“I go out of my way NOT to get search engine traffic.” = CRAZY
Believe it or not the person who said “I go out of my way NOT to get search engine traffic” is none other than Rick Schwartz, otherwise known as the “Domain King”. I am a big fan of a lot of the things that Rick Schwartz says on his blog as he really cuts loose and is unafraid to express his opinion on something no matter how unpopular (or in this case crazy) it may be.
I realize that Rick is simply pointing out how he conducts his business as he tests the merits of his various domains and that is perfectly fine because after all he has a right to do whatever the heck he wants with his domains and who am I to tell him otherwise, right?! Be that as it may it is still somewhat frustrating to sometimes be lumped into the same category as old school domainers like Rick who “just don’t get it” at times.
To say that you are even remotely close to being involved in anything web related as a profession and to say that “I go out of my way NOT to get search engine traffic.” is akin to a Bank of America bank manager saying “I go out of my way NOT to get deposits of US dollars.”. Sure, a US bank on US soil and on prime real estate on 123 Main Street in a large US city could certainly get some business from people wanting to deposit non US currencies and might even make a nice profit just like a domainer with a premium domain name with a good amount of type in traffic could certainly make a nice profit just from type in traffic BUT is it not pretty ridiculous and borderline insane to turn away all of the free money by saying “No, thank you” to US customers with US dollars to deposit if you are a US bank and “No, thank you” to search engine traffic if you hold a premium domain name?
Note, I am NOT saying that one should rely solely on search engine traffic but to actively go out of your way to avoid the free money of search engine traffic seems pretty crazy to me. Then again, there is only one “Domain King” and it’s not me 
Bonus suggestion: If you ever find yourself in the enviable position of having so much search engine traffic that the “The search traffic clouds that information over at this point.” then don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Take 5 seconds and install a web analytics program on your site and then you can have all of the information you need however finely granulated you want it – AND you still get to keep that pesky but lucrative search engine traffic
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I believe what he means is that search engine traffic is not necessarily sustainable. Where google is judge, jury and executioner you need to move away from any sort of dependency on google for traffic and try and create real traffic to your site. Search engine traffic can be cut in an instant by Google and can leave your website stranded if you depend on it.
This is Rick Schwartz most important stand ever. He realises that Google are pretty much the only show in town and year on year in growing their business they are gradually moving into small and big internet niches all the time, squeezing out the small website owner. Like RS I would love to be able to have near zero search engine traffic.
Google has got less and less effective over the last few years for domain owners in general, everything is way down, where does it all end? Generic search in google is on it’s last legs and steadily but surely being replaced by paid search advertising only. Generic search is more symbolic than useful anymore. Start thinking outside the box and think carefully how you want your visitors to come to your site.
I definitely agree with you on that point. I did say in my post that one should not rely solely on search engine traffic but that is entirely different than actively going out of your way to not get search engine traffic. It is one thing to actively going out of your way to diversify your sources of traffic but quite another to actively go out of your way to not get a source of traffic. In other words, I think it is a great strategy to look for traffic sources that are not from the search engines but to actively try not to get traffic from search engines is pretty close to just turning down free money.
Rick must be joking “I go out of my way NOT to get search engine traffic” I do not believe him!!!
I am still somewhat unsure if what he said was really just a joke of some kind that was poorly communicated but only he knows I guess.
Btw and as an example, I would rank Google as one of the least important ways that you would get traffic to this website. Domaining.com is doing something that Google could never do, separating the wheat from the chaff, albeit in one niche. More and more authority sites in different niches will do the same. Of course how they operate could open up another can of worms. But the internet at large seems to have a behavioural effect on these sites that seems to create a more open and transparent system and in that case bring in an excellent audience. In the space of a year I have moved away totally from using Google to Domaining.com for most domain related material. Why? it was not on purpose, it’s just that most of the relevant up to date information can be found on domaining.com.
You make a great point. Although I would say an even better strategy than your Domaining.com only marketing strategy would be a Domaining.com + Google marketing strategy.
Remember, you do not have to make this an either/or argument as if you believe that Domaining.com is the best marketing channel so OK, let’s concentrate ONLY only Domaining.com and exclude ALL other marketing channels like Google and others.
If Domaining.com has the highest ROI of all marketing channels for a specific niche then it makes sense to concentrate your marketing efforts on Domaining.com BUT there approaches a limit to what you can do in any one marketing channel (and of course you do not want to become too dependent upon any one marketing channel whether it is Domaining.com or Google) so if you come close to exhausting what you are able to do in the Domaining.com marketing channel then even though for examples sake you have proven that Domaining.com has the highest ROI of all of the marketing channels it does not mean that all of the other marketing channels (i.e. Google) do not have a positive ROI for you as well.
If you are familiar at all with doing financial calculations to calculate things like NPV, IRR, etc. then you will get where I am coming from to a certain degree. Certainly, one should use their resources to go after the project that has the highest ROI but once that project is complete then it does not mean that one shouldn’t immediately attempt the project with the next highest ROI at that point (which has just been bumped up from #2 on the highest ROI list to #1).
Your missing the point. If you OWN the traffic you control your destiny. If you get it from the search engine that can disappear at any time. So, if a domain has stats and it is a mix of direct navigation traffic and search engine traffic it is harder to separate the traffic to check the real burn down value of the domain. If it has no search engine traffic than what you see is REAL and it is YOURS…not to be taken away by Google if they decide to deindex you. Now…..follow me here….if you OWN enough traffic you can take it anywhere you want to go….any PPC, affiliate program, sell directly to advertisers…..anything any company. You now are FREE! You are not reliant on search engines to pay your bills.
I’ve been buying domains this way for over 10 years. Your missing one of the strongest and best points Rick has made in years.
Oh, I absolutely agree with your point. The best thing about having a domain with natural type in traffic is that that kind of traffic cannot be replicated with another domain because each domain name is unique and therefore a competitive advantage that cannot be duplicated by a competitor no matter how deep their pockets are (unless they buy your domain name
).
I am a HUGE fan of building a business that is not solely reliant on traffic from the search engines BUT I would never ever ever go out of my way to turn down traffic from search engines IN ADDITION to all of the other sources of traffic that I can control.
In other words, Rick is treating the problem as an either/or problem as if you have to make a choice between getting search engine traffic or other types of traffic. I would simply submit that I, like Rick, would like to concentrate on type in traffic and other types of traffic that I can control due to the strength of my domains BUT I will certainly welcome the search engine traffic ALSO whether it lasts for a day, a year, or 10 years – why? – because just like direct navigation traffic and other forms of traffic that you can control to some degree; search engine traffic is valuable as well. Actively concentrating on non search engine traffic is one thing while actively concentrating on keeping your site from getting search engine traffic is quite another
All I know is that when I look at domains I assign zero value to search engine traffic. I don’t want it….just like Rick. It’s not the search traffic I am looking for. It converts at a much lower rate to sales also.
Hmmm, I guess I would have to lump you into the crazy category as well
So in other words, everything else being equal (I realize that no 2 domains are alike so technically there is nothing exactly equal but just for the sake of illustration let’s assume that every stat about 2 domains are the same), if you were evaluating 2 different domain names and 1 of them had significant search engine traffic and the other domain had no search engine traffic at all then you would value them exactly the same?
I have to tell you that if you say that you “assign zero value to search engine traffic” then you are deservedly right next to Rick in the crazy bin
Whether it “It converts at a much lower rate to sales” or not – wouldn’t search engine traffic still be valuable to you if, even for argument’s sake, your type in traffic converted at 25% and your search engine traffic converted at 10%?
Sure, 10% is a much lower conversion rate than 25% (just picked those numbers out of a hat to illustrate the point btw) but does that mean that you should assign the search engine traffic that converts at 10% a ZERO value?
You could certainly say, “I concentrate on other types of traffic besides search engine traffic but I will gladly take the search engine traffic when it incidentally comes to me” but to say “I assign zero value to search engine traffic” is ridiculous.
Sorry, you still haven’t argued your way out of the crazy bin at this point
Hello Joel,
I have known Rick Schwartz and his mind set since 99. He many times makes statements that fly in the face of seeming logic. Many times if you look past the attention getting headlines and look deeper down the rabbit hole, you will find more truth than fiction.
Knowone can argue that Google is not a powerful brand in search on the web. They were first to market with many successful search strategies. They have created a strong branding identity and even now I myself will tell people looking for an answer to GOOGLE IT. It helps them greatly to be branded in this way and converts a lot of people to their user channel.
The power of emotional branding to anyones site is most valuable and converts into more people using your services. Emotional branding is hard to obtain if your address is a keyword generic address. Therefore you are almost totally dependent on type in traffic. This is great for narrow usage, BUT and this is a big BUT, the search engines usually will rank a site with numerous usage variables higher. And lets face it Google and the other major search engines have no particular reason to want people to type in their own keywords, therefore bypassing their ad network. Truth be known they wish keyword .coms never existed. So how do you think they are going to rank keyword generics? This is a crazy bin question right?
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for your comment. Here are a few of my concerns:
“Emotional branding is hard to obtain if your address is a keyword generic address.” [Certainly true to some degree although there are many many examples of generic keyword domains building very successful brands both online and offline: Hotels.com comes to mind as does CarInsurance.com and Escrow.com and I'm sure we could both agree that there are quite a few others. I would also argue that just as there are unique challenges to branding a generic keyword domain there are also unique advantages when building a brand on a generic keyword domain name with one of the biggest advantages being the inherent authority of and exact match keyword .com domain - i.e. what domain could sound more authoritative to a person looking for hotels than Hotels.com?].
“Therefore you are almost totally dependent on type in traffic.” [I disagree with your earlier assumption that I just commented on to a certain degree but I very much disagree with your conclusion in this sentence. I don't see how it follows that even if we assume for the sake of argument that because there are unique difficulties in building a brand based on a generic keyword domain that "therefore you are almost totally dependent on type in traffic". I get the feeling that you may be referring to Google's recent update that many believe places an increased weighting to a website's "brand" which seems to cause many of the more highly branded websites rank higher than those sites without prominent branding. If that is what you are getting at then yes, there are definitely advantages to building a strong brand both in Google's eyes and in the eyes of users but that still should not cause us to reach the conclusion that "therefore you are almost totally dependent on type in traffic".]
“And lets face it Google and the other major search engines have no particular reason to want people to type in their own keywords, therefore bypassing their ad network.” [Certainly true to some degree but let's keep in mind that Google has their hands in many different cookie jars. They can certainly still make money even off of type in traffic because of their Google AdSense and AdSense for Domains programs.]
“Truth be known they wish keyword .coms never existed. So how do you think they are going to rank keyword generics?” [See my above answer but also I would have to add that it has been my experience that Google loves keyword generics - at least .com's as they tend to rank exact match keyword .com domains very high even if the domain is light on links and content relative to other competitors - and of course why shouldn't they? If Google's goal is to give people exactly what they are looking for so people will continue to use Google and not switch to a different search engine then it makes sense for Google to rank exact match .com domains high. If I am a searcher searching for "Vitamins" then there is a very high probability that a site like Vitamins.com will be exactly what I am looking for since the domain matches my query exactly. Therefore, even if Google wanted to penalize exact match domains in some fashion it would not be a smart long term business strategy because it would not be providing searchers with the results that they want.]
“This is a crazy bin question right?” [I am just joking about the whole crazy bin thing... kind of
]
My whole point has been edited and snipped by you most professionaly. Let me make this very clear, Google and all other SEM centric channels do everything in their subtle little ways to demote type in traffic names. I think even you would be hard pressed to say that they promote them as heavily as they promote SEM supported sites. Lets get real, we are not all crazy.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider
Even assuming that “Google and all other SEM centric channels do everything in their subtle little ways to demote type in traffic names” I would still submit the following regardless:
Statement A: “I do not rely on search engine traffic because I think it is unreliable/of lesser quality/not worth my time/etc so instead I concentrate on type in traffic but I will certainly take the search engine traffic when I can get it even though I don’t actively try and get search engine traffic because I am busy building other traffic methods that I think are worth more to me.” = SANE
Statement B “I go out of my way NOT to get search engine traffic.” = CRAZY
In other words, it really is absolutely crazy for someone to “go out of their way”/spend time and effort/actively do things to prevent their sites from getting search engine traffic. One can make the case that the search engines are biased against this and that until they are blue in the face but regardless it is the act of a crazy person to actively spend time and effort to prevent their sites from getting search engine traffic. Saying that you prefer type in traffic is one thing. Saying, I will work to keep my sites from getting search engine traffic is crazy. Sorry, that’s just the way it is.