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GenevaLunch has been having a bad technology month, a bit like a bad hair day except that it lasts longer. We changed platforms, to Typepad Business Class, which was a good move. For the most part it went smoothly, thanks to the competence and calm of Olivier Tripet at B-Spirit, who worked with me. Some details are still being ironed out, and it will take a few more days to get everything right.

But GL was caught by surprise by Google, which swallowed us without blinking, it appears. Yes, we do know what to do, generally, for Google to find us – Google was happily finding us before we changed platforms and the way we write, link, and so on has not changed. We asked Typepad for help and they sent us here, which we already knew about, but all help is appreciated at times like this. GenevaLunch has a very acceptable Google page rank of 5, the same as that of GenevaOnline,

with its 10,000 members and nearly as high as the Tribune de Geneve, a popular local paper with over 100,000 readers, if I’m not mistaken, and WRG, which has a  big following for its community ads, from its 50,000+ regular radio fans.

We asked around, checked with a lot of experts and it is clear that
Google is starting to find us again, but not as easily or to the same
extent as previously. Patience, I’m told: Google also sometimes
suddenly  regurgitates, which reminds me of mother birds who chew the
food and then bring it back up to offer to their babies.

We have lost about one-third of our volume of new traffic, which is
a bit rough for a young but fast-growing site. We know from our
statistics that a lot of those Google users are in the Lake Geneva
region, and we want to reach them. We held off posting some feature
stories until traffic rose again, but now it looks like maybe the best
solution is to post more, not less. And we need to contact anyone who
has links to us to ask that they redo their links to bring them up to
date. Olivier thinks we  might have been hit by the sandbox effect, a discussion I of which I have been blissfully unaware – but then again, no one is sure this exists.

Our lives increasingly depend on Google, which I find unhealthy, even if the Fiinancial Times in a video report today says Google is optional. I’ve often thought the FT lives on its own planet. Among the problems on our planet: Google doesn’t talk to its customers
because there are too many of us. No one really knows how Google works,
a subject of much discussion on IT blogs and forums. For the rest of
us, sites like GenevaLunch, we just have to hope we give the search
engine giant enough of a case of indigestion that it does indeed spit
us back out into the world, visible and easy to find again – with a
little help from Google, of course. Meanwhile, I’m going to watch the
Wizard of Oz soon, to see how Dorothy got Oz to speak to her instead of
booming from on high.

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