[jacquesm]

1 thing you're allowed to do: Ignore google completely. Build your business in such a way that it works, with or without google sending you traffic. That way you don't need to lose sleep over your rankings and you don't need to panic every 6 months when google updates their algorithms in a major way.

Just treat them like you would treat the weather, enjoy it when it's nice but make sure your business runs even when it is raining. If you're dependent on Google for your traffic you are doing it wrong.

[ssharp]

You can build your business in such a way that it works with or without Google, but it's going to work a lot better with Google than without it.

People do lose sleep over rankings, because in some industries, the amount of traffic and business generated by organic search is substantial. If you're relying almost entirely on Google search traffic, you are doing it wrong, but if you're ignoring organic optimization, you're also doing it wrong. Telling people who may be making many millions of dollars in revenue from organic search to just "treat it like the weather" is horrible advise. I think I know what you're saying, build up other traffic channels, but the way you're phrasing it makes that harder to see. At some point as marketing grows, most websites start branching off into many, many different areas -- paid, social, email, etc. -- but organic search is still a big part of the mix.

Panda and Penguin finally backed up what Google had been saying for years. The problem is that there is always a gap between what Google says to do and when Google chooses to specifically enforce what it had been saying. In the meantime, lot's of people exploit that gap.

The best long-term move is to do what's right, but when you see cases like this, you really lose trust in how Google is treating websites.

[oneeyedpigeon]

The trouble is, anything you do to try to gain favour with a search indexer:

a) Is going to distract from the quality of your content, unless you should be doing it anyway

b) Is going to be irrelevant (at best) or counter to your original intent (at worst) when the indexer's algorithm changes, and Google are changing their algorithm all the time, with far more resources behind it than you have to keep up with it.

[ssharp]

You "A" point is why we've seen the rise of "content marketing" over the past few years.

Of course, that practice gets exploited a lot, with people using word mixers, automated article writing, low quality writing, etc. as a means to just fill up their websites.

However, there are lots of businesses that do content marketing in such a way that it benefits the company's search rankings, but also provides high value content to interested person. Since we're talking SEO, look at Moz. They sell premium tools to help companies improve their search rankings, but also offer a wealth of free, quality information to people interested in online marketing.

[joosters]

It's such a huge source of traffic that you cannot ignore it, much as you might like to. Of course you're allowed to ignore it, you'll just suffer badly if you do.

[lmm]

Google has an effective monopoly on search, so you can't just ignore them.