Morning Folks!!
When I look back I can say I have NEVER had a business plan online that included Google in any way, shape or form. Google is a bonus not a foundation.
When I talk to folks online about every 10th word is 'Google'. Every thing they do dependant on Google. All their numbers revolve around Google. Every 3rd word is Google. The minute I see folks do that, I RUN!!!
Google is the LAST thing I think about. Google is the LAST resort not the first. Google has its place in the food chain and in my mind it is at the very end of that chain.
I just see other ways to market. Other ways to circulate. Other ways to build a business and not be dependent on a company that can shut you down on a whim with no recourse.
Google is a plus for your business but it is FAR, FAR, FAR from a trustworthy foundation. It is an ADD ON! It's great to get extra traffic from Google. But that is exactly what it is. Extra traffic.
Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz
Robin Ong
Now, I believe you.
AbdulBasit Makrani
That’s true. I completely agree.
Uzoma
I agree 100%. I have been saying this for years. You know what’s funny? I’ve been doing a test on Google for almost 2 years now. I set up a site that contains very relevant information, but I refuse to go by any of their arbitrary rules on this site. I will publish the results of this research within a year or two. The website is:
AcrossUnitedStates.com
and it contains great information updated daily on the following:
Sports
Buy Tickets
Restaurants
Shopping
Nightlife
Hotels
City Attractions
Tours
Best Of USA
Weather
Maps
Trading
Software
Front page
Guide
Rules
Content
Real Estate
Real Estate USA
Insurance
Loans
Mortgage
Attorney Lawyer
Donate
Credit
Treatment
CordBlood
Transfer
Rehab Treatment
Classes
Degree
Moving
News Now USA
So, I also look at what Yahoo, and Bing does. Do they even have their own brains? Or are they ripping off Google data. It is strange how these two companies are not able to take more market shares from Google based on the obvious craziness Google inflicted on itsel sing the late 2000’s. I mean, how can they stick it to their partners without good cause and still thrive? It is so easy for Yahoo or Bing to eat googles lunch. All they have to do is do what google in early 2000, pay good PPC, that’s all. Work with website owners, and domain name owners. Just a little respect, that’s all. Or be damned!
Ross
It took a while for us to make the break, however, once we removed our dependence on Google and Bing our business accelerated significantly in the last 6 months. It was a mindset shift we fortunately made in the second half of 2012.
Scott Alliy
We are about to witness the return of traditional marketing. Soon tens of thousands of dots and their minions of SEO pros will be at Googles front door begging for the coveted top three results for their relevant keywords. Heads up traditional marketing and advertising types your chance to shine is coming soon. Will be real interesting to see which channels that businesses that arise built upon new tld names will be using for marketing and advertising. Please don’t tell me that Social Media is the answer. A person has a better chance of noticing a billboard they ride by every day than seeing a 140 character message breezing by in the middle of the night while they sleep or mixed with thousands other flash messages. FakeBook? Theres another one that wants to control your business life! Electronic revolving billboards with dot address names are one advertising marketing change to come from this new Internet business era IMO and as yet unintroduced marketing methods will follow. Be vigilant and ready to act for best chance of success is my advice to startup businesses yet to come that will be considering marketing and advertising channels. Don’t count out Google but as you said don’t depend on them either.
Middle Tear Domainer
Rick,
Interesting post Rick but how many Billions of dollars has it helped the domain industry with ppc income during the boom days?
While the ppc market has gone down hill and we may not be thrilled on the quality of clicks, traffic and that pure type in play, it still paid you millions of dollars over the years.
Now I will say this, the leasing side of things will do a lot better. Take away the top 500 domainers in the world and the domain industry still needs google. We dont have the luxury to do deals that you have.
While I rely on my type in traffic, my ppc income, my 100k type ins a year, I do still have an income off that traffic. I want my type in traffic to go up 30 percent for 2013 in buying pure type in traffic domains.
Yes, I should be doing url forwarding possible to make more money possible. Eventually I see google paying based on commissions and not strick ppc play.
In regards to emd, or this emp thing, I think this was a wake up call for many web site operators. That pure type in traffic is amazing and pretty powerful. Google cant fuck with my direct navigation.
I am amazed how many domainers that do not understand the powers of type in traffic. Im mainly talking about the hustlers who know how to flip very well, the middle tear domainer who is making 20k to 50k a year. A piece here, a piece there and being a diversified domainer was my goal for 2012 and continues to be the driving force for me in 2013. Different type in traffic from different industries, the quality in domain name, some idn traffic, some hotel traffic, some education traffic, some health traffic. That traffic at least will always be around even with ppc income I continue to see lights at the end of the tunnel. Domain sales are still a big part of my income.
The 50 dollar waiter vs the 500 dollar waiter post by you was one of the top posts by you for the smaller domainer. Spot on!
Let the noise begin and Rick, some of your friends are surly trying devalue there own portfolios by this gtld non sense. Some of those people are friends of mine.
Be very careful what you read and domainer bloggers for 2013. Hidden agendas and pleasing the gtld advertisers. Sometimes over reading domaining.com, rookie domain bloggers and who have agendas does more damaging to read then just focus on people and listen to like yourself.
Sorry for rambling along. But Rick remember a good portion of wealth was created by google for the pure domainer and the glory days. Leasing and jointventures makes perfect sense for the top domainers. But the smaller type domainer or middle tear domainer still needs google ppc income IMO.
Uzoma
Scott Ally,
You are exactly right about social media control. Like I said, there are so many ways for folks to make money without all these people. I am launching an actual live broadcast for vacancy in apartments, condos, homes domain names, jobs, and it will be the first of its kind, I don’t even have time for all the ventures I’ve gotten myself into this nascent year….
Take a look at:
VacancyTV.com
Coming Soon: Live Broadcast of Vacancies!
If you like information on vacant Apartments, Condos, or Homes, we will show it Live on 4K High Resolution television quality! VacancyTV.com we’ll give you the attention and personal service you’ll come to expect and enjoy. It’s going live!!
BullS
Who the F is google?
Jay
I understand, I agree, but… As a businessman I know that you should sell what others buy, not just what you like. So when Google is important for buyer, then it should be relevant for you – seller. It is not what you like, it is what buyers want.
Jamie Farrelly
If I read this last year I would’ve thought that you were mad to say try to avoid Google when coming up with ideas for new sites, but now I agree completely.
All it takes is one little update that could literally kill off all of your traffic, so it’s a much better idea to focus on sites that don’t depend on Google (or any search engine!).
Mark Jeftovic
Value investors like businesses that have a”wide moat”, an article I wrote on this some time ago on the subject:
Not Needing Google, The Web Version of a”Wide Moat”
http://webvalueinvestor.com/value-investing/not-needing-google-the-web-version-of-a-wide-moat/
Max
I’d like write many things, but I have not so much time to do that…So only the important points.
This is a war and in a war all the targets that are not worth a bullet have to be ignored (a couple and more of those GREAT TARGETS to distract all are also in this thread).
google has been giving for many years results based on data stored in your browser (last searches you made) and not on the name of your domain and/or keywords you setted. People find crap results
making type-in, because they don’t find what they are looking for writing directly in the web address bar, so type-in decline and you and your domains are scroogled.
It is very simple. Everyone can see this.
Type-in only for mistakes…(tshhh….come on…)
So the target to conquer is telling F**K OFF to all the scroogling parking platforms having partnership with google (parking….another GREAT TARGET to distract you…..)
P.S Since I forgot to make this previously I wish an happy new year to all. 2013 could bring too many leasing platforms, too many instruments for affiliation, too many sites for recruting good developer soldiers to fights against seo (toy) soldiers, too many parking platforms not partnering with google, too much fair competition, but, in particular, too much courage to all.
Leave your domains or fight for Freedom (your Freedom or Freedom of those that will come after you). This war is not a joke.
Max
“…(parking….another GREAT TARGET to distract you…..)”
Since I forgot to write the word”word” before the word”parking” :) I want to explain what I meant: the so-called parking should be the best use and the most natural and effective use for generic domains….
Max
and it would be the best use for generics if parking had not been sabotaged in the last 8 years or so …
(last post, sorry :) when you are in a hurry…)
RD
I have a perfect example of a website that doesn’t rely on search engine traffic. Sure, somebody might type in a matching keyword once in a while and hit the site, but I don’t rely on it. The site is http://creepertales.com and it will only survive by word of mouth or other marketing. The site allows users to add their own stories so SEO would be mostly pointless for this site anyway.
Building a site with Google (or any search engine) in mind will only come back to bite you in the ass. A lot of people learned this the hard way. Learning to self promote is the best method IMO.
Lawrence
Rick,
You are right on. It is scary to think how many very valuable websites are built on the quicksand foundation of Google searches.
We had a very profitable website, fully built out, finely tuned, a great money maker.
Then WHAM, with one Google algorithm change, traffic all but stopped.
We went from $6000.00 per month to under $2000.00 in 30 days.
We knew we were vulnerable as 80% of our traffic was from Google search.
Bottom line is the only foundation you can rely upon is your domain name. It better be a good one and a dot com.
Darryl Lopes
Those of you looking for the thread :
Are you a $50 or a $500″Domain Waiter”?
http://www.ricksblog.com/my_weblog/2012/05/are-you-a-50-or-a-500-domain-waiter-.html
Ps: I always carry business cards in my wallet, personally signed by me. It’s always about the leads.
Jeff Schneider
Hello Rick,
Your online business rests on the foundation you build it on. Your Virtual Business Foundation is the only form of free perpetual advertising, So make sure your Domain Name advertises the right message perpetually. Ad campaigns come and go Domain Names are Eternal.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
Max
if I stumble in other distractions like those”too many” and”too much” I will not write neverMORE. I promise. With those mistakes maybe I made wishes leaving someone a little puzzled :)
EMMA
Thank you Jay. You said it correctly. A business person goes by what the general population like or the way they do things, not by what he likes or the way he does things, unless he is in the state of denial. Rick understands that better than any domainer out there but he just has an agenda. Remember, Rick is a domain speculator owning some, if not the majority of the best domain names in the world. This is the only way he can make money and he is against anything that can make people not to use the address bar
Craig
WoW!….lots of google downers out there.
So the FTC caved and now it’s up to Texas and California..AND/OR
the European Community who may yet eat Google burgers for lunch
to the tune of 4 or so BILLIONS! (they need the money, but so do we)
Keep tuned….and thanks Rick…..a worthwhile viewpoint as always.
UFO
Interestingly I’ve just noticed that vodafone.com is beginning to shorten its advertising to vodacom. (Currently voda.com resolves to a temp holding page with vodacom.com resolving at vodafone).
Now, .com is NOT going away. All the big companies are shortening their names and putting a .com on the end. So its easier to remember and is ONE address for global advertising.
Google etc are NEVER going to stop this. The only way is with something like .co but the big players in marketing are NOT going to change for a 1 character reduction.
All the big corporates in the world don’t give a monkies for what domainers, registries or the likes of Google want. They just want recollection and standardisation in global recognition.
.com is most definitely here to stay.
In fact, 3/4/5 letter URLs are going to be used by more global names in an effort to be easier to place in advertising. (Sports shirts etc need shorter addresses).
konkanhotel
Only website which solve peoples problem very easily they don’t need google. otherwise most of them need
RAYY
So true, we don’t need to rely on Google to be successful…. So as we don’t need to rely on social media such as Facebook, Twitter etc. to be successful either….
Check out top 10 successful business without social media.
http://www.smartearningmethods.com/2013/01/successful-businesses-without-social-media-2013/
EspressoCloud
Guess Candy.com is doing allright from type-in – that’s great! The bigger part of Nuts.com’s traffic is also type-in, according to observations posted on theDomains:
Nuts.com: Direct Navigation Traffic up 105% & Google Orgainc Traffic Up 32% Since Acquisition Of Domain
http://www.thedomains.com/2012/09/10/nuts-com-direct-navigation-traffic-up-105-google-orgainc-traffic-up-32-since-acquisition-of-domain
The goal of every developer would still be to be properly indexed in Google and Bing, besides build on a great name.
Jeff Schneider
Hello Rick,
Some people need to undertstand that GOOGLE cares nothing for companies BRANDS, rather they destroy them, by information homogenization, i.e. smoke and screens, and SEO manipulation of the very true meaning of language. BRANDING will live on long after these tactics are gone. Your Virtual Business Foundations BRAND is an Eternal Symbol that weathers all storms of dissinformation, and remains a perpetual advertising machine with high emotional recall responses from consumers.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
Rajendra Dhanotiya
Only website which solve peoples problem very easily they don’t need google. otherwise most of them need..
Your posts are always so interesting to read, and I’d love to see more!..
Thanks for sharing
TIMEcube
I understand, I agree, but… As a businessman I know that you should sell what others buy, not just what you like. So when Google is important for buyer, then it should be relevant for you – seller. It is not what you like, it is what buyers want.