Are Other WF Members Thinking This?

There are people who don't rely on Google for their traffic. As for hackers and stuff, just secure your websites the best you can and keep a backup.

You can go into offline ... it's not for everybody. I personally don't want anything to do with offline, but others make a lot of money offline.

I hear ya.
I've grown increasingly tired of dealing with google and all their changes.

I've devised a formula of list building and email marketing, and it's quickly getting me out of the google rat race.

I don't build my business on fear. Things change. They evolve. I adapt. If you quit what you're doing just because someone changed something, you'll find yourself spinning your wheels. Because change never stops.

I don't rely on other people's business when it comes to running mine. I use SEO, but I also use other methods like email marketing, social marketing, and (for some of my products) offline marketing, too.

Create a real business, and use different methods to promote it. It's not a "one way or the other" game.

You're exactly right. Genuine, quality content will always have it's place.
If your content, product, or even overall methodology is cheap, then you'll always encounter problems from time to time with updates, rule changes, etc..

It's just like gardening. You have to pick out the weeds or they'll thrive.
And as far as the hacker bit goes - keep everything secure. You know, spray some pesticide and what not..

Lemme guess, it was an email that was trying to sell you something, right? The problem is that the world is about to explode and the person sending the email was selling space ships. That kind of email?

As to offline, I can tell you its about selling, so that has to be a part of your DNA. Many try it and don't realize that. For me, it's been a good choice.

Google is just ONE way to make money, I like many have been hit pretty hard but it's just a glitch and TBH it's motivated me to broaden my income streams more instead of relying on SE traffic, having all your eggs in one basket isn't a good idea, especially if Google is the one holding the basket. :-)

Neil

You can easily make money offline. However - I think as with everything in the world, when something changes, everyone starts crying about it. When Google releases an algorithom update, 90% of IM'ers say its the end of the world. Personally, I've not noticed a difference in my rankings. I have known some peoples sites to be ranking higher due to their high quality sites but lack of SEO.

Taking online - offline I believe is the way forward, oh don't need to sell personally just get someone else to do it on a commission basis.

Good topic. I am brand new to the internet business. If my website was "hacked" does that mean it's the end of my internet business?

Offline is definitely not for everyone, but if you think that might be something you could do then it never hurts to spread your talents around and have various options ready.

Google is just trying to stay abreast of the ever-changing cyber-world. Great grammar, spelling and content will get you the most bang for your buck every time. Unless you're Bernie Madoff and just want to swindle people. (I don't think those types visit this site.)

Adsense / PPC / SEO Discussion Forum

personally you should never have all your eggs in one basket. An over reliance on google as a sole income stream is not a good business strategy and as we have seen post penguin update, alot of webmasters income have fallen dramatically cos of it. diversify your income so that if one takes a hit you have something else to fall back on.

I actually never had a problem with google updates or their traffic. And lets be honest its the top quality traffic there is out there.

The problem is always in the base of the structure. I found out by years that keyword research is the most valuable thing to do and what happens afterwards is 99% based on the keywords you chose to "promote".

Some are buying keywords, some are not. Finding them is the hard part.

I don't do much link building, and I've never seen much traffic change due to Google.

There's a lesson there.

I've also just opened a membership site and associated mail list. This will get natural backlinks, and it will not need Google traffic to be successful.

Take action today - stop writing about widgets, and actually start providing them for people.

Being a Pro songwriter and a im cat, I'm using different ways to promote both aspects
In a positive light to excel in the niche biz as well as in music. We all got to find our own way.
Its all good.

I never really realized how severely introverted most people were untill I found these forums. Just seeing how inactive the offline forums were compared to the online forums, is actually what attracted me a great deal to the offline forums.

Well that and the fact that the quality of the threads are a lot better. =]

It does amaze me though all these people on here trying to make money, but when it comes to something as simple as picking up a phone, or meeting a business owner in person... its like noone wants to do it.

Thats when I realized a good portion of this forum has no real marketing ability at all. I mean if you can't sell yourself, or sell a product to someone, I wonder how these people make sites that do it for them. Really boggles my mind.

Offline has been more than successful for me, and although I still dream about making money online, its just a lot more stable and predictable, so its probably where I will wind up growing the most.

-Red