What If Google Shut Down? (An Action Plan)

On 19 December, a problem with Google's Bulgaria-based servers made many services, including Google Search, YouTube, Gmail, Analytics and Maps, unreachable for about an hour and a half. Millions of users in Europe and Türkiye felt the effect immediately and followed the story closely.

As a consultancy providing digital services, we at Webtures felt the impact in every direction. But for all internet users, the problem meant living through an experience in which digital access was largely cut off.

On the same day, we quickly set up a meeting with a team of specialists to brainstorm several scenarios and to define an action plan for each of them.

What if Google shut down?

Effects on society

• People's tendency to search and research decreases
• Social media visits and browsing increase
• People tend to shop through the brands they remember
• Alternative search engines begin to grow stronger; Yandex takes the top spot in Türkiye
• Use of Google Chrome gradually declines and alternative browsers, Firefox first among them, rise
• Play Store access closes and Android apps can no longer be updated, which restricts Android's functions
• Apps and websites that rely on Google-based server, cloud software and database services such as Firebase become unreachable, with the problems that brings

Effects on commerce

• Social media becomes more important for e-commerce
• Influencer marketing rises quickly
• Marketplaces and sites that have built a brand in their sector see a relative increase in traffic
• As marketplaces take on the function of a commercial search engine, their commission rates rise sharply
• TV and radio audiences grow, and demand for media buying increases
• Demand for Yandex marketing strategies and Yandex advertising increases
• Sites and products with high brand awareness are preferred more often
• People begin to organise, joining forces through commercial partnerships and collective agreements

Effects on Webtures

• Clients are informed quickly, and the opportunities and potential gains in new markets are explained to them
• Until clients start operations that bring them revenue through alternative marketing channels, payments are paused and the transition is carried out free of charge
• Search engine optimisation and digital marketing work for Yandex is given priority
• Social media advertising and influencer advertising are given priority
• Because all information tied to Google services is backed up, simultaneously or periodically, to an external source, the move to alternative infrastructure happens quickly
• Brand consultancy services are brought to the fore, and work begins on positioning products and brands so that people can remember them easily
• A directory of services and products is launched for essential needs supplied over the internet

Looking at all the outcomes we covered under these three headings together, we can say it would be a crisis capable of changing our lives at the root. But every problem and crisis prepares us for the next version of ourselves: it develops us, gives us experience and informs us. Writing the scenarios of these problems and crises and thinking through and designing their solutions also contributes to us in a way that comes very close to living through them.