Anti-sentiment towards Google has been growing, with SEOs and Website owners, over the last couple of years. With Google constantly moving the goal post – life has not been easy for SEOs and Website owners and it’s beginning to manifest.

Some are even taking radical measures and are banning Google from their Websites.  I can’t say that I’m ready to ban Google from my sites, however, I do think that we are too reliant on Google for reliable traffic.  I’ll touch on this later.

Why Google is not getting the love:

Google is Constantly Changing The Rules

Some think that Google changes its algorithms too often; leaving businesses that base their income off of organic traffic left to fend for themselves. However, Google’s approach has always been the same. The search engine will always state that its primary purpose is to give searchers the most valuable results.

To do this successfully, Google must test and change it’s algorithms. SEOMoz has an impressive list of algorithm changes since 2000. The average number of algorithm changes can range from up to 500 – 600 times a year

The Solution?

As I’ve have said many times before here at SpiderSavvy, don’t put all your eggs in the Google basket – this is becoming more true each day. You can do everything correctly and wake up one day to find that your website has vanished from Google’s search index.

If you don’t have a solid foundation of multiple streams of lead generation, your online business will be vulnerable to whims of Google and organic search.

SEO is Too Hard and is Only Getting Harder With No Guaranteed Results

To achieve the much-desired top position in the Google is time-consuming and requires more effort than most people think. Yes, it depends on the competition of your keywords, but with Google tying the hands of SEOs and making it more difficult to manipulate rankings, it’s not uncommon to see Website owners giving up on trying to outrank the authoritative sites that have been on the web since its inception. To start fresh right now is more than many want to take on.

The “SEO is hard” mantra was coined by Matt Cutts himself. At an SMX Conference earlier this year, Cutts stated that SEO will only get harder.

Is he being honest or just using scare tactics? This brings me to my next common anti-Google gripe…

Scare Tactics

Google is known for scaring Website owners and SEOs into using ultra-white SEO tactics.  Great content and user experience is extremely valuable but it, alone, will not guarantee results in Google.

When creating good content focus on your audience; not the search engines. Google may say that they will reward you for providing high-quality content, however, spammy and low-quality sites are still outranking high quality ones – so Google is obviously not doing the best job at rewarding you quality content alone.

Death to Organic Results

Over the years Google is gradually giving less precedence to the organic results. I have seen this happen with the PPC ads placed close to the organic listings, while organic results have been pushed down farther on the page over time. And a few days ago, news spread about another shift where Google is trimming the first page of results from 10 to 7 listings.

Adwords and Adsense Account Closures

On several blogs and forums, I see many disgruntled Website owners shaking their fists at Google for closing their accounts – the worst part is they never get an explanation about why it happened.

I read one story in the Adsense forums about a webmaster who lost $721 after Google closed his Adsense account. According to him, he did nothing wrong and when he asked why his account was closed, he received a canned response. He brought his case to court and a Google legal representative could also not tell the judge nor the webmaster why his account was closed. She simply said that he must adhere to Google’s terms as he did when he signed up for the account and Google doesn’t have to tell you why your account was banned.

This was not good enough for the judge and the man was awarded his $721 along with $40 in legal fees. A win for anti-Google enthusiasts? I think so.

What now?

So these are just some of the anti-Google rants circling the internet. For me, I am not an anti-Google enthusiast (yet), even though I do get very frustrated from time to time.

But, one thing I know for sure – it’s never a good idea to base a large part of a online marketing strategy on Google organic rankings. The algorithms are too inconstant even if you are implementing ultra-white hat strategies. A much more diverse approach will give long-term results and without the worries of loosing all of your traffic overnight.

The anti-Google club understands this all too well and many have gone so far as to ban Google from their sites.

Are you part of the anti-Google campaign or do you think the uproar is completely out of hand?