Update: 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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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
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?
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?
All I can say is “wow”. I subscribe on feed, so you know I'll read when you tell us what happened.
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.