Garry Conn and Google
Google Gas is spreading its stink all over the blogosphere. If you are not in the loop with the events taking place, start by reading this article and start following these links deeper as you pass through one article to the other.
Long story short is this: In the chess game of Paid links, it was Google’s turn to make their move and they did. The result has tons of people running around like chickens with their heads cut off.
My concern is for my readers. I want to broadcast a message because I want my readers to be clear on a few things. There are a lot of forms of Internet marketing. Some bloggers thrive on building relationships with other bloggers and score traffic that way. Other bloggers aren’t as social and turn to the search engines for traffic. Some bloggers mix both strategies.
The key thing to know is this: Google doesn’t like it when people sell paid links or published sponsored posts. They make this known in their Webmaster Guidelines. Whether you think this is right or wrong… it doesn’t matter. It’s their policy and their search engine and they can do whatever they want with it.
Having that said: If your marketing strategies include scoring traffic from Google and if your website depends on it… don’t sell links and don’t publish sponsored posts. If you could care less about Google and ranking well in their search engine… then have at it.
Garry Conn and Google: I personally value the Google search engine and personally value my ranking. However, I am also aware that my ranking could end in a moments notice for no logical reason. Because of that fact, I am placing a lot of focus on building personal relationships with bloggers as well as building my RSS subscription numbers.
Here is a quick chart of my traffic for the last two days. Approx 23% of my traffic come from search engines. Of that 23% of total search engine referrals, 76% of the traffic come from Google:
Blue represents Google and green represents Yahoo. The rest doesn’t matter.
Where do I stand with Google?
To be quite frank, I am not really kissing their ass. But at this current time I can’t deny the fact that about 1 out of every 5 new people that visit my blog come from Google. So, I respect them and value that they do send me traffic. At this time, I would rather not lose my rank with Google by participating in the things that they frown upon because my traffic numbers would suffer. I am putting a lot of new focus towards depending less on Google. In fact, this is really nothing new. I have been working hard towards achieving this for a few months now. I have gone from having almost 50% of my total traffic originate from Google and have reduced that down to about 20% while the whole time I have continued to build and increase my overall traffic.
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Date/Time: 10-8-2007 19:15:35 Comment #5629
Hey Garry,
thanks for the mention.
I guess you’re right. If you want to play with the big kids, you gotta play by their rules, no matter how broken they are.
In this case that means no ads or reviews, unless nofollows are accepted.
I just hoped that they’d see a difference between TLA and editorial links in a review.
Well, we’ll see how it goes.
Date/Time: 10-8-2007 19:32:36 Comment #5630
Tobsy,
I don’t mean any offense or anything, promise you.
I can’t say that I agree with Google or the crowds against Google. What I can say is that I would like to believe I know what Google expects in their guidelines, and in the long run of things, I can’t afford to lose traffic over gaining extra money right now. The only thing I know for a fact that looked bad on my site was TLA. I don’t make much on TLA from this site at all… and to me, taking a risk in losing 20% of my daily traffic isn’t worth gaining an extra $100/month on my blog. The more I think about it… I think I have actually done quite well in the last three months. I went from depending on Google for 50% of my traffic down to 20% while maintaining a positive overall growth.
As a lot of my other sites focus on search engine marketing, Garry Conn dot Com is slowly transitioning out of that form of marketing. Secondly, regardless of where Google stands with people participating in programs like Text-Link-Ads and PayPerPost, etc… I am the type of person who would rather create my own advertisement and revenue programs anyway.
Most of my sites depend on Adsense to generate my income, and I am also trying to slowly phase that out and build better and more stable independent online businesses.
I like Google Adsense a lot and it makes a lot of money, but I want more. I want something to be proud of… I want more than to have success with Adsense. I want to be a business owner again. And slowly, I am making my way back into that game.
Talk to you soon and thanks for providing all the useful links in your article.
Best Regards,
Garry Conn
Date/Time: 10-8-2007 19:35:36 Comment #5631
On a second note… I feel for Andy and his PR loss. He writes great articles and is VERY creative with his sponsored posts. I wish him the best and wish him to have a continued success with his blog.
Date/Time: 10-8-2007 20:01:03 Comment #5634
Oh, no offense taken
Like yours Andys feed is one of my must-reads, so I am a bit disappointed in Google, I guess.
I’m totally with you when it comes to revenue sources, though, and I wish you the best for your plans :-).
Date/Time: 10-8-2007 20:45:15 Comment #5635
You know… Andy and I haven’t always seen eye to eye on things… but when my day comes to a close… it’s no different than his day coming to a close. We both make a living off the Internet and when a fellow blogger takes a hit, I have sincere compassion for them. All in all, I think Andy is going to do fine… he is widely respected and provides a ton of great information on his blog. I think he could get completely banned from Google and it wouldn’t make much of a difference for him. The John Chow story as it is pretty controversial, it is also a historical milestone in itself too. John Chow doesn’t need Google and he has more than proven that. His blog, even though it doesn’t rank at all in Google, all the thousands of blogs that have written about him do and he gets tons of traffic from all the bloggers who have written about him and his wacky adventures with Google.
Date/Time: 10-8-2007 23:25:38 Comment #5637
Google searches brings in about +/- 25% of my traffic and I guess if they blacklisted me I’d feel the pinch. I think their attitude is both unfortunate and heavy handed, as it stands to stifle individual revenue generating initiatives.
I’m with you on building relationships with others though. I started off with a personal website ten years ago (before Google even existed, or at least was known of) and traffic building was achieved almost entirely by word of mouth, or tapping into inter-networks of like minded people.
Date/Time: 10-9-2007 00:02:50 Comment #5640
Hey John,
sounds like we have a lot in common. I too have been building website for a long time… long before Google was around. Before Google came into the picture… I would cross my fingers that the Yahoo Dir editor would be having a good day when he reviewed my site for inclusion. lol… always joked about wondering what would happen if the editor came to work after having a huge fight with his wife… I was also a ODP editor and had tons of fun doing that. The Internet really wasn’t all that bad back in the day… and don’t get me wrong, its great today with Google. But, I don’t know man… it just seems like things are getting to weird and complicated and because of that… I am focusing more than ever on making sure my incoming traffic is repeat as well as diverse in the source.
Date/Time: 10-9-2007 04:44:56 Comment #5652
That is some nice Google traffic. Google only sends 5% of the Blogging Fingers traffic, I guess I’m one of the ’social bloggers’.
Date/Time: 10-9-2007 07:40:00 Comment #5654
Thanks for the information Garry , i too should be careful with this thing as most of my traffic comes from Google .
Date/Time: 10-10-2007 09:07:04 Comment #5682
Luckily our aim is not to make any money with our blog directly (which is just as well because we get ~50% through Google).
I think you got the right approach going; seeing Google as a way of getting traffic, but not ‘kissing their ass’. It’s your blog not theirs and it’s the engine’s choice whether or not your site should be included.
Date/Time: 10-10-2007 09:18:56 Comment #5683
Overall I don’t want to do things that can close the door on having the opportunity to be ranked in Google. But on the same note I am also creating paths that allow me ways to gain traffic from other areas while also continue to increase my overall traffic. And yes, you’re right… your blog is a channel or a line of communication that connects readers with your profession. It’s nicely done!