How To Profit From A Google Slap

March 8th, 2008 · No Comments

Since we really have no way of truly knowing what Google wants with regard to their Adwords Quality Score, perhaps instead, we should find ways to make lemonade from the lemons Google has turned many of our campaigns into. What I’m proposing is pure opportunism, but that seems to be what a lot of online businesses are resorting to these days.

The latest Google Slap seems to be particularly bizarre in both the way it played out as well as what it has left in its wake. Granted, Google Slaps are nerve wracking events any way you slice them, but this one is giving me chills.

I posted a reply to a comment left by Bill in my previous post about the latest Slap and agreed with him on just how arbitrary this latest Slap appears to have been.

No rhyme or reason at all apparent.

This latest Slap has also occurred when Google’s stock price is well off its recent highs. In the short term, this can’t be helping the bottom line. How much it will hurt it long term is beyond my abilities to predict. The one thing that is really creeping me out these last few days after the latest Slap is the shear decimation of those paid ads off to the right of the natural SERPs in Google.

It’s a veritable ghost town!

If you listen close enough you can hear the wind blowing the tumble weeds through the heart of downtown Adwordsville.

Niches that were cutthroat competitive just last Sunday are now wide open.

So I don’t really need to spell it out for you. Adwords advertisers may have gotten Slapped away, but what about all those searchers that Google frets over delivering a “quality user experience” to?

Do you think they’ve run off to MSN Live and Yahoo! or even the lesser search engines to look for stuff to buy?

I’ve been blasting out direct-to-merchant campaigns like there’s no tomorrow. And there may not even be a “this afternoon” once Google comes back online later today after the scheduled system maintenance that is underway as I type this.

It seems like a window of opportunity, but probably one that won’t stay open for very long.