Has anyone become less dependent on the search engines as of late?

[dexterlablab1]

I asked this because I've noticed something about my website.

 

I've optimized my site as best I could to be search engine friendly. And yes, it does bring new people. But I'm finding that I get more traffic and more actual new members as a result of connecting with other websites.

 

It almost feels like if the search engines ceased to exist for a few months, my site would hardly feel the effect.

[Nathan]

Not I. I always search in the Chrome address bar for websites even if I know the URL I rarely type it, I just search the first word in Google and go from there.

[Jessi]

I get half of my traffic from search engines, so I'd definitely be hurting. It's great that you're focused more on the social networking side and it's working better for you, though. I really need to spend more time doing that myself.

[Ram8349]

Less than 10% of my traffic is from search engines. So I guess it wouldn't affect my site as much right now, but in the long run the only way to boost my overall traffic is to increase search engine traffic, so it will hurt my site after all if I suddenly lose search engine traffic.

[dexterlablab1]

See the thing is, it's something I started paying attention to for the past 2 months.

 

Less than 8% of my total traffic is coming from Google. And even less from all the other search engines. I'm not saying I would totaly abandon SEO, because that would be insane. But it's nice to know that should Google try more of their TOS modification and crack down on whoever they "feel" is against their TOS, it would have little to no effect on me.

[Rayru18]

I don't think it's that search engines will cease to exist; but, in my opinion, the shortage on people coming from search engines is based more in how lazy people have gotten and have gotten used to having choices brought to them in social networks (i.e. Facebook likes/pages) instead of just searching for them.

 

I believe you would get more traffic for a site, by connecting it with other websites and advertising it maybe in signatures in forums, social networks, etc. With this you are going directly to the people and telling them "here's my site on , I see you are looking for things related on that, it might help you", that's a direct approach and will definitely land you more users than simply the search engine. Also, the search engine will give people many options and sometimes your site will be on the first page of results but not high enough for the lazy people to click at, people just really like things with an easy way out.

I know of a ton of people who are just lazy and click on the first link they see and then move on, it's like they don't try anymore, lol.

 

In my opinion you should always keep the search engine as an option, I believe things to be cyclical, and I think that social networks will go on a passive in a few years, and then search engines would raise again for people to find things.

[redinit]

I asked this because I've noticed something about my website.

 

I've optimized my site as best I could to be search engine friendly. And yes, it does bring new people. But I'm finding that I get more traffic and more actual new members as a result of connecting with other websites.

 

It almost feels like if the search engines ceased to exist for a few months, my site would hardly feel the effect.

No, how do you think people find the sites that link to your site? When you actually get good search engine position, you will notice an increase in visits.

[Nathan]

Just checked DeveloperBase gets 31% from Search Engines.

[Ditzy]

I've started to know many good websites I can use for anything and thus, I've been needing to search less and less for new websites in order to waste less time. However, there are times when I still find myself quite dependent on them, mostly when I need to research about a topic. Sometimes wikipedia isn't enough to start off. In the end, you could say I'm still quite dependent on them and couldn't do as well as I do without them.

[Hardison]

Most of my traffic doesn't come from Google or any search engine. Most of it comes as result of articles or social networking sites. My sites didn't take a hit as a result of the Google updates, but it's good to not have to depend on one avenue for traffic.

[Isabellas2007]

I know that one of my sites gets quite a bit of traffic from the search engines. However, another one of my sites gets mainly traffic from all the different sources like articles and social media then anywhere else. The one site which gets traffic from the search engines was not even optimized for the search engines, that is the funny thing!

[dexterlablab1]

No, how do you think people find the sites that link to your site? When you actually get good search engine position, you will notice an increase in visits.

 

I do have good placement.

 

And that's the problem. For all the effort I put into that, I still get far more from other methods than I do the searches now.

[bryce12]

I think that can happen if you have a solid traffic plan in place. A lot of people get majority of their traffic through social networks, media buys and even PPC but it doesn't happen overnight. You need to do a lot of testing and tweaking to get the best our of these avenues. As for me, my sites are still getting traffic through search engines though the number of visitors arriving through other means have also increased over time.

[Jessi]

And that's the problem. For all the effort I put into that, I still get far more from other methods than I do the searches now.

 

Some of that will come with time. You may have decent placement, but you need to have better placement....and for more things....and to have people actually searching for those phrases that you rank well for. If you don't have an audience trying to find you, then of course you're going to have better luck directly putting yourself in front of a different audience for now.