Who doesn’t love Google? For many people (hi, Mom!) that ultra-understated interface is their number one Web conduit. Scores of surfers don’t even know how to put an address in a browser bar. They click the blue “G” shortcut, type in whatever they’re looking for—their bank, their email provider, whatever—and go from there.

But if you count on search engine traffic to keep your business conspicuous, you better stay on the right side of that 900-pound gorilla. Witness the case of online jewelry merchants who were cast down into Google’s nether regions.

…[sites have] been condemned to the supplemental index, a dreaded backwater region of Google search results that goes by another name in online marketing circles: Google Hell. (emphasis added)

It’s nobody’s fault, really. You’re at the whim of an algorithm—nerve-wracking news if your visibility depends on searchability.