So you can start to work on building non-Google traffic sources, instead. Your blog is a great way to access social media. Your newsletter and autoresponders and a switch to mobile pages will enable you to contact your readers directly.
I’m thinking that Google is struggling to stay relevant (and there is ONLY one reason) because they know if they don’t change, they die. And there are competitive threats to Google’s Search: Facebook search is emerging; Yahoo/Bing have enormous inbuilt market penetration and Microsoft has a huge amount of $$$; and mobile is WIDE open now. Google isn’t succeeding in spades yet their either.
So we shouldn’t just look to hook our sites to Adsense/GoogleSearch…
All SBI sites need to get this Google bug out of our brains, and look for legitimate audiences elsewhere. Why? Because Google is capricious, albeit data driven. While they change slowly, they do change. But I’m worried about something that Google may be looking to become: a major competitor to all of our info-based sites.
The good news is that Google does make mistakes… witness the end of the GAN network (didn’t they buy that from Doubleclick?)… and some things they do try don’t work. KNOL is another example.
And they are now aggregating content/facts from Wikipedia etc. and creating their own content on pages (such as movie pages, etc.)… How long will it be before they can aggregate and produced albeit uninspired content with answers to readers’ questions?
But the one thing Google won’t be able to ‘fake’ is social media, interactions between readers about issue that matter to people.
I don’t have a roadmap for success in the post-Google world; but then neither do many others… so don’t be downhearted about the Google dumping on your site. If you follow the people, and make them happy… Google’s algos HAVE To catch up. It’s not the other way around. Why? Otherwise Google’s raison-d’etre ceases to exist.
So on that point, I agree with Ken completely. Google needs great content more than ever; but its metrics can go overboard/skewed/false positive or whatever, and in the short term, our websites suffer.
So, do you have a plan B?