What would you do if Google serps just disappeared

[goodroi]

Some of us are old enough to remember the internet before Google even existed. Back in the very old days, we were more open to exchanging links because that was one of the very few ways to build traffic. Imagine if the Google serps just disappeared overnight. How would your business respond?

Why am I asking this? It is a good learning exercise to brainstorm the different traffic sources that are now available. Sometimes we are too focused on Google drama that we overlook profitable alternatives. It is also smart to become less dependent on Google, not to mention making yourself more popular online can make Google jealous and result in better Google traffic.

So if the Google serps, magically disappeared how would your business respond?

[EditorialGuy]

Re directories:They serve a different purpose than spidered search engines like Google. Directories are broad-stroke ("a site about Catholic saints"), while SERPs are targeted ("a page about Saint Catherine of Siena"). Neither is a substitute for the other, and in the unlikely event that all spidered search engines disappeared tomorrow, directories wouldn't be a fallback (even if they hadn't fallen on hard times).

[Shaddows]

Directories certainly could not replace SEs, but SEs have replaced directories.

Modern search engines purport to do (and for the most part succeed) everything that a directory does- a curated set of sites pertaining to the topic you require.

But search did not need to "go after" directories- they would and did have the competitive edge anyway. Directories would have become, and were indeed becoming, a very niche product.

But then Google killed them, first with the "bad neighbourhoods" talk, followed by nofollow and eventually link devaluation along with (always overplayed and thus FUD) sweeping penalties for "non-organic" linking.

Don't get me wrong, no one is forced to dance to Google's tune. But Google did offer a stark choice- if you distorted their link graphs by contravening their assumptions in their PageRank model, they would penalise you. This invalidated many alternative sources of traffic, and helped cause the widespread dependency on Google, Organic or Adwords.

ETA-
I wrote about using FUD [webmasterworld.com] to control the Paid Link market a few years ago. The context doesn't really resonate any more (Paid Links as a scary Neg-SEO tactic), but the coercive methodology does.

[EditorialGuy]

I don't think Google killed directories. The growth of the Web killed directories (even the ones that weren't killed by the greed of their owners or editors).

Directories made sense in 1993 or 1994, but by the late 1990s, directories (or at least general-purpose directories) simply weren't a useful way to find things.

Still, directories continue to be handy for some things. What is a hotel booking site, for example, but a filtered directory of hotels that's created on the fly in response to a user's demands? And if you're a fan of medieval castles, you can find any number of sites that are essentially directories of castles, organized by type or by country, with varying amounts of text and photos for each.

[MrSavage]

@tangor, so your views are based on starting a website, new, from scratch, on its own (no value carry over from other established owned sites), in 2017, without spending money on advertising and making money with said site?

[Shaddows]

without spending money on advertising

I think all new sites need to spend money. If not on advertising, then on old-fashioned networking.

There was a small window of maybe a decade where you could get rich quick with a bit of talent and a small amount of luck.

For the rest of the last few hundred years, you needed to invest to grow, or have an inordinate amount of luck and/or a patron.

I don't think Google killed directories.

I think directories were becoming a minority pursuit, but then the customers left, due to the coercive messaging coming from their main traffic provider.

It's an unprovable counterfactual. Except the coercive behaviour, which is a matter of record.

[lucy24]

If search engines did not exist, how would people find your site?

Right now, as the Internet-using world actually exists, search engines aren't just for searching. They are an internet portal. De facto, like it or not. Stand over someone's shoulder as you give them an URL, and just try getting them to understand that they can type that URL directly into the browser's address bar, rather than entering it into the Search field that sits so conveniently in the middle of an otherwise blank screen.

Maybe the question can't be answered generically. It depends on your site and even on the individual page. I just checked a few random URLs with a specific type of content. Visitors sent by Google range from under 40% down to, well, pretty close to 0%. The rest are either blog links (which I didn't ask for) or a specialized directory (which I did). Findings for other types of content would be wildly different.

Another pattern I sometimes see is: visitor to some interior page with a standard referer such as a search engine, followed by a visit from a closely related IP with no referer. Those are humans either emailing a link, or just walking across the hall and saying "check this out". But somehow I don't think that, for a money-making site, relying on people walking across the hall saying "check this out" is a solid business model. Social media aren't necessarily the answer either. Most people don't spend their working days on Facebook.

[iamlost]

If Google disappeared I'd lose, in the immediate term ~22% of traffic and ~0.6% of revenue so the impact would be minimal; all these years of diversifying have borne fruit.
Note: if AdSense went as well the impact on revenue would be greater, ~10%, but not crippling. Diversification is one leg to longetivity in business.

Despite all the reality and FUD around directories there still exist a good number of niche directories that drive qualified traffic. Finding them can be a challenge but they do exist at least for some niches. Also as others have mentioned directories are not necessarily the static lists of old.

So many seem to think of back links only as Google 'juice' that the idea of them as traffic referrers seems to have all but vanished. Strange as the right back links convert at multiples of what SE traffic does. G has truly warped the natural web especially in the mindset of many webdevs.

Google is dominant but by no means sole source for those who make the effort.
If all or any portion of the Alphabet empire vanished others would move up or in. And, sadly, I would likely lose competitive advantage

[danielro]

There are other big players now, not just google, where you can get substantial traffic from:
- Wikipedia for info sites
- Ebay / Amazon for product sites
- Newsletters

Don't forget affiliates, share a piece of the pie and these people will introduce you to their networks!

Basically if Google/Bing etc would go away, networking would be the norm.

[Awarn]

I think I might have a party. I could then just focus on business and not have to worry about pleasing G. Any more a lot of my business comes from satisfied customers anyways. Maybe I would be done with the AI that isn't too intelligent. Less garbage blogs, PBNs and other mostly irrelevant information. The scraping may slow. I might actually climb to the top of the highest mountain and just scream in satisfaction. Probably at least a week of celebration.

[tangor]

@tangor, so your views are based on starting a website, new, from scratch, on its own (no value carry over from other established owned sites), in 2017, without spending money on advertising and making money with said site?

Actually I think I suggested that reliance on g was not forward looking, that 2017 is a tough year regardless, and said nothing about new sites (which I would recommend try a different line of work). This web is not 1996, the users are different, and there is a diversity of traffic sources which did not exist before 2004. Webmastering is possible, regardless of niche, and will continue to be as long as open access to the web remains in place. Rising political noise regarding the web, content, "speech", around the world does give pause for the future of access to the infrastructure which makes the web possible.

MEANWHILE, the OP asked what would you do if g serps disappeared over night. If you haven't already prepared for that possibility (as some have discovered to their dismay when ball-balled from the g serps/advertising ...."penalized") it might be too late to start now.

[seoskunk]

Directories certainly could not replace SEs, but SEs have replaced directories.

Well no not necessarily so, directories by their very nature support niche results. Sometimes data mining only takes you so far. Lets take the most common type of directory, a local directory. These directories serve local results typically on location. Now lets examine how Google serves local results...... Ah through a directory, infact early Google local results were powered by directories. So you see eliminating directories serves a purpose of eliminating competition as well.

Still thoughtful over the original question though.

[waitwhiterabbit]

I think that this is a difficult question, I think a lot of the answer would demend on the type of site: ecomm? lead gen? publisher? My read of goodroi's question is referring to finding new traffic sources, not if search engines all disappeared...I'm guessing we'd still have bing and yahoo (lol)....here are my ideas

a) Build direct traffic & good gating - make in product time the number one metric I look at for all device types and i would have really strong gating, like I'm seeing wsj and washingtonpost put in...Only use platforms that drive subscriptions and LTV - Free is a trap in the plaform world, its just free until it can be monetized e.g. google shopping, facebook now experimenting with its own subscription news service

b) build a diveristy of referral channels - build a variety of referrals for distribution and affiliates

d) In person out-reach - Get boots on the ground.. the other week i was in grand central station and some girl stopped me to talk to me for 10 minutes about the virtues of joining blue apron...I think for subscription services, especially that are low cost this is an effective method... "for just a cup of coffee in the city, you can have [insert benefits]"

e) Events & experiential marketing - where do my most loyal customers hangout and how how can i connect with that demographic in person

f) Other digital ad channels - Googel and facebook are not the only shows in town, one example that comes tomind is spotify

g) physical ads - good ol' subway / bus adds, billboards, etc depending on the product

I think that news websites are definitely one type of website that I would strongly recommend this thought experiment for, except i would add what would happen if both alphabet and facebook did not exist?

[Shepherd]

Just now purchased an item online from a company that was mentioned in a forum. No SERPs were required in the making of this purchase.

[vivalasvegas]

Google is a tool used by the whole world to search for info and products online. If Google and its search results disappeared the whole world would still be online. So I would find ways to connect with these people, just like I did when Google was invented.

[browndog]

I still remember chatting to a friend on ICQ and had just heard about Google. We both joked at what a funny name it was. Before then, I used a search engine called anzwers.

I think any business which has the monopoly will start putting profits before anything else. We see it a lot in Australia with our banking system and supermarkets. The public and/or suppliers (in the case of supermarkets) are shafted because there's limited options.

[tangor]

Any business hat can be done at scale will leave behind those who cannot compete at scale. Nature of the beast.

[Nutterum]

I'd actually welcome one day without Google. It will clearly show the financial bubbles that some websites truly are (Amazon/E-bay/Pinterest/booking/expedia I am looking at you). It's the 2000's all over again where traffic and reach meant way more than actual sales. Only now it's dubbed "mindshare" only to serve the lousy marketers to get an even bigger time to purchase gap and pump the quarterly results artificially.

I may sound ranty but having experience in several AAA companies and their advertisement policies, I can safely say, that today's Internet is closer to the dot.com "marketshare" bubble than ever.


Enough ranting. Do you want to know what I'd do if there were no Google? I'd actually check the order phone on the pizza package and actually, call the service for once. That'd be a surprise for the restaurant for sure.

[Shaddows]

It will clearly show the financial bubbles that some websites truly are (Amazon/E-bay/Pinterest/booking/expedia I am looking at you)

Interesting views. I've been waiting for the tech bubble to burst for a while, along with the UK housing market. A moderate credit drought or a meaningful interest rate would do it- which is probably why the Bank doesn't stop QE, let alone raise rates.

In the sub-prime/Lehman event, our niche lost 60-70% of specialist sites. We are not leveraged, which was considered crazy in the mid-noughties. However, I think there is even more exposure to credit today, than back then. If the rates went up, banks would have to crystallise losses on zombie loans, instead of pretending they might get paid.

However, with the exception of Pinterest, I'm pretty sure all the companies you mention would get enough direct and SM traffic to not even notice the loss of SE traffic. In fact, their market share would probably go up. Especially if they had an existing widely-deployed App.

Hmmm. I doubt developing an App would be worth it in the real world, outside the thought experiment. For us, and most ecoms, anyway.

[Writerly]

Wow what a throwback! I can hear the dial-up access in my mind.   :)
If Google SERPs disappeared, I believe that one of the big social media platforms (probably Facebook) would take over the world of web. It would probably become SERP itself and rule with an iron fist, like Google now.

[piatkow]

Just now purchased an item online from a company that was mentioned in a forum. No SERPs were required in the making of this purchase.

I was feeling cold and about to go and put on a sweater when I read this post and realised that I had bought the sweater on-line in response to an ad in a print magazine. It will go over a shirt bought online from a print catalogue. When I start adding it up very little of the money that I spend on line is spent as the result of a search.

[RedBar]

It would probably become SERP itself and rule with an iron fist, like Google now.

Yay, let's have a SERPs for social media fans and a SERPs for real business and information sites also getting rid of Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Houzz etc into the social SERPs :-) <<< Note the smile!

[lucy24]

We both joked at what a funny name it was.

I'm currently rereading the original Hitchhiker radio scripts from the late '70s. At one point he goes into a riff on various vast computers over the ages, including the ... wait for it ... Googleplex. (Yes, spelled like that.)

[RedBar]

The Googleplex Starthinker is a super-computer from the Seventh Galaxy of Light and Ingenuity and it has the ability to calculate the trajectory of every single dust particle during a five-week Dangrabad Beta sand blizzard.

[No5needinput]

The Googleplex Starthinker is a super-computer from the Seventh Galaxy of Light and Ingenuity and it has the ability to calculate the trajectory of every single dust particle during a five-week Dangrabad Beta sand blizzard.

Well there you have it. Who needs Google when W/World has the answer to everything... 42?

[lucy24]

The Googleplex Starthinker is a super-computer from the Seventh Galaxy of Light and Ingenuity and it has the ability to calculate the trajectory of every single dust particle during a five-week Dangrabad Beta sand blizzard.

Heh, that's funny, in the book version of the radio scripts it's Aldebaran sand blizzard. The whole paragraph is in italics, which I think means it was cut from the broadcast. Unless it's another of those Belgium things.