Let's call this an accidental case study
I have 2 domains that are keyword-in-domain and had ~100k or more AA blog comments blasted at them. That was done pre-panda and they held a page 2 ranking before panda killed them off. I abandoned them and haven't targeted the keyword again until now.
I set up 2 sites for a sort of a/b test. Both are similar onpage with keyword in url (not domain), title, meta description, article, h1, image alt, etc.
Site A: I 301'd the old domains to site A which and it was built up with nuke and nhseo over the course of a month. That site's ranking sat around the 30-40 range.
Site B: About 3 weeks into work on site A, I setup site B then spent 4 digits on a number of the best packages offered here. Within a week it shot up to bouncing between #12 and #13.
I figured that Site B is killing Site A, so i took the 301'd domains away from site A and pointed then at site B. I then started xrumer blasting the first 301 domain and went to sleep. When I woke up the next day, Site B was now #2 on keyword. I did figure thats way too fast to be the result of the 301's, but credited to that anyhow with a pat on the back. Now here is the interesting part. 3 days later, about how long it SHOULD take for google to adjust for the 301 juice, Site B shoots from #2 to 40's range and falling. Not only that, but guess what took it's place at the #2 spot? Site A had shot up from 40's range to #2 while site B shot from #2 to that same range. WTF?
So my hypothesis is basically that these scrapebox built domains are toxic linkjuice. It's kind of a dick move, but a good way to prove this theory: I pointed the 301's at the competitors site sitting at #5 spot and now I'm just watching to see what happens over the next few days. If I'm right then both these sites will rank in top 5 and the competitors site will plunge.
Any input on what is going on here?
I have 2 domains that are keyword-in-domain and had ~100k or more AA blog comments blasted at them. That was done pre-panda and they held a page 2 ranking before panda killed them off. I abandoned them and haven't targeted the keyword again until now.
I set up 2 sites for a sort of a/b test. Both are similar onpage with keyword in url (not domain), title, meta description, article, h1, image alt, etc.
Site A: I 301'd the old domains to site A which and it was built up with nuke and nhseo over the course of a month. That site's ranking sat around the 30-40 range.
Site B: About 3 weeks into work on site A, I setup site B then spent 4 digits on a number of the best packages offered here. Within a week it shot up to bouncing between #12 and #13.
I figured that Site B is killing Site A, so i took the 301'd domains away from site A and pointed then at site B. I then started xrumer blasting the first 301 domain and went to sleep. When I woke up the next day, Site B was now #2 on keyword. I did figure thats way too fast to be the result of the 301's, but credited to that anyhow with a pat on the back. Now here is the interesting part. 3 days later, about how long it SHOULD take for google to adjust for the 301 juice, Site B shoots from #2 to 40's range and falling. Not only that, but guess what took it's place at the #2 spot? Site A had shot up from 40's range to #2 while site B shot from #2 to that same range. WTF?
So my hypothesis is basically that these scrapebox built domains are toxic linkjuice. It's kind of a dick move, but a good way to prove this theory: I pointed the 301's at the competitors site sitting at #5 spot and now I'm just watching to see what happens over the next few days. If I'm right then both these sites will rank in top 5 and the competitors site will plunge.
Any input on what is going on here?