my 8 year old PR2 site bombed!

start a new project and keep doing same job.spam will always work

Duffers5000 said:

I would advise you to chill out and wait for the algo to finish. That might be another two weeks. If you start deleting links now then you may as well turn yourself in to google.

I have a site with similar stats that disappeared completely. I don't expect it to just re appear but I will wait to see what sort of recovery it makes in the next 10 days before I start doing anything drastic.

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couldn't agree more we all just need to calm down

amerriaz said:

never get backlinks a worst way to damage your website

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Don't quit your dayjob.

SEO as we know it is so fucked up nobody and i mean nobody knows what is going on. Its so screwed up that the WSO's and new products coming out are mostly software. Have you noticed that?

and it amazes me to see more and more link building packages appearing in the forsale threads that say, PANDA SAFE and CRUSH YOUR COMPETITION when nobody knows where SEO is heading.

thanks for the replys guy. so i'll give it 10 days before removing back links. its a nightmare as i rely on leads from google as new work is hard to come by now a days.

Hi tony,

don't worry, the situation is not that bad. You just have ~1k links from which maybe around 500-700 are bad.
Just build 100-200 quality links the next one or two months and you'll be fine.
I am sure you will find a decent provider on this website

Stufferizer said:

Hi tony,

don't worry, the situation is not that bad. You just have ~1k links from which maybe around 500-700 are bad.
Just build 100-200 quality links the next one or two months and you'll be fine.
I am sure you will find a decent provider on this website

Click to expand...

Could you suggest what anchor text to use? I mean just use naked url only for example?

There really is some sensationlist ill informed shit on this thread.
I mean real SHIT - general advice given about forum links. The guy gives a list of 20 links to a 10 year old website and you're analysing it like it means something.

Seriously - links may be the issue - they may not.

Penguin is still creating a LOT of noise in SERPs
Many social media sites are dominating page one for commercial terms as placeholders while the shuffle goes on (Facebook pages, Twitter posts etc) this always happens. Happened with P1, and the 4 updates between then and now. it shows that NOTHING HAS SETTLED YET

Without knowing the guys site, niche and competition in detail I can't see how anyone can give decent advice. Stating absolute facts based on the tiny snippets we know is not good SEO..in fact it's BOLLOCKS

There are people here I respect talking out of their box, I can anly assume they have had a tote on the wacky grass before coming out.

One thing is almost certain!
If you've been sandboxed - you have paid links or been part of a link scheme 99.9% certainty.

Now let's get out terms straight here. I'm talking Sandboxed.. not demoted, deranked, shuffled down. I'm taling your site does not appear in the top 1000 for any term it used to rank for other than if you type in the exact URL into Google. That's sandboxed.

I'm not talking about "used to be page one now I'm page two"...
... that's a shuffle. You have not been penalized, for the time being Google just thinks some other site is better than yours. Add content, link sensibly - but only AFTER the SERP movement noise has clamed down, and that might be abother 10 days yet.

But if you have been SANDBOXED - really SANDBOXED.. Site gone - not "demoted" but "gone" - then it's is almost certain that you have - or Google thinks you have paid links or private network links. Sad thing is most people with these don't even know they have them!

The owner will say "I've never bought private links". In the 13 consultations I've done since Saturday morning every single one (I kid you not..every single one) stated they had not bought private links. Some swore blind. But then.. 12 of them had.
Webmasters who didn't understand that certain "services" were in fact offering private links without making it explicit that this was what they were.

Here are some of the things that private link networks were described as that fooled the webamsters into thinking they were safe.

"Special Sauce" - The special sauce was subbing some of the work to a company that stuck your links on a private network
"We'll promote your site on our own blogs" - Think about it...that's a private network then isn't it.
"Guaranteed Guest Post Blog".. It was guaranteed because the blogs were...you guessed it - a private network
"Links Guaranteed on Home Page" ..erm how can they do that... Unless the network is private? Simple they can't and the network IS private.

That's just scratching the surface. I've seen $9 WSO's that turned out they were private links. One was some guys redundant blog network that got wiped out in the EMD levelling last year. Just making a few bucks before the next PR update... All the same it was a private network, and Google sandboxed the webmasters site it linked to.

If you type in "SEO backlink service" into Google then around 8 of the top 10 services all offer private links of some kind.
ZERO out of those actually name them as such. I would name names but many of these services advertise here so I won't. It's almost done without saying. Small scale, big scale, and so often not advertised. I want to KNOW if my links are on private networks not have to guess. Sadly if you buy services these days, the ones that offer REAL POWER..with SPEED can only manage that mix of speed and power by offering guaranteed high PR sites on link networks.

But for now do nothing. And for f$cks sake 20 pretty ordinary (not egregious - just "meh") links across a site ten years old is not going to get you sandboxed. If that was all it took I could take down 100,000 sites a day with a $47 tool like scrapebox.
Negative SEO does exist, but it's not that fine a line. Hold on. See what happens. Check any services you have used for private links. Check that none of your competitors haven't signed you up for private links.

One of the guys I chat to (Hi Martin) is using Elancer - hiring a pro to get his reconsideration request done. Looking on there, $200 bucks and a few weeks are what it takes - then you need to build up again - but it may not come to that. Wait till the 20th Ocotber before doing ANYTHING.

Scritty

I have to agree with Scritty here. Forum profile links are not the best, but when your site has been around for 10 years, they may very well have been natural. If you have thousands of them, you might have found your culprit. I would give it two weeks before making any drastic decisions.

tony20 said:

I'm f***ing scared to get backlinks relevant, white hat or otherwise now

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Exactly what Google wants.

Everyone says the same thing, "Remove the bad links and start building good ones"

1) What are good links?

2) "Building links" seems to be what is getting everyone slapped, since building links is against their new TOS that they change every couple months to slap more people..

PrinceVisi said:

Disavow all the links and Build new high PR links as guest blogs or blog posts to relevant niche sites!

Report back if they helped...

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Fuck me -the lunatics have taken over the asylum.

Do NONE of the above - based on the information you've given (OP) here.
This "disavow all your links and start again" crap isn't just "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" it's then blowing up the bath, bulldozing your house then carpet bombing the fucking neighborhood.

Chances are - if you've been sandboxed REALLY sandboxed, that oy have paid links. Find those and ONLY THOSE and get rid. Other than that add content and link sensibly to it. Expect the process to take weeks not days or hours though.
Years ago I always had a "3 month security" plicy. If the shit did ever hit the fan I had 3 months average income in a savings account. 90 days to turn things around.
Used it more than once over the years, but never more than 2 months worth. Better safe than sorry

Scritty

Scritty said:

Fuck me -the lunatics have taken over the asylum.

Do NONE of the above - based on the information you've given (OP) here.
This "disavow all your links and start again" crap isn't just "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" it's then blowing up the bath, bulldozing your house then carpet bombing the fucking neighborhood.

Chances are - if you've been sandboxed REALLY sandboxed, that oy have paid links. Find those and ONLY THOSE and get rid. Other than that add content and link sensibly to it. Expect the process to take weeks not days or hours though.
Years ago I always had a "3 month security" plicy. If the shit did ever hit the fan I had 3 months average income in a savings account. 90 days to turn things around.
Used it more than once over the years, but never more than 2 months worth. Better safe than sorry

Scritty

Click to expand...

I actually meant to disavow the links that are bad, no the whole links.

You don't need to bitch about it so much. Plus I sent you a PM trying to get a recommendation on services here, forget the fucking PM.

Hope you are making more money, then talking.

Thanks for your input Scritty, sounds like sound advice.

I can sure you though that there are no paid links or private blog network links. No one has hand their hands on my site. I have never paid for any seo services. The whole site was built by me, and I'll put my hands up too creating those crap links I have already posted about.

I know I only showed you guys about 20 links, but all the backlinks are like that! i.e. crap, no PR, no relevance, same anchor text backlinks.

Can I also add that I have been doing a lot of facebook and twitter marketing lately (the last two months).
When I say marketing I mean adding likes (real likes) to facebook and updating my facebook page with mini snippets about my service and then linking the said service with the appropriate page to my site! Some times these links where raw and sometimes they where hidden using ow.ly.

I copied the same facebook messages I posted, and pasted them to my (no followers) twitter page.

Unlikely but do you think this has something to do with my sandboxing?

Scritty, would you mind if I pm'd you my site?

ouch. id disavow everything and go more whitehat my good sir

The type of advice some people give around here is so lame I'm amazed.

I won't give you any advice myself because I don't like to try to revive a dead horse. I just move on because I have the infrastructure to recreate an entire site in a couple of days with minimum cost. That's me, though.

As much as I'd like to say I know what to do in case of a penalty, truth is, I don't. Likely I will never know. Google is so erratic about some penalties that as logical as I am I can't figure out what was the cause of a penalty. I had 100% whitehat sites with super high quality content get penalized and I have 100% blackhat sites with gibberish content rank well for a long time. Had sites with quality links get killed and had sites with crap links stand up straight through every update (my definition of crap links is different than most people though).

Bottom line is, sooner or later any SEO that know what's best for him will end up going blackhat and building sites that he doesn't care if they get penalized or not. This is not the SEO trying to game Google, this is the SEO surviving Google's rules. When you can't obey rules and do well, you go against the rules or you die. This is not just something Google is trying to fight against, this is something Google itself created by trying to cope with the inherent flaw in their algorithms (which will exist no matter what they do). Instead of trying to do their job passively they started to impose crap on webmasters. Do this, do not do that. Make links nofollow, don't sell llinks, etc. WTF are they to tell a webmaster he is not allowed to monetize his site however he wants (sell links)?! Really. People take shit for granted and don't stop and think. The web was naturally a very open place where everybody linked to anything without any restraint. That's how the web should be. But it ended up being a place where people won't even consider linking to you unless you pay them or they have something to gain. That's just fucking ugly. Is like Wkipedia would not have a page about Microsoft because Microsoft didn't agreed to pay to have a page. And btw, those who want to sell links can sell links and not get penalized bc they are treated preferentially. I can tell you it is possible to buy links (actually posts/news/stories/etc.) on huge sites like bbc.co.uk, cnn.com, nytimes.com etc. You'd have to be a bit out of your mind to pay $500-2000 for a post there but some do because they also get the traffic and stuff and for them that's worth it. Point is, it's still a paid link.

Good luck but don't get stuck into the "OMG my site is gone!" mindset and don't try to spend or your resources in trying to revive it. Unless you were making $50,000-100,000/mo with that site is just simpler to start fresh. In the long run the effort you put in and the resources you consume make it "cheaper" and more worthwhile. Try to recover it if possible but have your focus to the future not to the past. Also, just as it was the case with me, something like this can be a great eye opener to the importance to avoid keeping all eggs in one basket. In other words it is best to have at least several sites, money streams, hosts, registrars, everything. Is a logistical nightmare until you get the hang of it but in the long run it makes the entire operation safer.

madoctopus said:

The type of advice some people give around here is so lame I'm amazed.

I won't give you any advice myself because I don't like to try to revive a dead horse. I just move on because I have the infrastructure to recreate an entire site in a couple of days with minimum cost. That's me, though.

As much as I'd like to say I know what to do in case of a penalty, truth is, I don't. Likely I will never know. Google is so erratic about some penalties that as logical as I am I can't figure out what was the cause of a penalty. I had 100% whitehat sites with super high quality content get penalized and I have 100% blackhat sites with gibberish content rank well for a long time. Had sites with quality links get killed and had sites with crap links stand up straight through every update (my definition of crap links is different than most people though).

Bottom line is, sooner or later any SEO that know what's best for him will end up going blackhat and building sites that he doesn't care if they get penalized or not. This is not the SEO trying to game Google, this is the SEO surviving Google's rules. When you can't obey rules and do well, you go against the rules or you die. This is not just something Google is trying to fight against, this is something Google itself created by trying to cope with the inherent flaw in their algorithms (which will exist no matter what they do). Instead of trying to do their job passively they started to impose crap on webmasters. Do this, do not do that. Make links nofollow, don't sell llinks, etc. WTF are they to tell a webmaster he is not allowed to monetize his site however he wants (sell links)?! Really. People take shit for granted and don't stop and think. The web was naturally a very open place where everybody linked to anything without any restraint. That's how the web should be. But it ended up being a place where people won't even consider linking to you unless you pay them or they have something to gain. That's just fucking ugly. Is like Wkipedia would not have a page about Microsoft because Microsoft didn't agreed to pay to have a page. And btw, those who want to sell links can sell links and not get penalized bc they are treated preferentially. I can tell you it is possible to buy links (actually posts/news/stories/etc.) on huge sites like bbc.co.uk, cnn.com, nytimes.com etc. You'd have to be a bit out of your mind to pay $500-2000 for a post there but some do because they also get the traffic and stuff and for them that's worth it. Point is, it's still a paid link.

Good luck but don't get stuck into the "OMG my site is gone!" mindset and don't try to spend or your resources in trying to revive it. Unless you were making $50,000-100,000/mo with that site is just simpler to start fresh. In the long run the effort you put in and the resources you consume make it "cheaper" and more worthwhile. Try to recover it if possible but have your focus to the future not to the past. Also, just as it was the case with me, something like this can be a great eye opener to the importance to avoid keeping all eggs in one basket. In other words it is best to have at least several sites, money streams, hosts, registrars, everything. Is a logistical nightmare until you get the hang of it but in the long run it makes the entire operation safer.

Click to expand...

That's all good but the domain name is valuable to me! I know this is not in the mind set of the SEOer, IMer, blackhatter etc... Hey, I'm not one of those, but I am a businessmen and the domain name that's been spanked is my very well known (in my local area) 8 year old business name! In fact, the business is actually 20 years old! So its not simply a case of dropping it and starting again for me! I don't like an ugly emd URL to be the main URL for my business.

Don't get me wrong, if I need to start over I will! But I need to try to revive that horse! lol

Tony,

I think this is the problem with the updates that Google keeps putting out.

In the world outside we are too used to pandering to the minority in our 'human rights' driven, 'politically correct' world that we have fashioned.

Unfortunately Google doesn't operate with such a sympathetic heart. It is, to be blunt, a dictatorship that operates outside of pretty much any regulation and law. Just think about it, the Banks and most governments are regulated to some degree... and look at the shit they still get into!

Google makes the rules for it's search engine only, not the Internet itself. Of course in reality for most people it's dominance means that it is the web. But it makes its own rules for its own space and if you want to survive in it then you have to follow the rules.

I didn't pick up on where you were based but could you not pick up a .net, .co, or .eu etc domain for your site? I know you may not want to change but sometimes you just have to accept that it's worth the short term pain.

I've tried recovering several sites that have had both algorithmic and manual penalties and personally none of them ever made a full pre penalty recovery. However some sites launched on new domains seem to have gained good rank without links.

I'd agree thought that it might be worth leaving things for a couple of weeks if you can and seeing how the dust settles before doing anything.

tony20 said:

Thanks for your input Scritty, sounds like sound advice.

I can sure you though that there are no paid links or private blog network links. No one has hand their hands on my site. I have never paid for any seo services. The whole site was built by me, and I'll put my hands up too creating those crap links I have already posted about.

I know I only showed you guys about 20 links, but all the backlinks are like that! i.e. crap, no PR, no relevance, same anchor text backlinks.

Can I also add that I have been doing a lot of facebook and twitter marketing lately (the last two months).
When I say marketing I mean adding likes (real likes) to facebook and updating my facebook page with mini snippets about my service and then linking the said service with the appropriate page to my site! Some times these links where raw and sometimes they where hidden using ow.ly.

I copied the same facebook messages I posted, and pasted them to my (no followers) twitter page.

Unlikely but do you think this has something to do with my sandboxing?

Scritty, would you mind if I pm'd you my site?

Click to expand...

Go ahead. Send over a PM and I'll take a quick look at the link profile. Anchor text could be the thing (that's what the other 0.1% is) Best if it is that becasue diluting that over time is not the hardest thing in the world.
Doubt if your social activity is having much of an effect though.

Scritty