This week Webmaster World challenges marketers to think about how they would generate traffic without Google as a thought experiment. Cre8asiteforums members discuss if link buys in the past paid off long term.
SEOChat members discuss ways to get new SEO clients, if you’re just starting your SEO consulting practice.
Over on Threadwatch, a question is posed on decentralized search engines and if they can really disrupt the search market.
What would you do if Google SERPs just disappeared?
Goodroi challenges members to think about how their business would respond if Google SERPs just disappeared, as a thought experiment to uncover potentially profitable traffic sources that ma be over looked. Members respond with a variety of perspectives
Lucy24 started with,
“Guest posts or articles on other people’s sites, with a link to mine. One-on-one link exchanges with sites that have overlapping target audience. If a forum or discussion thread includes an option for linking to a webpage (most do), use it. In each case, the motive is not to game the search engine by making it look as if lots of people link to me–but to make myself visible to more humans.”
keyplyer discusses the importance of building referral sources,
“Approx 45% [of my traffic] come[s] from backlinks, schools and research (albeit some of those do use SEs.)
Considering so many other sites rely so strongly on SE traffic, they would suffer much more than my sites -so- comparatively, I would benefit.”
Shepherd adds to Lucy24s comment to go back to advertising.
glitterball added,
“Directories have been collateral damage in Google’s war on web spam. Their demise is a great shame and one that has not garnered enough attention.
It is also my belief that the demise of human-classified directories has had an extremely negative effect on Google’s search results, which now rely on returning huge mega-authority sites in the results rather than specialized websites, that were previously endorsed by DMOZ, Yahoo Directory and others.”
iamlost spoke to the power of referrals,
“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 Search Apps to Get AI for News Feed
Google is releasing updates to its apps on iOS and Android. The objective is to learn about you interests and provide even more relevant news results for users.
Can decentralized search engines disrupt search?
Surfaced on threadwatch is discussion on decentralized search engines. Decentralized search engines use a decentralized architecture to provide results for users. Also, unlike traditional search engines, ad serving is also decentralized, so companies pay users directly to check out their products.
Did Buying Links Work For Webmasters That Bought Them In The Long Term
Over on cre8asiteforums, members discuss the huge cost of paid links in the past, often at the expense of content creation and UX related website improvements. Some members did not do paid linking at all, citing the potential risk exposure at the time, while other conceded that having good links at the outset was helpful.
What is your favorite way of getting clients?
Members discuss best methods to get new SEO clients, if you’re just starting your practice out. The most popular methods among members are participating in forums and writing high quality in-depth articles. It was also recommended to specialized in a specific industry or in a specific area of SEO.
Google pays professors as part of an academic influence campaign
The Wall Street Journal reported that Google has conducted an academic influence campaign as part of broader efforts to influence public policy and that they have a wish list of topics complete with working titles and abstracts for which they seek willing researchers.
5 Responses
Whether we like it or not, “Google” is almost synonymous with “Internet”.
Year after year, Google has developed enough online applications for you to be able to do anything you need to, by only using Google.
Google is like our big brother
Yeah, they’re definitely trying to expand into a lot of different markets…I think like Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon, they’re building their own Google ecosystem…
Hi Bonnie,
Thank you for the interesting article, the majority of my businesses rely on search engine traffic and it is certainly daunting to think if it suddenly disappeared! I would be similar to Lucy24, relying on traffic generated from guest posting with a link back to my site, trying to attract more humans rather than showing search engines that I have a lot of links.
Its definitely a difficult thing to consider Jaime…but i think its a useful thought experiment to help uncover other possible untapped traffic sources to diversify trafffic…Although Google is definitely the biggest show in town they’re not the only show in town 😉
One thing I read and learned over the years is that it’s well worth waiting it out to naturally build links and your online reputation. With all the money online to be made in affiliate marketing, why messi it up and try to get a quick overnight scam operation going? Write that content. Upload that YouTube video with links pointing to your site and affiliate links in the YouTube video description. Wait it out for a good three to four years before seeing nice money from affiliate marketing. I’m too afraid to take easy street and would rather struggle it out. This way, I know in the back of my mind I did things right and no one’s looking to shut down my online business. Just be honest and goodness will follow.
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