That's a pretty unrealistic moral in the face of the reality of how the consumer web works.

I mean, I get the whole "don't depend on another company for your revenue" (e.g. apps in the Apple app store), but you're saying "don't count on Google sending traffic to your site".

Plus, her ranking didn't change -- her site vanished out of the index.

EDIT: Unless you mean "don't depend entirely on organic traffic"? I can sorta see that... but, again, if I've only now thought about putting a photo on a quilt (which is a new idea to me), around 70% of the US thinks putting [photo quilts] into Google is the way to get the site you want. What else would you suggest?

EDIT #2: Maybe "vanished" is too strong a word, since it does show up on string matches. But it was deindexed for search terms it used to rank for.

What's wrong with Google's search results? If I search for any of these terms, I get plenty of relevant results.

The article is just idiotic in its accusations. Google wants to provide the best search experience for customers. If it makes a mistake, it hurts Google, so I'd imagine they sorta try to keep their results as good as possible. Complaining that you moved in indexes seems sorta pointless. Google's algorithms, at the moment, think other sites are a better match. Maybe she unknowingly engaged in some blacklistable offense.

It's like complaining that some hotel concierge stopped referring people to your restaurant.

That was never my point. In fact, I didn't say anything was "wrong" with the results at all. I just pointed out that saying "that's what you get for depending on Google for organic traffic" is more like saying "that's what you get for depending on oxygen" web-wise. It just ignores the reality of the web today.

It's safe to say, at this point, that we don't know why her site isn't showing up for the common terms it showed up for before.

EDIT: This comment has some good info on why her site might've been penalized: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6891141

How did you infer the site was deindexed? They said specifically by typing the URL of the site, it would show up.

From the site:

"...but if you look for photo quilts or any similar search term, Portrait Quilts — which for years was always the top result — no longer appears."

I'm being a little imprecise, but her site was deindexed for a bunch of search terms that she used to rank highly for.

based on how misinformed the author was in general on the subject, I think its more likely the site dropped off the first few pages of results. Since it still came up when you search for the domain, it can't be deindexed.

Again, apologies for the imprecision. But you'd agree that it has been delisted for search terms it used to do well for?

Additionally, far less than <1% of the people who use Google get past the second page of results. Getting your ranking penalized by twenty spots is a death sentence.

The site did not vanish. Go search for a snippet of text on the site, and it shows up right there.

Edit: Even for "portrait quilts" in quotes, her site shows up on the 8th page for me (opened incognito window to limit customization).

That's interesting data. Incognito ["portrait quilts"] and it doesn't rank on the first two pages for me, which is why I felt safe putting in my comment in the first place.

Maybe it's a quibble, but most humans don't put quotes in their search terms.

I wonder if they tried to resubmit their site to the index?

True, that would be an inaction.

I disagree with your moral though, a moral would suggest a choice, and it would be difficult to not depend on Google for exposure here since they are the dominant source of identification. It is perhaps a poor choice to depend on Google for 'organic' exposure however.