the default search engine.

In terms of traffic sources Google is not a monopoly but an oligopoly as you said. In large part thanks to social media where people tend to go directly to the service and stay on the service.

The problem is many internet businesses realistic don't see Social Media (or apps) as a viable major traffic source that could replace the traffic Google provides. As you and others pointed out, this is a failing of the business. Just like any other business that relies on 1 major source for their revenue. YouTube content providers comes to mind.

When a lot of us content providers started out, we at least had an oligopoly in internet search. Unfortunately this isn’t the case anymore. Your option of go elsewhere for traffic is definitely something we all need to consider and to continue to improve on. I find your numbers really interesting and I would like to thank you for sharing them.

I think this topic originally was supposed to be more about what people can do to try and get others see what Google Search has become and to eventually change this. One option is to forget about Google (basically give up) and go elsewhere as you and others have said. Do you see any other options?

[iamlost]

@JesterMagic:
I think this topic originally was supposed to be more about what people can do to try and get others see what Google Search has become and to eventually change this. One option is to forget about Google (basically give up) and go elsewhere as you and others have said. Do you see any other options?

That's two topics: (1) change folks' view of G and/or change G, and (2) where to 'go elsewhere' for traffic.

1. change folks' view of G and/or change G.
Change to a large corporation comes via management, stock holders (both apparently pleased with G's direction), government regulation (variously has been chipping away via privacy and tax laws for years), competitors (StartPage and Duck DuckGo, FireFox and Vivaldi wielding privacy as a wedge), publishers (increasing numbers albeit small restricting access and/or highlighting options however most are bound by their addiction/focus), advertisers (upset via impressions scam and poor ROI increasingly move elsewhere in whole or part for few years), ad blocker devs (increasing user uptake hitting financial raison d'être directly) , SEO tool developers (who saw G as the one SE and are now bound to that), and users (lowest common denominator mob behaviour).
Note: and the scraper/malware bot masters thrilled Google is an increasingly vulnerable access vector.

As publishers there is actually very little we can do - there are currently more wanting in (or showing Stockholm Syndrome symptoms) to the ecosystem than want change or believe they can escape. What I have done and will continue to do as an individual webdev is:
* on site privacy pages note platform and app invasive concerns, personal vulnerabilities and offer reviews/recommendations to alternatives.
Note: my privacy pages are now basically a mini-site within the main.

* when opportunities arise make concerns and/or recommendations to appropriate industry and government bodies.
---when an egregious event occurs make an appropriate communication with news media, politicians. At the least be a concerned member of the public, at best become a resource in future.

* use heightened privacy options in day to day use.
---recommend to family and friends they do similar.

Positive (for some definition thereof) changes in G, should they occur, will be forced by withdrawal of personal data and revenue by whatever means: regulator, advertisers, users, etc. Of course this has a knock-on effect on publishers, which should be additional encouragement to find their own alternatives but will most likely simply raise the level of angst.

[iamlost]

2. where to 'go elsewhere' for traffic.

The biggest mystery, to me, of the widespread focus on, addiction to Google search is that it totally ignores one of the basic questions of marketing: where's the audience?

<some background thoughts>
While Google has become so pervasive as to have become a verb, 'to google', that many people conflate Google with the web, Google is neither the only search engine nor the only popular web platform aka community of users. And SEs, including G, have a serious problem that actually constrains value: they are, for smaller sites, almost entirely new traffic.
Note: SE navigational queries skew heavily to larger sites.

SE users are looking for a specific unknown or partially remembered something and use a SE query to find it. Unfortunately, the more a publisher optimises to attract such traffic and optimises to convert them to applicable ads or affiliate offers the less is left to encourage retention or return; such a site is simply a funnel waypoint in the journey from query to advertiser or affiliate merchant. Add in that the more one optimises for a particular search algorithm the more one is probably unoptimising for any/all others.

Note: there are a few papers/posts/articles that have almost mythological status among webdevs, i.e. Brin and Page's "The PageRank Citation Ranking: Bringing Order to the Web", Brett Tabke's "26 Steps to 15k a Day". There is also one by Ammon Johns, lost since Cre8asiteforums closed, that illustrated simultaneously ranking well in Google, Yahoo, and MSN Search; granted the actual methods eventually no longer worked but the point that one could actually optimise across search engines lived on for some of us. One can have one's cake and eat it too. :)

Another critical problem with SE, especially Google, referrals is that the smaller the site the larger proportion of referred traffic is bots. Many/most small sites rely solely on their hosts for bot detection, which typically miss at least half. Result: a great many traffic/conversion artifacts are due to undetected bots.
<end background>

We know, that for any niche, not all interested parties are on 'just' one platform, not even Google. However, if one focuses just on Google one is not actually finding one's audiences, rather one is merely finding a tool. And G has been and still can be a great tool. But no one tool fits all uses equally well.

Google is a simple easy default. Unless one actively blocks access one gets Google regardless. Just about every other traffic referrer requires work. Even increasing other SEs traffic requires that one not so attract one that others are repulsed. It requires research, hypothesising, testing even after finding an initial balnce as the algos change over time.

Besides general search, which does the 'where's Waldo' for us, we must actively (1) define current and future audiences, discover (2) where they congregate, and (3) how best to interact in each location such that they come and that they refer/recommend to others.
Note: plus, of course, how best to convert while simultaneously retaining interest aka garnering return visits.

The primary reason that many/most Google focussed sites fail elsewhere for both traffic and conversion is that they are designed NOT to do so. They are designed solely for Google and their mindset is simply unable to get out of that box.

Plus Google is a one size fits all, if not necessarily well, solution. Each platform/application/community out there requires a varied different approach. Context is critical. And many/most publishers do not grok context. As they fail to differentiate market segmentation or utilise a methodology, i.e. STP (Segmentation -> Targeting -> Positioning) or...

I can tell you that FaceBook works well for me. But that doesn't tell you which audience I found or how I market to them. Nor does it tell you whether you have a viable audience there or how best to market to it.

O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to diversify!
Or
It's complex.

Business 101, Marketing 101: too may webdevs simply do not have the knowledge required; that some also don't want to do the work required to acquire the knowledge and trial/utilise it, without guarantee of result, is a remnant of how easy and simple it has been to get up and running and plaster ads for success these past 10+ years. That was then and now is changing too.

Know your niche market.
Do your market segmentation.
---identify behavioural, contextual/situational, demographic, geographic, psychographic base segmentations.
Find your audiences.
Target appropriately.
Position appropriately.

Hypothesise, test, rinse, repeat.

It's work. Sorry about that.

[tangor]

Know your bots. Manage that best you can... it is a never ending battle, but you have to stay on top of it. else you have no clue what kind of traffic you are actually getting.

Don't ignore the other SEs, some have better value than others, but each is a different audience than what g provides.

Do not neglect all other forms of generating traffic such as tv, radio, pods, apps, celebrity endorsement (doesn't have to be an A-lister to start!, local heroes also work very well). If niche applicable insert oneself into local retail, BBB, local, state, or national gov, edu as applicable. Pick up the telephone or put on business clothes and go knock on doors. Bring something to the table other than a billboard to hang ads on. Work with news media (mentioned above), generate buzz ... throw a party. Put a kid through college (figure out how to market that AND grow your biz) ...

Get off your duff.

There is nothing easy about this, and TANSTAAFL must always be remembered, but if one wants it---and works at it---the rewards can be amazing.

NOT EVERYONE CAN DO THESE THINGS. There is no cut and paste way to accomplish any of the above. Hard work, long hours, and possibly some money expended---above and beyond hosting/equipment costs---will be involved.

[Mark_A]

@iamlost

One reason I separate out numbers monthly is to get a handle on not so much where my audiences are but where they might be going.

Judging by your conversion stats you are anything but lost :) It is very impressive that you can categorise your conversions so accurately and very valuable for decisions on resource allocation. Do you mind me asking what software you use for that? Because I can't track conversions back to arrivals at the moment, using GA at the moment here.

[cnvi]

@iamlost

Also interested to know what tools you are using to get this detailed level of conversion data.

[iamlost]

@Mark_A, @cnvi:
Note: I did use Matomo/Piwik for a few years, have never used GoAn.
Note: I sometimes get carried away with tech toys and what they can do...

I work straight from headers, logfiles et al.
What I currently use is a combination of Graylog (open source), Postgres-XL, Redis, and TensorFlo as well as bots and custom programming.
* for real time response, management, and analytics in a feedback loop with UCB-ALP CCB machine learning -> bot identification/mitigation and fingerprinting/contextual delivery.
* for data on referrers and external landing pages.
* for structured data (logfiles are unstructured data txt files) storage.

Added to expand acronyms:
* UCB-ALP == Upper Confidence Bound - Adaptive Linear Programming
* CCB == Constrained Contextual Bandit

Note: when a new referrer sends traffic a bot is sent to 'inspect' the page and gather info such as title, description, headers, anchor and surrounding text. At least once a year a bot is sent to confirm whether changes or not in page. If changes detected is flagged for consideration.
Note: site external links are checked by bot at least annually to confirm whether changes or not. If changes detected is flagged for decision on link.
Note: link rot is a terrible thing.

Note: still using Hypertable + Quantcast File System + MapReduce-MPI Library for 'biggish' data analytics. Not sure whether or how or what to replace this.

>>>just an analytics geek lost in the catacombs of Canada<<<

[tangor]

@iamlost ... so many toys to deploy! :)

I do things a little more simply. And remain, as always, Clueless. (sigh)

[Mark_A]

@iamlost, many thanks for your post, good to see the tools you use.
Presently I can't track back from an enquiry to find the point of entry.
I do have some means of tracking returns, but they aren't ideal.

[JS_Harris]

Use a competitor without history of doing the same evil stuff.

For search that's DuckDuckGo right now.

As for the rest, try not using it at all to see if you can adapt and find other ways of accomplishing the same goals. Stuff like analytics, don't use ANY alternative, just remove tracking code. Your visitors will thank you and your server logs will continue to have all the data you need. Learn to use them.

[Dimitri]

Your visitors will thank you and your server logs will continue to have all the data you need. Learn to use them.

You are insane! ... Most of today's web publishers do not even know what server logs are , ... is there a WP plugin for this ? :)

[cnvi]

"Your visitors will thank you and your server logs will continue to have all the data you need. Learn to use them."

Understood.. however some webhosts have stopped giving access to server logs due to the widespread use of GA. The company I work for is at a webhost that will not give me access to server logs. Their answer is to use GA, search console, etc.. My employer cannot afford to switch webhosts therefore we are stuck with what I think is innacurate data.

I've been looking into alternatives to GA since I do have access to the frame of the website where the meta data would go. So I have options.

But my point with this reply is that there are so many SMBs that are relying on GA - they don't even realize the results they see are likely false. They do not realize there are other options. G has become such an influence into so many SMBs decision making, ie, they aren't aware of this forum or where to go for reliable answers.. Maybe they aren't even questioning GA. I don't like the "word brainwash" but not sure what else to call it.

So although my views are primarily small government/libertarian, I welcome the current DOJ investigation and hope something good that betters the web for all comes from it.

[Mark_A]

@cnvi, a lot of people love GA, until I think they begin to realise the questions it cannot answer.