Googlebot Just Got The Boot.
November 7, 2007 – 11:58 amUpdate: This experiment is over. Google is back crawling my website. Google wins.
One of the great benefits coming from as weird URL as you see for this blog, that I will have extremely hard time to ever sell it. With that there is also one particular advantage- I can experiment more with my website than other bloggers. Even if my experiments are a little drastic or insane.
Having been defamed by Google, along with many other bloggers, gave me an opportunity to reevaluate my relationship with big G. I have decided to see how will this blog survive on its own- without Google. So I have instructed Googlebot to stay way from this blog. But I also have requested to remove my entire website from Google’s index via Google Webmaster Tools (formerly know as Google Sitemaps).
Why so drastic?
Well, as I said it is an experiment. And I would advise not to follow my example if you run a blog that is responsible for good chunk of your earnings. Otherwise you are likely to loose about 30% of existing traffic and potentially that can translate into a loss of considerable amount of your income.
I would not call it an attempt to boycott Google. However, since Google has considered some of the pages to be shown on the first page of its search results, removing my website from these results is a way of returning the kindness after being defamed by their most recent Page Rank update.
Is it all about paid links and nofollow?
Yes and no. Yes I am guilty. My guilt amounts to about $2,000 earned from sponsored reviews and text link ads during the course of last year. Even I if I can’t substantiate a claim that I did not intentionally sell Page Rank, I still believe that a “no-nofollow” link to an advertiser from my blog did not have the same effect on SERPs as a “no-nofollow” link to an advertiser let say on TechChrunch or a “no-nofollow” link to his employer by Matt Cutts.
I still believe that paid reviews and paid links can contribute to better and more relevant results. To claim that links are irrelevant just because they are found in a sponsored review is absurd.
Could there have been a more moderate way out?
In order to make peace with Google, many webmasters were forced into waving white flags in surrender. I believe that similar option was available to me also. However seeing how uneven and unjust penalties were distributed, I have decided to give Google a hand. Even though I received money in exchange for links, my conscious is clean. When my website will be removed from Google’s index, any claim that I am selling Page Rank is absurd.
On the other had this will give me a better understanding whether or not a website can be successful or even survive without being indexed in Google. I will be posting some statistics in the future on it so stay tuned.
Although the readership of this blog is low, the fact that people subscribe to my blog tells me that once in a while I manage to write something relevant and interesting and no search engine will tell me otherwise.
Here is just few predictions about the effects this will have on my blog:
- I will lose about 30% of traffic- not a big deal if I manage to increase the subscribers to this blog.
- I predict a considerable decrease of spam (both human and automated) on my blog. It will be interesting to see to what degree was Google at fault when it came to spam.
- I imagine bloggers may hesitate to link to me since there will be no sign of my website in Google- this will result in a smaller number of links in the future to my blog. Will this turn my blog into a “bad neighborhood”? Frankly in this light the entire idea of “bad neighborhood” is absurd- without Google it does not exist.
- I may loose my place in the “Dofollow Movement” even though I am keeping DoFollow plugin on my blog.
I know that many of you disagree with my approach, I do however want to hear your take on it. How do you think my blog will do?
Tags: Affiliate Marketing, Usual Rant
39 Responses to “Googlebot Just Got The Boot.”
Vlad as far as I am concerned you keep a seat as a founder member, plus you are still allowing Yahoo and MSN to index your content, so the dofollow helps.
It is a brave thing to do, many will say it is foolish, but as a temporary trial it is a very useful test that might have some surprising results.
Just make sure you make some money on other sites.
By Andy Beard on Nov 7, 2007
I am actually looking forward to some new challenges. Unfortunately when it comes to SEO most of us concentrate on Google rather than Yahoo and MSN. Both Yahoo and MSN are still in business and have a considerable share of the search market.
It will be interesting experience.
By Vlad on Nov 7, 2007
Vlad, I am 100% sure that it will be fine. I looked at the traffic that Google sends to osWorld, and to be fair, it is very very little of the overall amount.
I’m pretty sure that is representative of most bloggers out there. The smart cookies haven’t depended upon SEO in a long while.
By Gary on Nov 7, 2007
First of all, my best wishes for your new experiment. It is really bold and tough decision, and I am sure that I will never make such a decision, unless Google bytes me too hard.
I don’t think anyone will hesitate to link to your blog. AFAIK, people will surely link to your site, if they find it interesting. And I am sure that brave experiments like this will make your blog really interesting.
And after the latest PR update, I was unsure about continuing with the dofollow movement, since I do not want my site penalized. But after reading this, I have made up my mind to actively continue my participation.
By Joyce Babu on Nov 7, 2007
As far as I am concerned, SEO is Google. For one of the websites of mine, Google provides me with more than 60% of its total traffic.
And for my blog, I don’t get much traffic from any of the search engines. But on considering the total search engine traffic to my blog, Google is once again the king.
So I believe Google deserves the attention it gets.
By Joyce Babu on Nov 7, 2007
Joyce,
Out of the 30% of the search engine traffic this blog was getting about 90% was from Google. But I still think that Yahoo and MSN have good potential.
When it came to PPC, Panama and MSN Adcenter was bringing me better conversions.
In either case it will be an interesting experiment to watch. Once again thanks for the links!
By Vlad on Nov 7, 2007
Hi Vlad,
I echo the sentiments on your bold decision. I’m sure your existing readers will continue to read and promote your blog via all available means - I will certainly continue to do so FWIW
We do all rely a little too much on the bloated beast that is Google, and the argument that they are “just a search engine” no longer holds any water. There are few bloggers prepared to consider alternatives to so many of their services, and thus they grow and continue to stifle many rival providers.
I shall watch your experiment with keen interest and wish you continuing success. Your page rank slap was an injustice, and I think everyone but Google would agree with that.
Looking forward to seeing how you get on with Yahoo, MSN Live et al.
By Maurice (TheCaymanHost) on Nov 7, 2007
This is a very interesting experiment, waiting to see the outcome … but I am sure you can do fine without google, unless people were really buying your links for the PR.
And as Joyce said just the experiment will draw some attention in itself … great link bait if you ask me
By GiorgosK on Nov 7, 2007
There is always robots=”noindex, follow” which might be worth a thought (although the tag in question spits out all spiders).
Personally I think you deserve a cultural icon status for “sticking to the man” so to speak. Google may have become old and slow and so in time a new predator will rise to bite it in the neck. Why do you think they, like yahoo, are diversifying with investments?
By Lord Matt on Nov 7, 2007
All I can say is “wow”. I subscribe on feed, so you know I’ll read when you tell us what happened.
By lucia on Nov 7, 2007
I was unsure whether or not go with a meta tag, I do want to keep Yahoo and MSN spiders coming lets hope the robots.txt will keep away only Googlebot.
By Vlad on Nov 7, 2007
Lucia,
To be honest I do not expect much. Ironically, some bloggers think this will become a good link-bait.
I am presuming that many bloggers will continue to link to me, while it may be a little harder to earn incoming links when there will be no sign of my blog in the Google’s index.
I also do not want this to be taken as some sort of heroic act. Let see what tomorrow brings.
By Vlad on Nov 7, 2007
It’s a foolish thing you’re doing, nothing more. A lot of sites dropped PR, not just those buying and selling links. It happens from time to time, there was another big PR drop years ago, one that people noticed. And you’re focused on PR when it’s about traffic. Who cares if your PR goes up or down. The PR went down on some of my sites too, I don’t sell or buy links on them but my traffic actually went up.
“It is a brave thing to do, many will say it is foolish,”
Brave is ridiculous, it’s not bold, it’s foolish, one made on emotion. I think you believe you write good stuff here? Most people use Google to search. That’s reality. You should be available for people to find you thru Google.
And this experiment isn’t going to prove anything. That you can get good traffic besides Google. That’s not news.
By Jonathan (Trust) on Nov 7, 2007
Jonathan,
You right the majority of search traffic came from Google, but this blog was receiving only about 30% of traffic from search engines and I am guessing this figure is close for majority of blogs out there.
I would not do that to any of my affiliate websites. That would be foolish. Just experimenting- that’s all.
By Vlad on Nov 7, 2007
But it seems like you’re taking it personally being defamed and all. Yes, part of this was Google trying to get a handle on buying and selling links and also just a move on their part to discourage it by just lowering PR practically across the board. They know most people are hung up on the green in the toolbar. It’s just toolbar PR, nothing else. And again, this not only happened to blogs or sites that buy and sell links, lots of sites had this happen. Those that don’t buy or sell links, sites without any affiliate links, any kind of site.
What I really want to know after this last PR update, what about your Google traffic to this blog? Did Google just kill it, did the traffic pretty much remain the same or was there an increase? Like I said, I’ve had some sites PR went down with the last PR update but my traffic went up. If your traffic wasn’t affected too badly if it all, people are just getting wound up about some green in a bar.
By Jonathan (Trust) on Nov 7, 2007
Vlad :
- I won`t subscribe to feeds. Because I`m about to begin a war to feeds subscribing as being another branch of useless-blog-classifications.
- I won`t remove the link back to this blog.
- I won`t hesitate to keep coming here everyday - directly from my blog main page linkback to this blog. As this will be a potential “trouble” for me keep using a lionk to a not-indexed site - I`m curious how much time google will keep your pages indexed …
I strongly belive there are deep-waters connections concerning PR, some SEO shit and certain “gurus”.
As long as google`s Stansford university graduated square heads will behave as VR world rulers, as long google will proclame they fight against spam but keep sending it, as long as google offer the choice (even if one don`t wanted) to search for a keyword and find porn, as long as I`ll found google adsense paid text links pointing to sex-gambling-cheating-scam-spam sites, as long as Matt Cutts speak in the name of google is better to make main page be inside a directory but google behave somehow against this theory, I`ll not be satisfied.
As soon I`ll have a offer for adsense space in my site - but not later than 31 december, when will be dissmissed anyway - I will cut off adsense forwever by deleting adsense account. It will be intersting if deleting adsense account will affect other google`s accounts (analitics, webmaster tools etc).
By Valentin on Nov 7, 2007
Jonathan,
The traffic to this blog remained the same after the update. However I made mistake to link to my some of my other websites (where I don not necessarily sell the links). The traffic on those websites went down substantially. Again it is hard to say if it was related to update or that other website simply began to rank better.
Again, I would not advise any one to do the same. Especially with the websites that are earning you any sort of income.
By Vlad on Nov 7, 2007
Yikes… you are brave.
Still. I think you will survive. You’ve got a list, and you are networked very well in the blogosphere, and in different online communities ( like Gooruze.com). I have an ebook that I wrote called The Dollars and Sense of Online Communities, and I believe that networking in the Web2.0 world is one of the best marketing strategies available. Statistics show that the majority of people spend their time on the internet reading content that other people have written… and most of that is not through search. As long as you are in the path of your target audience, they will find you.
And… more people are going to be talking about what you are doing in their blogs, and in different forums, which in turn will drive more traffic to your site as people will want to see how you are doing.
You might even see an improvement in results!
By Rita Wilhelm on Nov 7, 2007
This would be very effective if all the bloggers on the internet followed. But we all know that will never happen. It’s a shame though, because I think Google needs a kick in the ass for thinking they can just do whatever they want.
By MacBros on Nov 7, 2007
MacBros,
Thanks for stopping by. I think that blog survival depends more on subscribers than on the traffic from search engines. Every one says that anyway. I am the first one to test it “hard way” if you wish. In some ways RSS and the social media websites are the biggest threat to Google.
By Vlad on Nov 8, 2007
I appreciate your boldness. I have subscribed to your RSS feeds so that I keep in touch with this blog
By Clement on Nov 13, 2007
Well, I guess you only live once Vlad. Good luck, with the “experiment”
By Jason on Nov 13, 2007
@Jason
Yep, you can look at things this way
@all
Thanks for commenting and linking to this post. I will be posting an update tomorrow.
By Vlad on Nov 13, 2007
Its interesting to think about a world without Google (or at least ostracized from it). Ill be interested to see how this effects your blog (although I wouldn’t want to try this myself
By Jabapyth on Nov 15, 2007