The Google “Farmer” Update (also Panda Update) has reeked havoc across the virtual landscape millions of people use to get information out, make money online, and run businesses. This update has drawn considerable attention because of it’s mass implementation.
Everything is fine one day, the next, the world is turned upside down.
There are a couple of points to be made about this update. The first, it proves that if you’re running a business you better have other forms of traffic generation in place.
The big problem with online business is there is no walking traffic. In the offline world this update would be equivalent to moving your store front from where you currently are, prime time real estate, to the boondocks where very few people live, work and shop.
People work hard to get the virtual real estate in the top spots. The thing about it, Google is a for-profit-company and they can pretty much do what they want. And because everything is virtual, it makes it too easy to do.
An example of this was when CDKitchen, out of Austin, Texas was effected by the latest update…
Google can give websites a lot of traffic. It also can take it away.
That’s what Valerie Whitmore found out recently.
Whitmore runs CDKitchen out of her Austin, Texas, home with husband Brent. She started the website as a hobby in 1995 and named it after her 100-pound Dalmatian, Chili Dog. With Google’s help, the mom-and-pop shop grew into one of the most popular cooking sites on the Web.
But traffic to CDKitchen, which features free recipes and cooking columns, plunged 39 percent on Feb. 24, knocking it "into the abyss," Whitmore said. That’s when Google, which delivers 70 percent of the site’s traffic, made a major change to how search results are ranked.
Source: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2014547479_btgoogleformula21.html
It’s updates like this that make you cringe in horror and make you wonder what you’re going to do next. If you are running an online business you need to begin thinking about how you can be nimble, change with the times and continue to get traffic in some way.
If you’re wondering what Google wants you can listen to Matt Cutts and others who interpret what he has to say…
"Our primary goal is to make sure we return the best websites we can," said Matt Cutts, who leads Google’s spam-fighting efforts. "No algorithm can be 100 percent accurate."
Google engineers are constantly tweaking the search engine, making hundreds of changes a year to the algorithm, most of them less noticeable. They keep the algorithm under wraps to prevent Web developers from getting around each revision Google makes.
As part of its effort to zero in on troublemakers, Google created a software extension to its Chrome browser that lets users block sites. More than 100,000 users have installed the extension, giving Google the ability to study the top several dozen sites that users disliked so much they gave them the boot. About 84 percent of those sites were affected when Google tweaked its algorithm, Cutts said.
"The work of search is never done. No matter what we improve, there will be people trying to ‘game’ search," he said.
Source: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2014547479_btgoogleformula21.html
This is all very interesting.
You see, the comment Matt makes “The work of search is never done. No matter what we improve, there will be people trying to ‘game’ search” is something that makes me go hmmm.
Let’s think about this. “Google” can change the algorithm all the time. They are gaming their own search system. They do what you want and no body stops them.
It’s our job to know or figure out what they want and give it to them. It’s no different than a crappy merchant getting the best storefront property in town. It happens and there isn’t anything anyone can do about it. They gamed the system.
Let’s face it… everyone who owns a blog or website is interested in gaming the system to garner more traffic. It is what it is.
As long as you have people searching for stuff you’re going to have people trying to sell those people stuff. That’s what it boils down to.
So what does all this mean?
It means if you’re wanting to make money online with a blog, a website, an ecommerce store or any other type of virtual property, then you need to be prepared to change on a whim.
You should begin thinking about how you can set your site up so that it conforms to Google’s current policies and you should always consider other methods of traffic generation.
Have you thought about going offline?
Enjoy and prosper -
Jay
PS- Be sure to sign up for my newsletter if you want to stay up to date on traffic generation strategies and different approaches to making money online.
