F#ck Google! Lessons Learned

[dragonrage01]

@dragonrage01: all good and dandy mate, but:
1. Other "thin" sites I own on same IP and link to these didn't got hit
2. After removing the links on those 3 penalized sites and filing another reconsideration request, they replied with a negative answer still.
3. One of my main competitors has sitewide links from footer advertising his 8-site network. Only difference is that he doesn't have content overlap on the sites. For example I have "X review" on site1 but also on site2, he doesn't.

Anny suggestions? I'm all ears.

Next thing i'm thinking to do is 301 all posts on same topic on the other sites to what was my main site. Remove any links from any other site I own to this site. Maybe that will work... I'm willing to sacrifice all other sites for the main one.

You didn't get hit by google panda or google algorithm update. Someone reported your site to google. Google manually reviewed your site and you got penalized for it. Your site or domain is most likely dominating rank 1 or position 1 in page 1 in google for an extremely competitive keyword and due to this keyword, you are also dominating a couple of long tail keywords.

Example, you are rank 1 in page 1 for the term hair loss. Due to this, you are also rank 1 page 1 for hair loss treatments, best hair loss treatments, hair loss remedy and so on.

So someone who is most likely rank #2 or #3 that is advertising the same product did a manual competitive analysis on your site. He found you are using link schemes so he reported you to google with an essay and information on how you are doing it. Rather than competing with you for the number 1 spot, he thought it would be easier to have google penalized you for it. This is one of the reasons why some of your sites didn't get hit. They weren't included in the report that your competitor submitted.

The 301 can work but there are a few problems with it. One of them is that google algorithm can detect it but at the same time, your competitor will report you again. If your competitor reports you again, google will see that a penalized site is trying to circumvent the penalty by doing a 301 which will put your site in deeper trouble.

What I suggest is if you are going to do a 301, is to use a whole new theme. Rewrite your main page. Something that looks completely different than your old site. Do some article marketing and then do a 301 redirect.

I haven't tried this next technique but there is also an old trick which is to create a sub domain on the penalized site. For example, you have hairloss dot com, you can have a subdomain - myhairsite dot hairloss dot com. The sub domain will be a complete copy of your main domain. Then create a link with your main anchor in the main domain to the sub domain. Redirect all pages in main domain to the main url using htaccess. Then ping your all of your pages, and have some sort of junk traffic going on. Then at the end or after a day or so, remove the subdomain and see if you are no longer penalized.

1. create a sub domain
2. sub domain is an exact copy of main domain including the pages in the main domain.
3. create a hyperlink in main domain that points to sub domain
4. Using .htaccess do a 301 redirect on all webapges in the main domain and point it towards the MAIN domain url
5. ping or junk traffic, alexa booster or whatever on all the pages in main domain.
6. After a day or so, delete subdomain, take off the 301, return your site back to normal
7. see what happens.
if this works, send me a pm, thanks.

The theory behind this is that it is trying to exploit the google algorithm that automatically sorts out identical webpages. Somewhere along the lines that if you do all these, google algo somewhat gets confused and takes away your penalty.

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Also if your competitor is doing the same thing, I will report that person. I will give every little bit of information to google. Your competitor is most likely the guy that reported you. Usually only one URL gets penalized. If you do a very nice and well constructed report that gives good and real information, the faster google penalizes the site.

 

[madoctopus]

@dragonrage01:

thank you. first of all you are right. I was ranking for pretty much any keyword in my niche. #1 for lots of terms #1-5 for most terms. It happened before Panda and I also think it was not algorithmic.

Problem is one of the main competitors is cNet and while they have a bunch of satellite sites set up on EMDs pushing links to them, I don't see Google penalizing cNet.

I'm going to try the subdomain thing on one of the sites and see what happens. Ideally though i'd want to get the site back the nice way so it doesn't get penalized again (any ideas on this?). I don't know what else I can do besides removing all interlinks, which I already did without success.

 

[enovator]

All suspects are innocent until proven guilty............The question is how long those fucking retards (Read Google) tell the world that they are the most innocents (read honest) of all.

 

[sirgold]

Do not use Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools or any Google product or service

To me this is the best takeaway of the whole story. I never did actually and tried to avoid gmail accounts like the plague whenever possible. They gotta do something with their server cycles and using gmail (or any of the google services) to profile their prospects IS the way they make money. I wouldn't be surprised if they had algos in place to dig a little deeper to safeguard their billions in revenue. And if a few legit, but minor websites get caught in the middle, well... it's not their problem. It's OUR problem.

Since we have an alternative, my point is that -when in doubt- just don't use their services, tracking systems and email addresses unless strictly necessary (buying PPC campaigns on AdWords, for instance..). We're all a little lazy and it's cozy to have all tied up to a single sign-on scheme, but to be on the safe(r) side it's way better sticking to different services.

 

[dragonrage01]

@dragonrage01:

thank you. first of all you are right. I was ranking for pretty much any keyword in my niche. #1 for lots of terms #1-5 for most terms. It happened before Panda and I also think it was not algorithmic.

Problem is one of the main competitors is cNet and while they have a bunch of satellite sites set up on EMDs pushing links to them, I don't see Google penalizing cNet.

I'm going to try the subdomain thing on one of the sites and see what happens. Ideally though i'd want to get the site back the nice way so it doesn't get penalized again (any ideas on this?). I don't know what else I can do besides removing all interlinks, which I already did without success.

You need to be very reputable to punish a site like Cnet. I believe JC penney got penalized for their blackhat stuff only when NYTimes did an article on them. Not sure on this partifular info though. It is most likely not Cnet that reported you.

Just remove the links on your footer and keep resubmitting your site once a week. Most sites have some sort of spammy links from bad neighborhoods so that shouldn't be a problem. There is usually a time limit for your penalty. If it is a link scheme, it is usually 1+ years. Overstock got back from their google penalty so there is hope.

 

[Expertpeon]

Why wasn't one of your advice notes:
"Update sitewide content often so if stolen your site still has unique content"

 

[JB2003]

wtf? they are realy know about my paypal transactions? i think this is very possible! if this is true fu** google. Next site i will try to create on another e-mail

There's some good advice in this thread, but I don't think G is reading your mail and monitoring paypal transactions. That's what the OP is suggesting right?

 

[madoctopus]

There's some good advice in this thread, but I don't think G is reading your mail and monitoring paypal transactions. That's what the OP is suggesting right?

I'm not saying they are doing it. I am saying they CAN do it if they want to. If CIA/NSA/FBI/Police/whatever wants full info about you for example, Google will provide it.

As long as it is not on your server, it can be considered potentially exposed.

 

[ScrapeBoss]

Do not use Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools or any Google product or service

Those google guys are wise kids. Why did you think they made those tools for people to use free of charge? Every free thing has a price tag. Those tools are good ways of monitoring how internet marketers do things on the internet. They know the moves of everyone using those tools. We all keep learning and the most important thing is discovering and perfecting ways of deceiving google.

 

[stopnstare]

Here are my 2 cents. I make no claims to be a Guru or a Master. I am just a small fry that makes about $1,500 a day in sales from my 3 sites.
1) Google is nice to have but they are not the only game in town
2) I have more converting traffic from Yahoo and Bing
3) It is easier to rank on Yahoo and Bing
4) At some point if Google wants to take it's ball and go home I will not care.

Keep working on your site. If it recovers, great. If not, no big loss. If you want to play their game, make a new site and try again. Google is a bully and does not even follow it's own rules.

 

[AndreyK]

First of all you didn't even wait 30 or 60 days for your sandbox to end....

Secondly, I hope you learn that you shouldn't be purely white-hat, since you can still get sandboxed.

 

[madoctopus]

Yeah I also get Yahoo and Bing traffic but tiny compared to Google. So from $2000+ I now dropped to $200/mo.

I waited more than 30 days. I changed stuff trying to get back by myself naturally. When it didn't work I filed a reconsideration request, then another one. And this is not a sandbox. This is a -50 penalty most likely manual.

 

[cybie]

One of the best threads i've read here.

One of my friend's sites was also hit by this 50+ rank changes. That penalty hit his whole network of blogs.

Up to date, we do not know what is the real cause. We've requested google to review the site, and they've said the same thing -- google guidline BS.

I hope OP can get his issues improved and get back to us on the effects.

 

[truelux]

it appears that Google just knows everything that is going on

 

[Gudrulea]

And the conclusion?

 

[johndea]

You have a link scheme going on. That is instant lifetime ban from google. Your sites are not whitehat at all if you have a link scheme. If I was your competitor, I will report all your sites. Nothing personal, it is just business. Play by the rules, and you won't get a ban, simple as that.

Whatever your sites are, you can't say, "my competitors are doing it so what". You will have millions of competitors if you are trying to rank in google. One affiliate site that is promoting a product that doesn't work but has high commission will not be missed and will be forgotten. There will be hundreds of affiliate sites like yours that will be promoting the same product. One biased site that is gone will be considered a good thing in google's eyes. Don't worry, there will be 6+ more sites in page 1 promoting the same product anyway.

What is a link scheme precisely?

 

[keinehabe]

@ OP your lesson my friend should be about '' right keywords '' I posted on lounge similar story with one site slapped by them , a decent hit for me . Anyway everything is about keywords , no matter how you get your content , trust me , you can write like Shakespeare if you really can , your domains will be penalized when you are going for big dogs keywords ! About footprints ... until you bring your own cms / layout and so on this can't be '' unique '' in no way ...

 

[uggoza]

So, I file a reconsideration request again, after I remove all those footer links, all my "links/resources" pages. After one week, I get the same reply that my sites are against Google's guidelines.

If you were a big dog like cNET then they would tell you how your site are violating guidelines but for us no help from big GAY and they do not care either

 

[hfcorreia]

Mate please report that keyword.

By the way, this is money talking.... forget that keyword you will never get back the ranking.

SEO IS WAR!

 

[secretja]

I will be short. Damn! Thank you for sharing this with us.