Sites Retool for Google Effect

By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN

Burned by Google Inc.'s recent changes to its search formula, small businesses are experimenting with strategies to recover lost Web traffic while seeking out new ways to generate sales—some even scaling back daily operations.

Seeing a 40% decline in sales since Google adjusted its algorithm, online ergonomic-products retailer Ergo In Demand Inc. in Central Point, Ore., reduced its 17-person staff to five, moved to a 4,500-square-foot office space from one more than double in size and cut $4,000 in monthly software subscriptions.

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Gordon M. Grant for The Wall Street Journal

One Way Furniture's Mitchell Lieberman, left, talks with Angelo Rodriguez, who is tasked with rewriting the site's product descriptions. Traffic to onewayfurniture.com has dropped since Google adjusted its algorithm.

With the savings, owner Peter Scholom hired a search-engine optimization firm to do an audit of the 11-year-old company's website, ergoindemand.com. He hopes to learn how to regain the site's previously high Google rankings for search terms like "keyboard trays" and "TV mounts."

"We are fishing for any straw," Mr. Scholom says, whose business had $6 million in sales in 2010.

Many small but growing Web retailers say they have been punished since Google, which handles nearly two-thirds of all Web searches, moved in late February to weed out "content farms," or sites that post information without attention to quality or by copying text from other sources such as government websites.

But the impact was also felt by large e-commerce sites. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Target Corp., and eBay Inc. appeared to rise in search results, according to companies that track Google rankings. One shopping site that has benefited, Buy.com, says it was "delighted" by the initial change.

Google says the modifications to its algorithms impact about 12% of U.S.-based search queries, and further changes rolled out earlier this month affect an additional 2%. It hasn't named sites that would win or lose prominence in its rankings.

A spokesman for the company acknowledges that legitimate businesses might have inadvertently suffered from the changes. "We tested this update extensively and have found that the algorithm is very accurate at detecting site quality, but no algorithm is perfect," the spokesman says.

Still, many small businesses that rely on Google for Web traffic are taking it hard—and looking for ways to adapt.

"We got caught in the fire," says Mitchell Lieberman, chief executive of One Way Furniture Inc., an online furniture retailer in Melville, N.Y., that had revenue of $17 million in 2010.

His company's website, onewayfurniture.com, saw its Web traffic from Google drop as much as 64% after the changes. Part of the problem, Mr. Lieberman suspects, is his company has relied on manufacturer descriptions for the 30,000 products it sells. He says many of his competitors buy from the same manufacturers and use the same write-ups.

Mr. Lieberman has started paying free-lance writers to create original, more detailed product descriptions. He recently added canonical tags to his website, which help search engines distinguish original from duplicated content. Despite his efforts, he says his site's ranking on Google has yet to improve.

"You can't focus on Google alone," says Stoney G. deGeyter, an online-marketing consultant in Canton, Ohio. "You got to really diversify your online marketing efforts and that includes social media, direct client communication, email marketing and following up with your current customers."

Miles Young, owner of M2commerce LLC, an online office-supply retailer in Atlanta, also has seen a big decline in traffic to his business's website, down 50% after the Google move. He says OnTimeSupplies.com doesn't use original product descriptions for its 40,000 items. But rather than rewrite them, he has launched an email-marketing campaign that urges past customers to post product reviews to the site. He also added a section for consumers to ask questions about products that the firm will answer.

The company, which posted $2 million in sales in 2010, is reaching out by phone to about 75 past customers a day to suggest additional items they might buy. "We're trying to figure out ways to grow the business without relying so much on Google," says Mr. Young.

Some e-commerce sites, such as LC International Inc. of Marlborough, Mass., have taken a hit despite always using original product descriptions. The 15-year-old invitations and specialty-paper seller saw a 20% drop in traffic to lcipaper.com from Google, but says its rankings are showing signs of improvement since it started adding more detailed write-ups and videos for its 6,000 products.

"It's forcing us to look at our site and see what we can do better," says Larry Chase, president.

Improving a website's rankings requires providing informative content, says Mr. deGeyter. "You're not delivering the same thing that a hundred other people are delivering," he says. "You're presenting your products or services in a creative way. That's going to give you an advantage."

The Google spokesman says the company doesn't disclose details about changes it makes to its algorithms because doing so "would give bad actors a way to game our systems."

But Ergo in Demand's Mr. Scholom says that by keeping mum, Google is hurting small businesses like his that can't afford to market their way to the top of search results. "We have absolutely zero information of what we should change," he says.

Write to Sarah E. Needleman at sarah.needleman@wsj.com