Living Without Google

The changing arena of SEO begs some questions. I don’t know how valid they are at this point, but I think they are ones that if we are not asking ourselves now, we should be. Because while the answers may not be relevant today, they may be soon, and some forethought may be to advantage.

If you were banned tomorrow, would your website survive?

As Google gets harder and harder to compete within, you must also ask the question, is Google optimization always going to be the most important thing for a microbusiness?

Are there businesses now, that might actually do better optimizing for everything else, and kissing Google goodbye?

Is 1% of 50% better than 50% of 10%? In other words, if you can only get 1% or less of the traffic from a particular search on Google, and Google gets 50% of the total traffic for that term, is it wise to go after that 1% to the exclusion of all else (which some gurus do), or is it better to let that 1% go and optimize for the 50% of the traffic you could get from another search engine (or two) which get 10% of the total traffic? In some SEO issues, you DO have to make that choice (not in all), and I think that many people just ASSUME Google is going to deliver more, without factoring in competition and ease of optimization.

These are not things I am recommending, only suggesting that we ought to be thinking about them. Instead of making assumptions based on our perceptions of a year or two ago, we ought to be taking a long hard look at where Google is going, at the fact that most of the competition focuses on Google exclusively, and on the fact that Google is slowly losing ground in the American markets at least. It begs some reassessment, and a watchful eye.

Google may recover. They may decide to play by rules that at least have common sense behind them, and they may go back to a more open search engine marketing philosophy. But I doubt the second two will happen - companies rarely go backward once they start down the corporate big-brother road. If you believe, like I do, that their chances of recovery are tied directly to the second two, you may also doubt that they WILL recover their market share in the US search markets.

It is worth thinking about implications - and alternate strategies, and ways to gain a balance between new businesses and old that does not depend on Google.