Business models that are based around ranking high in Google would suffer the most. I guess the objctive is to be able to generate traffic without Google, but that would be very difficult.
Enjoy the google ride .... while it lasts. It is not going anywhere soon. And even, if it does. Something better will pop up.
Google is best and think id does then what will be going to happning to the people who are earning alot.
Well if Google bans my adsense account I could say goodbye to my Income, so yes Google controls whether my site is profitable or not atm.
Want some Merlot or Shiroz with that cheese. I think I have the same problem but with Ask and Yahoo want to trade problems?
All I can say here is that I realised about 3-4 years ago Google would be a distraction in my SE efforts. I always looked for easier ways to place my eggs in many baskets and an glad I did. Yes Ask and Yahoo is most of my traffic with MSN and Google close behind but I don't worry much about it. I also spread my hosting around to 3 different providers.
Google is maybe in control of your place in the search results, but really not in control of your business. First of all when your do your business right then you will not depend only alone on Google, you can market your business to specialized search machines related to your business, you can market your business offline for instance in the area where you're living in etc. Timo
Definitely agree here. A SE should just be one of those places. And if you spend some time to get those eggs a higher ranking, it's your win. If you don't then other options may help your business just as well.
Google is just one channel of the customer acquisition part of the marketing cycle. There are other channels. And customer acquisition is just the beginning of the marketing cycle. The other parts of that cycle are equally important. So Google shouldn't be in control of your business.
To be honest, I have never spent much time on SEO. The sites we have that actually generate income get good SERPs because they have excellent, dynamic and relevent content. They are not optimized. Where we do put effort is in supplying content to some newspapers, television and radio stations, and some magazines which target our target audience. There are also some websites on the periphery of our space which run our free headlines -- with our site displaying the articles. Lastly, we maintain a small AdWords budget. We use AdWords because Google is the number one search engine. When that changes, we will change. So, the answer to your question is that Google is not in control of our fate. I would never want it to be too important.