I don't know about you, but I'm trying to diversify away from Google. Don't want to have all my eggs in one basket. Google is too autocratic and arbitrary and it kind of scares me.
Says a person who's fine with using Windows from Microsoft. Nothing Google does is arbitrary. Everything Google does is based on data from searches and those results. What they do and how they move is based on users, nothing else. If you want to go to another search engine, you'll get poorer results but, essentially, the same thing.
No need to scare if your website is quality website with quality traffic. If you get banned, you can simply get advertisement
I've been getting helpful answers in this thread and that is all I was asking for. (However, if you could list your business or website on my directory link in my signature and let me know how you fare with it, that would be much appreciated.)
I'll definitely put more focus on Bing, Yahoo, and Alta Vista, as well as smaller niche search engines, directories, and forums. Google has been know to mess around with rankings and I think it is not a good idea to depend on it too much.