There is just one problem. Google can change the rules at any time and there is nothing you can do about it. Every internet marketer, website/blog owner or anyone who has earned money on the internet for an extended period of time is aware of this fact. It’s a financial tightrope that we all walk on. You never want to look at your stats to see that Google has stopped sending traffic to your sites.

Well I got to say, at this moment, I am breathing a big fat sigh of relief. I have found that over the past few weeks, Google has stopped sending traffic to one of my sites (Google giveth and Google taketh away). This is not a good thing because that particular site brought in more money than all of my other sites/blogs combined .

My sigh of relief is because I no longer have to worry about how I will survive if Google turned it’s back on me. I’m not sure whether or not it’s an algorithm change or just that Google decided that I had been having too much fun or what, but my site is no longer receiving the traffic it used to attract from Google.

Having gone through Google fluctuations before, I started doing things a little differently. The first time it happened I panicked because I thought I had done something wrong. I later found out it wasn’t my site, or me it was a Google algorithm change. The second time it happened, I was a little better prepared but I still sweated bullets.

This time, the longest of the Google traffic diet. All I can do is continue doing what I know to do; keep writing quality content, get backlinks and work on optimizing my sites.

To make up for the drop in income, I use my time a little differently. I spend a little more time working my active income sources and a little less time on my passive income sources. Either way, I cannot let Google stop me from reaching the goals I’ve set for myself.

What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Thanks Google. I no longer have to worry about the ‘worst case scenario.’ Thanks for the big fat sigh of relief.

After I grabbed my heart and recovered from the horrible sinking feeling that my work at home internet career was over, I realized that this was a very painful lesson. I quickly learned that I had put all my eggs in one basket and was suffering the consequences. Everything happens for a reason.

I had been so intent on writing articles, formatting them, finding the right images to accent the article for the website that I did a poor job of marketing my articles. Yeah, I did submit them to Digg and Reddit, but that wasn’t enough. Once Google picked up my new articles, I thought I had successfully marketed them adequately.
[smartads]
Don’t fall into the same trap I fell into. When Google dropped my site in the wastebasket I had to quickly figure out another way to generate traffic to my web pages. I then started instituting the practices as outlined in Seven Tips on How to Market Your Website as if Google Didn’t Exist.

Web writing and web hosting can be a solitary sport. Without Google, I found I had to actually start to communicate and network with other people. I joined a few forums commented on a few blogs and realized that they were a great place to share information. I learned a lot and hopefully contributed useful information that helped others. It became a win-win situation. And I realized that the piece of the internet puzzle that I was missing was that I had to develop relationships with people (aka network).

Do I miss Google? Yes I do. I’m no fool, a dollar is a dollar and I’d rather it be in my pocket than sitting in Google’s pocket. However, since they forced me out of my cocoon in order to network, I guess that’s just what I had to do.

The long and the short of it is that the back links generated from forum posting and blog comments won’t be taken away as the result of an algorithm change. So I decided to concentrate on building traffic outside of Google. Anything that Google sends my way will be gravy, no longer my bread and butter.

Do yourself a favor and don’t get caught up in the trap of putting all of your efforts in one basket. Google is a wonderful establishment when they are sending traffic your way. But, they can cripple your business if you don’t spend some time building other sources of traffic. Learn from my mistake.