I would agree with the statement: “For yourself, blocking Google might lose traffic in the short run, but if you’re building defensible sites, that traffic should be a minor percentage of what you get.”

While it would be foolish to remove Google as a possible supplier of traffic the point is still sound. If you have a defensible site that has various and numerous traffic sources, then if one should suddenly fail (ie Google dumps you/you dump Google) then it shouldn’t hit you so badly. Way too many sites rely purely on Google for traffic, if Google fails them, they fail.

Check out this post, you might gain some insight to a world without Google.
http://www.searchengineguide.com/jennifer-laycock/hide-and-speak.php

Again, it’s not a case of doing away with Google, but rather a case of not being reliant on Google – there is a difference.

Telling people to block robots.txt does nothing to prove your point on diversification of traffic. Just tell, show them how to diversify traffic and stop with the dramatic effect of telling people to block Googlebot.

Well, I appreciate Andy’s clarification and suppose it will suffice. That said, while I recognize that you have some valid criticisms (especially as to the confusing language re Google v search engines generally), I think that elsewhere you take me way out of context and the result is the sullying of my reputation in an undeserved way.

Don’t think people are just reading this and skipping my post? Or that the context is getting lost? Consider these comments:

“I can’t believe this guy recommends blocking GoogleBot!!!!”
- Um, look at the context for that.

“No reason to defend the guy if what he did was write a load of bull. Seriously, people should learn not to trust everything they read…”
- Yeah, all I did was write bull. Lucky for your competitors, you’re not profiting from it .

“[...]in essence advocating same content indexed under 2 different domain names = spam.
[...]
“His robots.txt actually allows all access to all robots including Googlebot. Does not practice what he preaches .”
- I’m being called a spammer (yeah, I’m sure loads of spammers are blocking Googlebot ) and I explicitly said that I can understand why you wouldn’t block it.

@ Jaan – You’re missing the rest of the two paragraphs and the context. As I explained above.

I am sorry but I don’t believe I need to edit my post. I made your entire article available to everyone and even encouraged people to read your article because I believed it is an important conversation piece worthy of the time I spent to comment on it and worthy of being on Andy Beal’s blog. With that said, my opinion is my opinion and I hope everyone will think for themselves when reading my comments, your article, or anything else for that matter.

I certainly have no intention of flaming you. If you had written something that I found completely unappealing I would have ignored your post completely and not spent my time addressing it. I think when you place provocative ideas out there you need to be prepared to accept what other people think about your ideas or motivations. Thankfully I do it in a place where you have the opportunity to post comments on my opinion. In fact Andy Beal as gone so far as to add a link to them at the bottom of my post to make them readily available to people who might otherwise have missed them.

If you look at the body of my contributions to this blog you will see I am always trying to find the missed article that I believe this blog’s audience will appreciate. But I also feel that if something is amazing or possibly poorly conceived and it resonates with me in some way I comment on it. I believe my reputation is solid amongst my peers and I believe I offer advice or commentary to the best of my ability.

Finally I certainly want to thank you for coming and joining the conversation, hopefully in future we will have the opportunity to discuss these items and others either at a conference or online.

Regards,
Roderick

“6. Bonus: Write a robots.txt that blocks Google’s robot.”
What am I missing?

“For yourself, blocking Google might lose traffic in the short run, but if you’re building defensible sites, that traffic should be a minor percentage of what you get.”

This is stupid idea for anyone and I dont care who or why your online.

Besides that, I’m not one for sensationalism. See this post I wrote before leaving to SMX, for instance (the title is sarcastic/poking fun at a certain type of sensational title):
http://seoroi.com/case-studies/how-i-made-3000-this-week-and-you-can-t oo/

As to it harming my reputation to be sharing original ideas and advising people against relying on Google or other search engines… I’m not trying to get Google as a client.

And I explained about why SEO ROI hasn’t blocked Googlebot, Roderick. It seems from reading your comments that you’re looking to flame me, and so I’ll ask you the question of what the goal is there.

–> What does it contribute to your reputation to say that I’m not following my own advice, as if it were a unique discovery of yours, when I say so explicitly in the post?

1) Roderick, you’re right about the thrust of my argument being becoming independent from Google. I’ll need to fix that up. That said, I think that if webmasters become independent from Google and then dependent on Yahoo or MSN, they’re no further ahead. So it’s about becoming independent generally. And that also goes for who you search with, because you won’t always find what you need if you only search with Google or any other engine.

2) Regarding my Robots.txt, what does it say about many of the criticisms above when they take my comment about blocking Googlebot out of context? Perhaps you should read my post before criticizing it…
Here’s ALL of what I wrote:
“The less relevant its search results, the more you redistribute power as people choose alternative engines to power their searches. I’d like to claim this idea as my own, but I learned it from none other than the grandmaster of search himself, Danny Sullivan. I can’t find either Sphinn comment (he said it twice on separate occasions), but if someone has it and links to it in the comments, I’ll update this post and link to the industrious commenter as well.

“For yourself, blocking Google might lose traffic in the short run, but if you’re building defensible sites, that traffic should be a minor percentage of what you get. To be fair, this is a tough tactic to recommend, especially as an SEO. I recognize it isn’t for everyone. While I can’t block Goooglebot here on SEO ROI because it would be a credibility bomb (there’s another domain I own: Credible.ca), I am planning to do just that with other sites that are in development.”

Roderick, I think you need to edit your post to include that in order to be fair. It was there from the first moment I published and your treatment above misrepresents what I said by leaving out some of the context. I’m sure it wasn’t intentional, but the oversight is glaring.

3) Diversifying online and diversifying offline are similar, but not entirely the same imho. Going from all adsense to rotating CPA banners in there helps you, but you may still be getting the CPA from Google. Not much better off, are you? If your site supports offline monetization, then you’re not quite as dependent on Google.

4) As to making sites that you are passionate about … I’m obviously taking my advice there (for all you naysayers ). I love SEO. And that’s why I put so much into SEO ROI. And it monetizes nicely .

However, I share your concern that there may be conflicts in terms of diversifying revenue streams, since most people can’t get passionate about the latest hot-converting CPA offer. In that case – and this is ALSO in the post (some more context which ought to have been given), I think you can do OK if you minimize your time/cash investment with some minisites and PPC.

5) Marek, did you learn something new from my presentation at least?
In any case, I’m not sure you understood what I said at SMX. I specifically pointed out that my case study was a fluke, and told audience members to ask themselves what value add a situation like mine adds to search results. Then I continued to share local content ideas to help people come up with an answer to the question of “How do I deserve a second listing in local?” And you don’t need to take my word for it – the slide are available for download as per the email sent out to attendees by Third Door Media.
Regarding your comment about my Robots.txt, see above.

So… you’re not a Gab basher but you’ll happily join in, huh?

I also think it does a diservice to the unitiated internet marketers out there. By him not even taking his own free advice what does that say about what he is really writing?

His robots.txt actually allows all access to all robots including Googlebot. Does not practice what he preaches .