ARRRGGGGHHHHH – Suicide is my only choice…

I just been reading another thread about rankings in google just dissapearing and the associated pain and loss of income that goes with this.

Firstly – sudden dissapearance seems more often to be associated with a google glitch than any penalty etc. Often the site will just reappear as quickly as it dissapeared over the next 24 to 48 hours. In the words of Douglas Adams Don’t panic ……

Having said this I am constantly amazed at how many people are willing to place their whole business model and livelyhood on a single search engine ranking. This is IMHO just plan foolishness.

The SE donot exist for the sake of small business. It does not matter how well your site is doing at the present at some point you will loose that ranking. It is inevatable as algos change, SE change, the web changes nothing is constant in this world.

Thus people if you are making money by the good graces of the SE it is time you took some action to consolidate that income.

Here are some basic actions that I would recommend

1) Start with the premise that your good ranking will not last.
2) Consider how a % of the income you earn can be used to diversify your customer sources
3) Consider how a % of the income you earn can be used to consolidate/diversify your positions on SE

Some methods that can be used:
-PPC
-Advertising on other people high traffic sites
-Paying for link building or other SEO services
-Advertising in other sources of media other than the internet
-Diversifying your product range and capturing other markets on the SE

The above is by no means an extensive list. But if you donot take some action your livelyhood and family security is being built on a stack of cards. You will see your traffic drop/dissapear one day and feel you have been hard done by. You have not you are a victum of your own lack of risk diversification efforts.

DO NOT LET THIS BE YOU Google is not you friend it is a commercial business that does not care in the slighest about you and your family.

Take care – use good business practices – enjoy the cream while its there……

That's really a great post Gazzahk!!! And of course the bitter truth!! You did a great job through this post by warning all those people who just rely on google's ranking for their livelihood....

yes , Gazzahk ,

Your are absolutely right ! I have a very small business and only find my customers on the web : I expect hard times in keeping good Serp results because of fierce competition coming from big websites .

I remember not too old economists' theories about the internet putting into contact all service/goods providers directly with customers but actually they did not take into account the SERP existence : either you are # 1 to #10 or you are not contacting much ...

PPC solutions can be unaffordable in some cases , and lots paid ads in relevant websites can be very expensive too .

Well , better be smart , reckon best ROI solutions for present times and study an alternative plan to earn a living in the longer run : I have received a good proposal to work as sales agent from a website buider company
That's a new challenge !

Smart thinking...All the best buddy for your new challenge!!!

Yes I agree, it is sometimes frustrating to accept website owners blame it all to their SEO firm for all those lost rankings, that in the first place they never prepare for such inevitable event. The worst thing to happen is when they blame for lost sales but they failed to diversify their investment resources or earnings to other ventures that are much more controllable than a search engine.

Good post on diversification to protect revenue streams. I look at Google as one customer/distributor. That one customer (Google) can chose to feature your competitor over you at any time. Eveyone must have more modes of distribution; other than Google.

Google distributes my product through placement on their SERPs. The SERPs are akin to retail shelves in a store. If you are at the very bottom or, in the case of retail shelf placement, at the the very top of the shelf, there is a dramatic negative impact upon sales.

When I was president of a famous retail company (business products) I paid actual money (through discounts) to have our products displayed on the end caps (end of aisle) or at the checkout counter. We also provided discounts to be placed at eye level in the normal aisles. If you are not seen... you will realize no sales. This is true within the search engines also.

First page in the SERPs should be everyone's goal. THERE ARE ONLY TEN SPOTS ON THAT FIRST PAGE. This in itself should cause everyone to look for alternative distribution. Second page or lower will destroy your chances of realizing your goals.

Bottomline: Heed the advice of looking for alternative distribution.

These types of threats are present in all forms of business. For example, if you have a brick and mortar store, Wal-Mart might move in down the road, or a large and nationally recognized name in your niche might open a store across the street.

One goal that a webmaster might have is to obtain most of his/her traffic from sources other than the search engines. Even that is not safe because another site might do what you are doing better, or your product / information might become out of date from new developments.

Awesome thread !! Couldn't agree more with my friends above.

IMHO, we need to understand that organic SE ranks are a kind of free advertising for your site. You don't need to pay to get those ranks [of course you need to pay the SEO firm and other people associated with building the site] but you don't pay anything to the search engines for the ranks.

In case of PPC, you pay an amount to be listed, that too, at times is not affordable and may exceed your advertising budgets.

The way I look at it: Use the search engines to supplement your advertising efforts and NOT as the sole advertising channel. You gotto have alternate advertising channels to drive traffic to your site and generate income.

So you need to diversify your advertising efforts and embrace more of alternative online and offline media to generate a steady source of traffic to your site and generate revenue.

Relying solely on your site's organic ranks for generating income and supporting your family is in no way better than laying your head beneath a guillotine with the control of the rope in the hands of a fidgeting kid

Exactly...My advice is diversify your distribution channels and/or increase your product range to reduce the risk.

A stratergy that relies 100% on a (currently) free advertisng medium that the indivdual business has no control over is placing all your eggs in one very unstable basket.

The first step is being aware of the risk and than stratergies to deal with, or reduce it can be developed.

This reminds me of an article I read in the Economist a few years ago about a guy who started an online business selling extra large shoes. It began as a hobby, because he had really big feet and always found it hard to find decent shoes. After a year or two the business was providing a sufficient income for him to leave his job and focus on the shoe business full time. He didn't employ any sneaky tricks in online advertising; he had a good website, selling big shoes and he offered competitive prices. Month after month Google consistently ranked his site on the first page for "Big Feet" or "Big Shoes" or something like that. After three years he had bought a warehouse and filled it with shoes which he was expecting to fly out in the coming months (it was a few weeks before thanksgiving). Then all of a sudden the sales stopped, pretty much dead. After a few days of this he logged onto Google to discover that his previously #1 - #10 ranking that he had taken for granted had slipped to below #100 in the latest Google dance. And that was it, they had him by the you know whats; his only chance to sell his stock over the festive season was to start heavily investing in AdWords and pay for the customers that he used to get for free.

That's how they get you and I presume that is their business model. So I couldn't agree more.

Fual... That was not the fault of Google... He had a high risk business model by relying on only one customer/distributor, i.e. Google.

You're absolutely right!!!
"Google is not your friend", I love this!
But I think google is a good start, his robot is quick for change , and new site will show them up more quicker than other SEs.
But like Y(yahoo, yandex) just losing their visits, if u want get customs from internet all over the world, u have to know well about g .

Often though people don't understand this "diversity thing"... often they think of it as "don't put all your eggs in one baskets e.g. develop 12 website all the same so if one goes into "deep six ranks" you still have the other 11.

The problem with this version though each basket tends to get only one egg (compared to 1 basket with 12) if since you're time sharing on all 12 if you happen to do something to cause the problem - that problem exists in all 12 and not rest 12 - so in the end you changed nothing.

Diversity should equally match our interests and likenesses... if you enjoy something it isn't work and you tend to put far more care and effort into it and this is often the difference between success and failures.

@SEO_AM <- You are completely right, I am definitely not blaming google. It was just an unfortunate story which I was reminded of; but perhaps it is one that many internet entreprenuers can relate to. If you want to make a living off the internet then you need to be smart about it. I'm just a beginner.

There are no risk free businesses. Any biz you get into has competitor risk, product risk, liability risk, and much more. But the web is especially a risky place to make a living - so know that going in.

If you are going to make a living on the web diversify if you can so that you can suffer a big rankings drop and still eat and pay your rent. You might have to lay off employees or downsize your home... the key is being conservative in hiring and don't buy a bigger house than you can afford.

If things totally tank for you, there is always a McDs or a Wal-Mart nearby where you can get a job. So, treat your employees well because the guy that you laid off six months ago might be your shift manager when you start working at McDs.