My Adsense has dropped to about $1,650 a month since Panda 2.5!

I know one SEO company in the UK who were hit by Farmer & Panda who have used 301’s on their old website and are now 1st page in the UK with their new site for search engine optimisation as well as the US version, search engine optimization once again.

I know they have really cleaned up their inbound links as well, so my guess is 301’s may not pass on the penalty; well I hope so as I intend to change my old website to something new.

My main product site is dancing around, but generally has risen in the rankings (lots of unique content, no AdSense or AdWords, no affiliate links — just purchase links to my own products).

However, my six “satellite” sites (one for each keyword version of my products) have disappeared, except for the PDF evaluation files I offer. No home page, content page — nothing else. Can’t find ’em in the index at all. Each of these sites were #1, 2 or 3 in organic SERPs for their keyword with very little backlinking and no other SEO (onsite or off — I built them before I learned all that!).

The satellite sites were a little thin, I admit. No affiliate links, except the purchase links went back to my main site, so they probably LOOKED like affiliate links. Just a few pages per site, all original copy, except each of the satellites had essentially the same copy, just edited for the specific version. And I had not touched the sites for years, so they weren’t updated. But, since they were on page one, I was a little afraid to touch them for fear I’d lose the rankings.

Now that they’ve disappeared, that constraint is gone.

I’d like to keep the keyword domains they’re on (they’re exactly the name of the product in addition to being a nice long-tail keyword), so I’m rebuilding the sites in WordPress (as opposed to my first crude attempt to build a CMS), to include a more blog-like structure. And I’ll put some good content with contextual links to purchase on-site, rather than off. And being in a real, live CMS, I can update more often, more easily.

Hope that all works. Those sites generated a good part of my income from online activities and the loss hurts. If it doesn’t work, I’ll find new domains and let the rebuild sites just sit.

Thanks, again, for the thoughtful post. I’ll be back!

gary

Moving right along…

I had my adwords account suspended and the rationale given sounds exactly the same as what Matt Cutts said in his tweet. Now, they don’t have to take my money, that’s ok, I accept that.

However…

To be told that I’ve had my account suspended because of content on a site that has been down for 90 days doesn’t make sense. I told the Google AdWords person I had taken the offending site down MONTHS earlier. I was told in email to “put it back up and populate it with good content”…

Say what now? Put up a dead site and put content on it that doesn’t need to be on the internet?

Ok, moving right along…

I was told that a site that I’d not been advertising in six months was now no longer up. But it was up at the time of the ads. In fact, it has never gone down (bar the odd hosting issue) – the site has all original content and would pass any human review, it has videos, pictures, gives free information, its a great site.

They reviewed it, admitted they were wrong and I shouldn’t have been black marked for me, but never contacted me back lifting the Adwords Ban.

Next…

A site I was direct linking to was offering free content via video but had an optin form on it. It wasn’t my site. The Google Adwords person’s advice, “Contact the site owner and get them to put valuable content up”. Yeah.

Strangely enough, they happily took my money for that adwords placement and NEVER ONCE complained. I stopped the ad (the promotion was over) and months later its held against me? How come it was good enough for them to take my money – the site never changed.

I also pointed out that a major Australian bank was doing EXACTLY the same thing – an AdWords ad to a short bridge page. No comment from Google.

Ultimately, being an affiliate marketer is not going to be good with AdWords and so the ban was coming no matter what I did and Google made lame ass excuses to enforce it. They don’t want Affiliates using AdWords or ranking sites because counterbalance their grip. That major bank doesn’t look for an ROI on their CPC, but I do. That means I pay as little as I can, the bank is happy to overpay. Same with rankings, Affiliates and SEO’s are constantly reverse engineering the rankings algo which keeps Google on their toes.

All that said…

Under Australian Privacy Law, they are required to delete my credit card and all personal history when they no longer have a requirement for my credit card. I then sent them an email and said that since they ended the relationship with me, by their choice, then they had no need for my card or personal details (by their choice, not mine) so I needed them to comply with the regulations and delete my personal information.

They couldn’t comply – some kind of rubbish technical reason about their databases can’t delete information.

The fact is, Google are a law unto themselves. They don’t want a counterbalance of any kind because it pulls back their ability to make money. One major problem in that company is this “utopian view” help at senior levels of their “mission” and the behaviour, but in actual truth, they are one of the most ruthless and aggressive companies around.

Thanks for sharing this awsome information, you sure did go into detail – not sure I took it all in yet, so will comeback soon to double check.

Many thanks,

😉
Kevin

But Panda had NOTHING to do with ‘quality’ and everything to do with getting rid of Google’s direct competitors like Yahoo-owned Associated Content.

My sites are also being hit and all my content is written by me, is quality content and, in many instances, is the ONLY information available on that subject on the net.

Google’s being gone after by the US government, the Korean government and several others so, eventually, it will get what it deserves. until then….I use Bing 🙂

A couple of questions…
1) Are you saying we would be much better served NOT to use Google Analytics on our site?
If so, what are the other options for monitoring activity?

2) Showing my ignorance here… what is 301-ing?

carlen

One thing that is clear is that Google is never going to be able to please all of the people all the time. In the same way that we as affiliate marketers hate seeing rubbishy thin sites or large commerce sites in #1, a search results index dominated by affiliates would irk big business.

After all, why wouldn’t they want 100% of the pie instead of giving some of it to us? Of course this just makes what you said about many of those sites featuring their own customer reviews more true. Google doesn’t really need us for validity in some cases.

Anyway, it is always going to be an arms race so to speak for some people. I lost a large amount of my income but dropping my bundle now would be a huge mistake. Instead I intend to diversify my income and traffic sources and build some more sites. This is purely working on the theory that Google can’t possibly slap all of my sites and while I’m working on the new ones hopefully the old ones will come back.

Thanks again

I now realize my success was my downfall and since many of my sites were on first page they underwent a review and the reviewers didn’t like what they found. Also the guy on Webmasters forum who told me they were doorway pages was wrong. They were thin affiliate sites.

It looks like I will be making some serious changes to the way I build my sites. Still I have a hard time understanding what is wrong building sites that are designed to make money so long as they add value or help a reader find what they are looking for. Isn’t that what Amazon and other big sites do? But I guess if you are Amazon and spend millions on advertising you can put up duplicate content and pages just designed to sell, get ranked number 1 with no SEO or links all without any worries. Who says there’s no paid inclusion on Google?

I just now was directed to your post. I have a few sites that are gone, and also a few that are still moving up. I have sent a question at http://AskPotPieGirl.com , concerning your PSB. I am interested in more diversity, and would like a bit of clarification before I purchase anything.

Thank you for a great post.

Kevin

I’ve been hit hard as well with the latest update (documented here http://www.learnnichemarketing.com/wrath-panda-october-panda-update-killed-traffic-serp/) and I’m curious if it’s better to create ‘light’ review sites on Google product platforms like Youtube and Blogger instead hehe – they’ll never slap those, right?

I totally agree that while this is extremely frustrating, this is their playground and that’s the name of the game. At the end of the day, we’ll either concentrate on making sure each visitor turns into a conversion, whether it’s an opt-in or a customer. The conversion rates now matter a lot more and by doing so, we’ll be less affected by 3rd party influence in terms of traffic and sales.

It bums me, but it also gave me great motivation to rely on MY OWN BUSINESS TACTICS AND STRATEGIES rather than trying to constantly play the game search engines want me to play.

I was hit hard by Panda, lost 28 of 30 sites. All affiliate sites but two, coincidence? I find it ironic that the company that runs the Google Affiliate Network finds affiliate sites uneccesary.

Letting go is the best advice. I did exactly what you mentioned, put the content on another domain and it did well. Some of my sites still get some traffic from Yahoo and Bing but there’s bunch of domains coming up for renewal I will let go. Forget reconsideration because it wont happen. Just let go and move on.

I would not link from my old sites to the new. Nor would I use Analytics or Webmasters. Spread your sites around on different hosting companies too.The less Google knows about you and your sites the better.

I am not paranoid. Being paranoid is when you think someone is out to get you. When they do get you you are no longer paranoid just screwed.

Me too, Alan… me too.

Thanks for reading!

Jennifer