Dear Google

Do you have any analytic data showing what part of google traffic dropped? Was it a specific search term that you lost rank for? Did your bounce rate *improve* with the decline in traffic? Without that info it’s hard to say if the loss in traffic was really a loss? Maybe it was just casting off irrelevant traffic which is actually a good thing (less bandwidth, less server load).

Ha! I couldn’t agree more. I too have seen a dramatic decrease in my traffic lately and find it insulting that the junk sites out there are beginning to outrank me in many ways. One thing we can count on is a constant change in what the big G finds of value.

Thank you, thank you, I couldn’t have said it better. We need a HUMAN ranking system. Anyone up for the job?

Zippy

wow im not the only one who got reamed by Google. jerks. selling my jail boxer shorts to make ends meet. thus im online socializing more these days. a point you missed is, what about days when we humans just don’t feel like writing? there’s no pill for creativity. i had an editor who demanded copy every day burned me out like overused ram.

Jim all I can say is Awesome!!! I laughed and laughed. I am sure when Google crawls this it will pause and notice.

Michael Bristol

Funny post :] It’s interesting to see how there are so many people that go against Google and their “system.” I’ve had both good luck and bad luck with getting my sites to rank on Google based off their algorithm and I’m going to be re-starting my blog actually trying to create quality content for myself as a descriptive bookmark and for others who are interested. I hope I don’t run into this same problem because it would be cool to get people reading my posts!

Interesting commentary..thanks you

Great post! I’m following you on Twitter and shared this link there. I look forward to reading all that you post! Have an outstanding day Jim!

Hey Jim, All you did is have too speedy a rise - it’s not supposed to happen like that. (Basically you’re being punished for being instantly popular.) It’s a red flag because of spammers. I’ve seen it happen - it’s a spike-flux designed to keep garbage out of the SERPs and it does a good job of it. Just wait it out, keep posting your good content and providing good food for though and it will fix itself and stabilize, as long as your sticking to good practices. I saw it with my blog, once upon a time, too. There is a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow. Actually, only a 50% loss is not so bad.

good letter. this is also why we focus more on other engines, not necessarily search, and places like technorati to help with traffic. google does not understand what reputation and ranking means, only what ad dollars mean.

Jim,
Would love to know if you get a response from google about this.
Keep us posted!

Ouch! Looking at source code, I’m not seeing anything that shouts at me as a long term reason to punish you, though. Like I said, stick it out. Keep posting good stuff. I’ll retweet. (Everyone who likes Jim, please retweet him.) Fastest way out of the sandbox is to go viral. Otherwise you wait in line like everyone else.

I LOVE this!!! I would love to blog everyday but I dont want to blog about crap just to get traffic….Awesome post as usual!

Twitter is the new Google and you’ve got heaps o’ Twitter love.

http://twitter.com/irenekoehler

Google is trying to eliminate blogging as a SEO boost too. Can they really do that???

Thanks for the informative post. I was unaware the Google favored post quantity/volume over traffic.

Ok, I’m hearing valiant commitment to quality writing, that’s good. I’m also hearing bitter disappointment that the search-gods overlooked your diamonds & pearls. I suspect Desi might be on to something when she mentioned spike capacitors.

But on a fundamental level, you have ditched Google for another model. You are Twitter, comments and trackback driven. You have left the automated world behind for a living community and I think that was a good call. No use being bitter that the girl you left behind doesn’t call no more.

Fuggettaboutit Jim, coz you got Charasma!

Great one Jim: I once tried to do some SEO engineering by going back to old blog posts and burying my keywords in white text, adding link comments, and stuff like that. Google removed me entirely from search results for those key words. Forever! Even moving my blog to a new site did not help.

hilarious! and very true.

Oh, that’s fantastic.

I love your point that blogs don’t need search engine traffic to succeed. I wish there were a metric to show how much Google traffic actually converts to an actual reader, or comment, or participant.

Not many.

To me, this only emphasizes the critical nature of relationships on the web. Why did this post get so many comments without Google? Because you have great relationships with readers, great connections with thought-leaders.

Is Google outdating itself by ignoring the social movement of the web? Very interesting questions you bring up.

I just had a conversation with a client this morning about google and how its kind like voodoo magic and seems to change all the time. This letter really hits it. Thanks!

Thanks for the insight! I’m still relatively new at this but have found better info and responses thru Twitter than Google. With the advances in technology one old saying remains true - don’t put all your eggs in one basket!

Good points…the only thing I’ve ever heard about Google’s system makes me determined to go around their Ivory Tower and connect with people on a real level to promote my business.

This is the best thing written about the Google algorithm! Thank you! I find you thru Jesse Luna on Twitter.

Stiennon -

Most any SEO, regardless of SE preference, would consider “burying my keywords in white text” blackhat. It’s blackhat SEO 101. After a 2002 stunt like that, you’ll have to switch IPs, ISPs, usernames and, gasp, content and then pray Matt Cutts doesn’t find you and tell the other SEs, again.

Right on, Jim. Lol!
It’s interesting to see how people react when their stats go “south” on them. Your take, especially because the majority of your traffic isn’t from the Big G, is well said and well taken.
While search engines are a viable means of driving traffic, and always will be, social media/web 2.0 is the main driving force now-a-days, with your blog as direct evidence of that.
Thanks for yet another brilliant post.

Thanks for retweeting it, I did miss it earlier. Boo Google, and yay you!
This has turned out to be a grand experiment, hasn’t it?
Cheers!
Virginia

So let me get this straight….your blogs been going like just a few months…ok…you only post when you feel like it & ya dont use payperclick or link exchanges….alexa says you get crazy insane traffic….theres like 40 comments here already & one of your posts recently got almost 200 comments..so….

Why do we even give a rats ass about google? I’ve wasted 18 months blogging almost every day & the most comments I get are like 8 or 10.

I dunno if I want to kiss you or kick you.

I’m not sure if daily posting is that important to Google. I post really erratically, but I have a pretty good page rank and about 30% of my traffic comes from Google. If you post everyday, your blog will show up more often in the Google blog search results, but it’s going to because there are more posts to call up. In the main search engine though, irregular, but genuine posts seem to be preferable to frequent, junk type posts. Any drop-off you’ve noticed is more likely to be due to the fact that your blog is still quite new and Google hasn’t figured out where it fits yet. And as other people have said, you’re doing fine on Twitter (you tweeting superstar) so you probably don’t need Google. I think you’d figured that out already though

@Stiennon - what you were doing was not SEO, it was cheating.

Jim, thank you.

As I mentioned to you earlier, your post dovetails with the one I was already working on that supports Alexa (check it out here: http://www.originalquill.com/blog/why-you-should-pay-more-attention-to-alexa-than-google/2008/11/)

I mentioned your post in it because I think it’s prudent to anyone who values their clients, readers, visitors, more than they do the random traffic generated by Google.

Yes, Google can bring in traffic. Normally it’s the WRONG traffic, though. Building a community using sites like Twitter and LinkedIn will bring in more high quality visitors–the visitors that will really help you build your business and your online community.

Jared

I really can see what you mean. Pro-bloggers who post daily will show up more in searches of blogs because of the quantity of their posts, but they don’t necessarily do as well in general searches. To give you an example: One of my favourite bloggers is Lorelle who writes about WordPress http://lorelle.wordpress.com/. She doesn’t post everyday, but when she does, her posts are well written, on topic and rank very highly - higher than anything any daily posting problogger will ever churn out. Lorelle’s blog is usually in the first 3 results whenever I search for anything about WordPress, and it gets there because it’s a mature blog and she writes real posts for real people.

Really, I’m not disagreeing with you, especially when you say that a blog should be about ‘quality over volume’. That is what blogging is about. And search engines know that, the people who programme them spend a lot of time trying to make the bots read a blog in the same way you or I would. At the end of the day, Google (or any other search company) want people to use their service, and the best way to do that is to provide results that are as close as possible to what a real human being would provide. They can only do that by valuing quality more highly than volume.

Sorry to be pedantic and come back with a second comment - I’m not into SEO, but I do admit to being a search nerd. (blush)

Jim, I really enjoyed the Dear Google letter. Got a good laugh out of it!

- Doc

Jim, I LOVE your blog! There’s always honesty and great content plus you write from the heart. I laughed when I read this post!

As ‘newbie’ to the online marketing world, I refuse to clutter up my blog with worthless posts just to get better ranks. Although I believe SEO is important, it’s only a piece of the puzzle. I prefer word-of-mouth to be honest.

Tks,
Kelley

Definitely agree with you!Always building good content is not a joke.

And I just read the google seo starter guide.There was nothing amazing told in the google seo report.
Its just another seo basics report which you can learn from each of the millions of blogs on SEO.

I blog to keep fresh content on my site. I follow you because you give great info. Twitter takes up more of my time and is becoming more valuable. I like every aspect of SM and that could be my niche… if I could be as smart as you. Great following you.

LOL - A placed to be entertained and educated, I love it!

Jim, my business partner and I used to lament about how much our clients’ success was tied to Google. “We all live and die by Google,” was what we used to say. Of course, that was from a search marketer’s perspective.

Over time, our agency has transitioned more into a social media play - not simply because that’s where the business opportunity was, but more to the reality of what your “dear Google algorithm” letter clearly demonstrates.

Do we still rely on Google? Absolutely. But the online marketing landscape has changed significantly right before our eyes… kind of like watching a sunrise. Thanks for your contribution.

Hi Jim,
As always, you are right on point. Google likely takes word count over content as well. As a new business owner and a marketer, I need Google, but sometimes I wonder what help they really are. Oh well, onward and upward. Personally, I am moving a lot of my activity over to direct mail, where my rankings are related to what I actually offer and deliver.
Lisa

This is, to borrow a line from Homer Simpson, funny because it’s true.

Any genuine traffic comes from quality back-links anyway.

As I said on Twitter, diamonds are rare, but you are one of them. Keep setting the high standard for yourself and the rest of us.

Well put, Jim. Keep up the good work and let Google bury its head in the sand.

I also have seen a 50%+ cut in my AdSense income on my best site (not a blog). The quality of what’s there has not changed, but I was working on a new project and had slowed down on updates.

Crazy! But it just demonstrates the validity of the advice often given by the wise not to build a business that depends on the unreliability of the Google machine.

This made me smile as it is a unique way of addressing something that doesn’t matter that much to you anyway (my gutt feeling). Your blog and some of the others get shared on Twitter and other social sites as well as by word of mouth so Google’s search traffic reduction is something you will get past in no time. Keep pumping out great content and doing your thing.

If there’s too much rubbish of sites in a niche, they can boost you out of the top by building links and deep links over and over.

Traffic depends on keywords and links in niche at Google.

If you stop getting new links AND others in niche are getting more and more, you will get “penalized” by losing visitors.

I’ve made some theories about this, perhaps they are not perfect, but this seems to be Google’s law. And Google’s law has absolutely nothing to do with quality content.

Thanks for your comments. I too resist the idea of churning content for the sake of churning, it is ruining what blogging set out to be in the first place. I hate telling my clients that is what they need to do, but it is just the way it is right now. Thanks for the great post.

Speaking of backlinks, I left you one today