Is Google hurting web site owners? Had it with Google?

[InternetMoney]

How many "small" web site owners helped google by promoting them on your sites with links and recommending them? If you're like me google began driving traffic to my sites, so I began praising them and even linking google on my sites and of course use them as a search engine. Now, the story is all different, google doesn't need the small web site owner anymore, they want the big money corporate sites that buy ads by the thousands of clicks at prices small web site owners can't afford. Ads in google search now appear at the top pushing your small site down. Not for profit sites like wiki take a spot, image files take more space, pushing your site down, down, down. Facebook and twitter take some space as well as deep linked pages of large companies. The small web site owner is pushed down till the traffic they get isn't worth much. The small web site owner is pushed out of business or making just a few dollars. It's not worth putting as much effort in a losing cause and you don't have to money to go big time. Google sees you have affiliate ads and knocks your site down as not having great content. Google then claims your site is low quality or suspects you are getting other low quality sites to link yours (who else would link yours? a large corporate site?), or that you're getting links from others to "manipulate" or spam their search engine. Google now knocks your site to irrelevant in search and your done, finished, out of business.

Thanks a lot after all the promotion from the small web site owners! Google used you when you helped them but are now putting you out of business. Google search is now large companies with big ad budgets buying ads from them! Maybe you still run adsense to make a few dollars while you make them more money as they are crushing you and fellow small web site owners.

Had it with Google??

 

[hopkism]

I hear ya man. I started to notice that more and more recently. Even for my exact match searches, long-tail searches, searches that other companies have no business bidding Adwords on, one of my websites is half-way down the page. Like you said, first comes two advertisements for something in the same industry - hardly related, a Wikipedia page, a Youtube video a Tumblr and then my page. And this is not a page I'm trying to monetize. It's strictly a hobby with less than 1,000 searches a month. It's frustrating. The same thing happens to some of my legitimate online businesses.

I forget which blog I read it on, about a year ago though, was a great article talking about digital sharecropping. Are you familiar with the practice? A lot like this historical definition, except that Google is now the farm land owner. The article advocates diversifying your incoming traffic as much as possible, away from search. I know I'm playing a broken record here but it's true. Ever since then, I have slowly started to get an email list going, advertise my URL in print, build up social media, etc. Now, a couple of sites are actually receiving most of their traffic from sources besides search.

See if that's some motivation or inspiration for you.

 

[navdomains]

Well, if you are small than you would try and reach potential end users in any way possible - social media, print media, ads (within your budget), link exchange (if feasible and not considered as spam), word of mouth, etc. because Google has strict guidelines when it comes to promoting your page. But in recent years Google has made immense and effective updates on their SEO program which had made it difficult especially for small businesses to reach out and compete with their competitors because the big stays and grows bigger where as the small is almost nowhere to be found and how many users browse to 3rd and 4th page on Google search? For that matter even how many click next after page 1? Even though small companies can beat its big competitors on service or pricing its still a downside as they are not able to receive the platform to prove.

My advise, reach out to your target audience (within your budget) via social and print media, encourage your products and services within your community and local audiences, free online directories, forums and blogs and any or every way possible that suits your business and fits within your budget.

 

[Aaron Nijsse]

I agree. Google is getting WAY too big. Having so much data at one centralized company is not good. They have too much power over the internet. Most people believe that they provide so many free services because they are nice. Not true. Everything you do and everywhere you go, you are in Googles data centers somewhere. And now with Google Fiber. THEY HAVE GOTTEN INTO YOUR HOUSE. People don't realize the importance of being careful around Google. And back on track of this discussion, it is making most other sites inferior. Its Too Big. Bottom line.

 

[Ms Domainer]

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I guess Google was just sick and tired of spammy and scammy low-value sites taking top spots in their search engine.

How dare they.

:lol:

*

 

[InternetMoney]

I agree its best to get traffic from other sources and not only rely on search traffic.

My point is that google has become powerful and to me they have become abusive.

 

[enlytend]

guess Google was just sick and tired of spammy and scammy low-value sites taking top spots in their search engine.

How dare they.

Yeah, but ...

- There's still plenty of spam out there - it's just different spam.
- It's not ALL about quality, there is a lot of bias towards Google's brands.. FB/Twitter pages aren't ranking, G+ is. When's the last time you saw a Vimeo video on P1? Lots of Youtube though. Lots of SPAMMY youtube videos too.

That said, complaining will get you nowhere. It's their company and they're going to run it however they like. The game is always changing. If you don't like it, figure out what's working now and go for it.

 

[Mobiller]

I just quote Marcus Aurelius.
"Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too."
Google won't last forever.

 

[navdomains]

Because Google holds the majority they can tweak whatever they want to, whenever they want to and however they want to. Ask, Yahoo/Bing and others are nowhere close to Google, not even when they are all combined. Plus Bing Ads are horrible and their service is ridiculous too. At least Google tries something different and they are ok in terms of support.
As said above by few and we know that changes are everywhere, try something different, go old school - word of mouth. Best conversion rate as compared to all other marketing strategies. There are heaps of social networking sites, videos, online directories, blogs, forums are few to get you out there. Yes, it will not attract as much traffic as being on Page 1 on Google but still will get your word out there. Think about something different that would be feasible for your business and with doing so you can relate your business to it and gain traffic or sales or even generate awareness. Be patient too.

 

[enlytend]

Plus Bing Ads are horrible .

Gotta take issue with you there - often Bing ads outperform Adwords. Lower volume of searches, but a higher percentage of people seem to use Bing with credit card in hand...

There are still ways to rank in Google, but the game has changed. It always will.

 

[navdomains]

Gotta take issue with you there - often Bing ads outperform Adwords. Lower volume of searches, but a higher percentage of people seem to use Bing with credit card in hand...

There are still ways to rank in Google, but the game has changed. It always will.

No problems. That's what we are here for - different opinions.

Personally, and as far as i have heard from clients and colleagues, Bing Ads are not that great and their support level is horrendous. One of the common issue, that i have heard and even experienced, with them is that they charge the credit card first however you do find a chargeback on your account later and then your username and password does not exist. You can still login to Bing's webmaster but not to Ads. And obviously that's not impressive.

Compared to Google, yes, volume of searches would be low however i wasn't aware of the higher percentage stat.

The game's always changing and the more exposure you get, the better. Lets see.

 

[Registernuke]

It's not ALL about quality, there is a lot of bias towards Google's brands.. FB/Twitter pages aren't ranking, G+ is. When's the last time you saw a Vimeo video on P1? Lots of Youtube though.

This is a valid point. Regardless of what the subject matter is, if a video comes up in serps it's always going to be YouTube, which does not bother me, but it makes me aware of their biased algorithm and mentality.

In regards to being fed up with Google, as for me I look at it that Google cannot please everyone and at the end of the day they are a business and making money will always be top priority. I use them for what I need them for and they use me for revenue. When the day comes that I don't benefit from their services is the day I look elsewhere... but that day has not come yet.

 

[Whogister]

Google is definitely hurting small business owners... What's getting on my nerves about Google is their "you will run your website like we tell you to or you will be penalized" attitude. You should do this but you can't do that, don't interlink all your websites together (heavens forbid you do any cross marketing promotion for your business!).

Things that Matt Cutts said was OK to do a couple years ago are now getting websites removed from Google.

Business owners have enough to worry about when it comes to running their business without Google dictating on how to run their business websites on top of it.

 

[navdomains]

Google is definitely hurting small business owners... What's getting on my nerves about Google is their "you will run your website like we tell you to or you will be penalized" attitude.

Well, i do understand Google's mentality a bit that they want to cater premium and original sites to the user and eliminate duplicate and spam sites as much as they can but by doing so someone somewhere is getting the hit. And that someone are the small business owners. Plus how much can one spend on SEO and on top of that no SEO company even guarantees (they cant guarantee) rank in the first page.

I heard that Google was trying to eradicate multiple link issues from one single site related to search query, but the issue still exists which pushes the small business owner's site further down because multiple links from major sites show up one after another.

 

[Paul]

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I guess Google was just sick and tired of spammy and scammy low-value sites taking top spots in their search engine.

How dare they.

:lol:

*

My experience says that this is actually true. Google looks down upon most forms of SEO. Your idea of blackhat SEO is probably much narrower than their idea of blackhat SEO. Backlinks for SEO purposes? Blackhat. Moving content around so that Google will see it better? Blackhat. Using keywords? Blackhat.

If you play the SEO game, you're going to get shunned. I've developed a large number of sites for a wide variety of products--or, often, for no product at all. I only make it to the top of Google when the following is true:

• I have a product that is popular (read: millions of active, legitimate users)
• My product relates closely to--or better, integrates with--other popular products: it's not a "standalone" product
• I spend exactly no effort on SEO: the slightest bit and my rank takes a nose dive.

I've beaten several large corporations for big keywords by doing nothing more than having a product. Google works well on its own; you don't need to guide it.

 

[enlytend]

I've stopped thinking in terms of hats alltogether - unless it's something illegal or involves stealing from someone or damaging someone else's business - that's not black, white or gray, that's just being an ass-hat.

If you play the SEO game, you're going to get shunned.

As I said earlier, the game has changed. If you keep testing you'll find things that work, -but test with some site you don't care about or with a web 2.0. It's more about balance, variety and having nothing look out of place in your site's "profile." Until you have enough authority to develop some immunity, anything you direct to your primary site should be squeaky clean, authoritative and above reproach.

you will run your website like we tell you to or you will be penalized" attitude.

And then you run it like that and get kicked to the curb anyway. Or more accurately, bigger sites and Google properties will be promoted and you get pushed to the back of the bus ...

An exception is local business - you can still get good visibility with local search.

 

[navdomains]

Google's Hummingbird is here and claim to have made further changes and claimed to be better than Penguin and Panda which frustrated many but Hummingbird will not do so. Plus, Google said that nothing has changed and would process in a new and better way. So all the hard work on SEO will not go to drain. Well, until it comes to full effect we wouldn't know, especially what's in it for small business owners.

 

[enlytend]

Google's Hummingbird is here and claim to have made further changes and claimed to be better than Penguin and Panda which frustrated many but Hummingbird will not do so. Plus, Google said that nothing has changed and would process in a new and better way

Hummingbird is a major rewrite of the algo - according to Google, to better interpret natural language queries. They claim it affects 90% of queries, which is HUGE (Panda/Penguin updates were claimed to affect only single-digit percentages).

Hate to break this to you, but Panda is believed to be rolled into it. Penguin is still being released independently, the latest version (2.1) verified over this past weekend (10/4 or thereabouts.)