So I had a niche site that was making around $100 a month after 6 months of SEO, this was my first site. And at the end of November, beginning of December, Google sent me this thin content penalty. The annoying part is that there was another site ranking just below mine that had WORSE content, by far. And that one is completely unaffected. Let me give you guys details on the SEO so the pros can diagnose this, what caused it?
- I used some paid services. I bought some article links in the beginning, but I don't think that was it because it ranked well for months after. And it had tons of positive reviews on BHW.
- Much later I bought some more services at the advice of a close friend whos been doing very well for a long time, those were social signals and blog comments, and those were bought much closer to the time of penalty.
- I had once accidentally crosslinked some of my PBNs, and that lasted for a week or so before I realized and fixed it. But do you think crosslinking like that would allow network to be discovered and penalized?
- My PBNs were all largely of the similar format, 3-8 articles, each article 300-700 words (usually 500). Pictures here and there, each PBN site linking to authority domains a few times, and on the homepage linking to money site. All the content was manually written, but do you think it could have been the format that was too generic? I did have other tier 1 links along with PBN to balance out link diversity, I had articles, and the previously said bought links.
- I checked to see and some of my PBNs had been deindexed after the penalty. Could this hint that it was indeed related to the linking scheme?
- My content is the best in the niche, and some competitors who have much worse content are still ranking. While I got penalised.
What causes the thin content penalty and can it be recovered?
Experts thanks for your help.
- I used some paid services. I bought some article links in the beginning, but I don't think that was it because it ranked well for months after. And it had tons of positive reviews on BHW.
- Much later I bought some more services at the advice of a close friend whos been doing very well for a long time, those were social signals and blog comments, and those were bought much closer to the time of penalty.
- I had once accidentally crosslinked some of my PBNs, and that lasted for a week or so before I realized and fixed it. But do you think crosslinking like that would allow network to be discovered and penalized?
- My PBNs were all largely of the similar format, 3-8 articles, each article 300-700 words (usually 500). Pictures here and there, each PBN site linking to authority domains a few times, and on the homepage linking to money site. All the content was manually written, but do you think it could have been the format that was too generic? I did have other tier 1 links along with PBN to balance out link diversity, I had articles, and the previously said bought links.
- I checked to see and some of my PBNs had been deindexed after the penalty. Could this hint that it was indeed related to the linking scheme?
- My content is the best in the niche, and some competitors who have much worse content are still ranking. While I got penalised.
What causes the thin content penalty and can it be recovered?
Experts thanks for your help.
