How to Handle Google Goose Eggs

Posted by Laura Bergells

December 3, 2007

For years, this little Battractive.com site has had a Google Page Rank of 4. Today, you’ll see it’s a big old Google goose egg.

Page Rank ZERO. This happened about a month ago, a day or two after I upgraded my WordPress installation. It also coincided with a major Google update, which created all sorts of Blog writer speculation and general foo-fer-all.

I don’t do paid text links, or any of the other seedy practices that Google doesn’t like. (I kind of joke about paid links here. Lame joke, but still.) I give “dofollow” links — but only to regular, thoughtful commenters, which is fair game. There doesn’t seem to be any real reason for my decline in PR. It just “is what it is.” So I shrugged, and went on with my life.

Well, that was a month ago. I’m still at Zero. PR0, they call it.

But I don’t care that much. After all, in my entire November 2007 Goose Egg Month — my traffic’s still the same. Up a little, actually.

I think I would care if my paying customers came mostly from search engines. Or if I sold text ads where people demand that I pass on PR (supposedly, this is what caused the drop in the first place.)

Why did I shrug instead of freak out? I understand that Google can be like a tempermental teenager, concerned more with popularity than quality. And like every teenage girl knows, it doesn’t matter what anybody thinks of you.

If you’re cool, you’re cool. You’ll have your own devoted fans who will not only visit you, but keep coming back.

And Google? Once Google understands how popular you are, it will come crawling back. Just like any shallow teenager.

And if they don’t, so what? When you have a diversified online marketing plan, the capriciousness of the Google updates will merely generate a shrug. People who hinge their entire marketing plans on Google may have temporary traffic — but not an ongoing, sustainable business. In fact, if those who rely entirely on Google for visitors don’t have a real online business at all.

In a way, they work for Google.

So how do you handle a Google Goose Egg? Diversify your marketing plan. Build your own fan club!

Don’t work for Google. Work for your fans.

Work for your customers.