The folly of depending on free traffic from Google

[chawk]

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System: The following 18 messages were cut out of thread at: http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4532950.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 12:04 pm on Jan 4, 2013 (PST -8)

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#*$! google

[TheMadScientist]

#*$! google

Well said ... Might be the post of this thread.

If you're hooked on the GoogleTrafficDrug, get off it, now, please, find a way. Do whatever you have to so you can get away from depending on free traffic from Google, now, seriously, secure your future without Google being involved in any way. If you bothered to read the fine print in this post and follow my advice you might thank me later (if you remember I said it), because your free Google traffic is ending and right now today is the time for you to find a way to make a living without Google controlling you, your livelihood and your future ... If you have read my posts previously and haven't listened to me or disagree with me, please put all that sh*t aside, I beggin you, please take the advice I'm giving in this post and run with it ... Please

[Jane_Doe]

If you're hooked on the GoogleTrafficDrug, get off it, now, please, find a way. Do whatever you have to so you can get away from depending on free traffic from Google, now, seriously, secure your future without Google being involved in any way.

Free traffic is like free money. It is great as long as you arrange your finances and business expenses with the knowledge that it might all end tomorrow, just like the Who Moved My Cheese book.

[Bewenched]

Well said to you MadScientist, we'd all love to cut that cord, but the general public needs to do the same.

I'm blown away that they did an update just days before Christmas.

[superclown2]

I'm blown away that they did an update just days before Christmas.

I've seen no signs of an update here in the UK. Have any other UK based guys seen anything?

[themaninthejar]

UK based. The only thing I've seen is in WMT Search Queries. For my main two-word keyphrase the Average Position over the last few days has been reported as between 8 and 13. In actual fact for the last six months the average position has been around 500 to nowhere...

Funnily enough 8 to 13 was my average position for many years until my traffic started to plummet about 12 months ago.

Who knows what this might signify, but right now it feels like salt in the wounds...

[ethought]

Seeing a large increase in traffic over the last 24 hours over a network of sites ( 50%+ increase )...

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

With the seasonal holidays it's not really the best time to be doing any sort of meaningful analysis or making any assumptions.

[TheMadScientist]

Free traffic is like free money.

Yeah, it's a Bonus, a Gift ... Sometimes I read the posts here about people saying their 'handout' went away and wonder if what they based their livelihood on (their site) really has what it takes to be a business ... My guess is, unfortunately, most people aren't even 'break even' without a handout ... (That's not a business, it's a charity) ... Sometimes people here almost sound less reasonable than the pan-handlers on the corner, because the pan-handlers don't usually get p*ssed when you don't have some change to give them, they generally understand what a gift is.

I'm sure I'm sounding harsh, but this advice has been posted here Tons over the years and if people haven't followed it yet, now is really the time to start, because for most people and most sites, the freebies are going to seriously diminish, if not end, moving forward...

[edited by: TheMadScientist at 3:05 pm (utc) on Jan 4, 2013]

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

So are you saying that Google gets nothing from this arrangement?

[TheMadScientist]

You posted information online and made it freely available ... They use it better than you. If you don't like it, take the info you posted down or ban them from accessing it, otherwise, don't complain about them taking advantage of it. And no, they don't owe you a thing, because you gave the info and access away for free and they happen to be smart enough to take advantage of what you put out there for anyone to use and see.

Seriously, you can whine about them using other people's info and blah, blah, blah until the cows come home, but it won't pay the bills for you ... It's much more productive to find a way to survive and pay the bills without the handouts they've been sending, isn't it?

In analogous terms:
You gave the pan-handler a buck. They can do whatever they want with it, and just because they used the $1 you gave them better than you and made $10 doesn't mean you're entitled to some of what they get from it. You gave it to them. If you don't like it, don't give them any more, but giving it to them and then complaining about what they do with it won't get you anywhere with a reasonable person. People keep giving it to them and they use it ... Either stop giving it to them or stop complaining about how they use it. And whatever you do, please, don't think they owe you anything for something you're giving away, because they owe you absolutely nothing.

[SnowMan68]

The handout works both ways. The only problem is that Google clearly has the upper hand.

[randle]

Passions aside, (because lets face it, deep down its a game we all like to play) from a business model perspective, over dependence on organic traffic is high risk.

Certainly there have been great success stories, but companies that have demonstrated real profitability, over a long period of time (7 plus years, including this year) by monetizing pure organic search, are getting to be fewer and fewer. (if they get to your site by typing into Google your domain, your product, or your brand, thats not traffic derived from organic search).

We have certainly seen companies make out very well indeed from organic traffic but so many seem to fade away at some point over the years, and that trend has accelerated with our recent experiences with Panda, Penguin and the EMD update.

I might even propose that going forward, success rates will be inversely proportional to the percent of organic traffic that produces your revenue. So, if your company gets 70% of its revenue from organically derived traffic, you would have a 70% chance of failing within the next 5 years.

The problem with chasing organic traffic is the investment you put in can be wiped out rather quickly. There are only so many hours in the day, only so much resources each company has at its disposal. If you have an employee that costs $1,500/week whats the better use of that persons time?

If their working on organic traffic the allure their is the return on that expenditure can be quite high, but the question is for how long? If they work on generating other forms of traffic such as PPC, affiliate marketing, banner traffic, ect. the return will be less, but the risk of a catastrophic plunge in revenue is radically reduced.

What we see is the risk/return formula for relying on Google organic traffic has gotten dramatically scarier over the past 16 months.

Heres a question: If an angel investor gave you $500,000 to market a product on line from scratch, what percent of that would you devote to driving traffic organically, and what percent would you devote to driving traffic through other means?

For most of us, thats the fundamental question when we get up in the morning these days; how many of my chips should I put down today on "Google Organic Traffic".

[Wilburforce]

The problem isn't the cost of alternatives to Google organic ("free") listings: it is that the general public use organic listings as their primary method of finding products, services and information. Twenty years ago I had hundreds of enquiries a year from paper Yellow Pages (paid) listings. Last year I had one.

Google earned their virtual monopoly on "free" information by being the best search engine, and by keeping results free from commercial interest.

They will lose it if people cannot find what they are looking for easily in the results, or if a strong commercial interest becomes too apparent. At that point we can all start optimising our sites for whatever replaces Google.

The idea that they don't owe anybody anything isn't shared by a growing number of regulatory bodies worldwide, but I accept the principle that nobody is owed an organic listing on page 1.

[superclown2]

Passions aside, (because lets face it, deep down its a game we all like to play) from a business model perspective, over dependence on organic traffic is high risk.

All of life is high risk and the death rate amongst humans is still 100% so we're all doomed anyway.

Anyone who isn't prepared to take risks shouldn't be in business in the first place. So far this month I see nothing happening in the SERPs that's exactly cataclysmic but if disaster strikes then so be it. We either rebuild or turn our talents elsewhere.

However this is getting close to a drift off topic ........

[Wilburforce]

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it isn't the risk or the cost: it is what choices there are. $500,000 won't last you very long on mainstream TV, and won't help you if it makes the public product aware and they all go to Google to search for the product.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Any fearless predictions as to how important Google will be to you by this time next year?

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

You posted information online and made it freely available ... They use it better than you.

I don't use it. I write it and make it available for other people.

If you don't like it, take the info you posted down or ban them from accessing it, otherwise, don't complain about them taking advantage of it. And no, they don't owe you a thing, because you gave the info and access away for free and they happen to be smart enough to take advantage of what you put out there for anyone to use and see.

Who said I don't like anything?

Seriously, you can whine about them using other people's info and blah, blah, blah until the cows come home, but it won't pay the bills for you ... It's much more productive to find a way to survive and pay the bills without the handouts they've been sending, isn't it?

Please explain where in my post that I complained, whined or claimed that google owed me anything? Who said that they have been sending me handouts?

You are making some wild and false assumptions here. Feel free to apologise.

[TheMadScientist]

As I said before it got snipped (which you know very well I already said if you read my posts), I was making the statement generally and almost went back and edited the post again to add it, but I thought you'd 'get' that it was a general statement, which obviously you didn't.

<selfsnip>

[TheMadScientist]

Hopefully we can discontinue the personalization of things and return to an amicable discussion, because as many times as it's been said here, this is a topic I really think needs to be covered and emphasized again.

[Robert Charlton]

Mods note: Let's cap the personal exchange here.

It's hard to say who saw what as the posts got shuffled. We had a bunch of technical glitches on the thread before the move... and shifting posts and threads around is not the easiest thing to do on this software. Lesson to be learned by everyone, I hope, is that it's best to stay on topic.

Comments about other posters are off-topic, no matter what thread they're on.

[System]

The following 74 messages were cut out to new thread by engine.

Discussion now continues at...

Business Survival, With Or Without Google Organic Traffic
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4534418.htm [webmasterworld.com]

12:56 pm on Jan 7, 2013 (utc 0)
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[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 7:09 am (utc) on Jan 10, 2013]
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