I wonder if Google might implement a review service, most likely for a fee.
You submit your site to Google, and they tell you whether they have any concerns about your site.
I've thought about that also, but until they enforce the terms/policies/guidelines already in place, there is little incentive for anyone to try and develop a site they wouldn't have concerns about. The incentive right now seems to be to use every gimmick possible to generate quick income.
Quote:
So, we are supposed to follow the rules, but we aren't allowed to know what the rules are.
Google has rules in writing, they just aren't enforcing them.
But I guess that's basically the same thing you said, just from a different perspective.
Joined: 22 Aug 2003 Posts: 1324 Location: Gainesville Florida USA
Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2005 3:24 pm Post subject:
Bobby wrote:
Google has rules in writing, they just aren't enforcing them.
Point taken. It wouldn't hurt me to spend more time reading Google guide lines.
Maybe it's fair to say that these guidelines are too vague and general if experienced webmasters see their sites vanish out of the listings, and have no idea why.
Again, we can't expect Google to tell us how to get a better ranking, but it would be helpful if they could certify a site, and offiicially declare, we have no problem with you. Or we do have a problem, and here is what it is.
Most of us would be more than happy to cooperate and be good partners with Google, but when Google can't/won't do the same, then it's kind of understandable if folks turn their attention to how to game the system. _________________ Free Forum And Ezine Hosting
http://Engage-Engine.com
Joined: 02 Jul 2003 Posts: 6231 Location: by the beach, Australia
Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2005 12:31 am Post subject:
robertb wrote:
I just found it suspicious that a couple of my SBI sites were dinged hard in Google around March, a couple other SBI sites from an other well known guru here who shall remain nameless, and I believe Allan said is Cheap Computers site took a hit (can't remember if this was the same time or not).
This is only anecdotal evidence, of course, but here is what has happened to the traffic on our cheap computers site. We were hit hard in February but we've bounced back nicely.
Unique visitors:
Jan 15,403
Feb 5,634
Mar 4,599
Apr 9,536
May 10,576
June 13,960
The site's revenue in June was $696.70. I reckon that's pretty good for a site in a tough niche that has an awful lot of competitors and copycats.
As far as our experience is concerned, if you follow the old advice - keep adding unique, useful content and keep getting new links to your site - you'll succeed eventually. _________________ Allan Gardyne
AssociatePrograms.com - You're here. Explore it!
Joined: 09 Aug 2003 Posts: 1838 Location: Columbus, OH
Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2005 3:14 am Post subject:
AllanGardyne wrote:
This is only anecdotal evidence, of course, but here is what has happened to the traffic on our cheap computers site. We were hit hard in February but we've bounced back nicely.
Thanks for that Allan. Just out of curiousity, has Google traffic increased or have the other SE's supplemented?
Quote:
The site's revenue in June was $696.70. I reckon that's pretty good for a site in a tough niche that has an awful lot of competitors and copycats.
Without a doubt.
Quote:
As far as our experience is concerned, if you follow the old advice - keep adding unique, useful content and keep getting new links to your site - you'll succeed eventually.
Definitely. It's just hard to determine the causes of large flucuations like this because naturally you'd like to learn from any mistakes and avoid them next time. _________________ Robert
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Joined: 22 Aug 2003 Posts: 1324 Location: Gainesville Florida USA
Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2005 4:13 am Post subject:
AllanGardyne wrote:
The site's revenue in June was $696.70.
Ok, thanks for that report. So you're making about 5 cents per visitor, yes?
I'm out of my league here, just thinking aloud. It seems that anybody breaking even or better at PPC advertising would likely be paying more than 5 cents per click, and thus must have a site that converts better?
If that's more or less correct (not sure) then what are those folks doing that we're not doing?
It would be interesting to obtain these two numbers, unique visitors and profit, from a large group of webmasters across a variety of niches, and see what kind of profit per visitor ranges we got.
Then if we are considering publishing in some niche we'd have some real business data to go on. _________________ Free Forum And Ezine Hosting
http://Engage-Engine.com
Joined: 19 Jun 2004 Posts: 529 Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2005 4:23 am Post subject:
Phil Tanny wrote:
Not sure even Ken is big enough to get a straight answer out of google, but he has a lot of resources at his disposal so it might be worth a try.
Ken is away in Italy for 5 weeks and he doesn't generally do business when on vacation. Before he left he assured us that there was no causal link between the implementation of Google Sitemaps or the algo changes and any drop in rankings across the board.
There are plenty of other SBI sites that seem to have been unaffected but it is the ones who were hit hard who are being quite vocal in the SBI forums. As a result it is hard to see if things are getting blown out of proportion or if there is any link. I was personally hit in mid June. My total visitors for June was 23,893 (which was up on the previous month) even though my site has dropped off the radar.
It remains to be seen what will happen over the course of the next couple of months.
Declan _________________ Declan O'Reilly
Sometimes it pays to stay in bed on Monday, rather than spending the rest of the week debugging Monday's code.
Do what successful infopreneurs do...
Joined: 22 Aug 2003 Posts: 1324 Location: Gainesville Florida USA
Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2005 4:56 am Post subject:
Declan OReilly wrote:
There are plenty of other SBI sites that seem to have been unaffected but it is the ones who were hit hard who are being quite vocal in the SBI forums. As a result it is hard to see if things are getting blown out of proportion or if there is any link.
It seems ironic that we can't generate this kind of real business data in an environment built on computers.
Ken would seem to be in a perhaps unique position to harvest real data on a large number of similarly constructed sites. What percent of SBI sites suffered the hit? How does that compare to other algo updates?
Of course you'd have to compare that number to some outside reference if you want to learn anything about how SBI sites are doing with algo changes as compared to something else.
Competitive pressures, marketing strategies etc across the industry will most likely prevent us from ever seeing data beyond the anecdotal.
Not an expert here, or even close, but I can't think of a reason why SBI sites as a group should suffer disproportionally. _________________ Free Forum And Ezine Hosting
http://Engage-Engine.com
Joined: 02 Jul 2003 Posts: 6231 Location: by the beach, Australia
Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2005 7:22 am Post subject:
Phil Tanny wrote:
I'm out of my league here, just thinking aloud. It seems that anybody breaking even or better at PPC advertising would likely be paying more than 5 cents per click, and thus must have a site that converts better?
If that's more or less correct (not sure) then what are those folks doing that we're not doing?
That's an excellent question, Phil, but not really suitable for a discussion on thin affiliates and how avoid being a thin affiliate. One quick answer: Do a search on Google for "namesqueeze". It's a highly effective way of collecting email addresses so that you get many chances of achieving a sale instead of just one. It's a way of maximizing traffic. You have to remember that the cheap computers site is affiliate marketing 101. It's an apprentice's site and doesn't pretend to be anything more than that. _________________ Allan Gardyne
AssociatePrograms.com - You're here. Explore it!
I own a bunch of SBI sites. I've just spent a while looking at the stats. Some do very badly with Yahoo and MSN, some do very well with Yahoo and MSN.
On sites I haven't announced publicly, I sometimes do a bit of experimental stuff, and that can skew the results for months.
As a general rule, the sites we've put the most careful research, thought and energy into, do best over-all. _________________ Allan Gardyne
AssociatePrograms.com - You're here. Explore it!
That is where a huge proportion of my traffic is coming from also. One thing that I have noticed with pages that have been dropped; if I do a search for the main KW; my site is nowhere to be found. But if I put in a specific search term that is three or more words up it pops in number one position.
Maybe the lesson is to go for more specialised search terms as opposed to general KW's.
Declan _________________ Declan O'Reilly
Sometimes it pays to stay in bed on Monday, rather than spending the rest of the week debugging Monday's code.
Do what successful infopreneurs do...
Joined: 22 Aug 2003 Posts: 1324 Location: Gainesville Florida USA
Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2005 5:16 pm Post subject:
Allan, yes, you've converted my off topic question in to an on topic answer with the mention of namesqueeze. Nice work.
The more we can develop the repeat traffic part of the equation, the less it matters whether google considers us a thin affiliate or not. The newsletter is the classic tool here of course. Forums come to mind!
It's been interesting that this is evolving in to a "we're too dependant on search engines" thread because while reading here I've been coding a tool whose function is to stimulate repeat traffic.
It seems that somebody who has already visited and used your web site is the most targeted visitor you can get, so that's traffic worth an extra effort.
It's the visitor, not Google, that should make the decision of whether you are a thin affiliate or not. Returning visitors would seem to be casting a positive vote.
I doubt any return traffic device, or all of them together, can replace search engine traffic, but every little bit helps. _________________ Free Forum And Ezine Hosting
http://Engage-Engine.com
Joined: 02 Jul 2003 Posts: 6231 Location: by the beach, Australia
Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2005 11:53 pm Post subject:
Phil Tanny wrote:
It seems that somebody who has already visited and used your web site is the most targeted visitor you can get...
Maybe. I'd need more details. Some forums get huge repeat traffic and few sales. Some forums go broke because of the bandwidth fees they pay.
I think the most targeted visitor is someone who has bought from you and now trusts you. That's the reason we collect email addresses. _________________ Allan Gardyne
AssociatePrograms.com - You're here. Explore it!
Joined: 19 Jun 2004 Posts: 529 Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2005 3:42 am Post subject:
Phil Tanny wrote:
It's been interesting that this is evolving in to a "we're too dependant on search engines" thread because while reading here I've been coding a tool whose function is to stimulate repeat traffic.
It seems that somebody who has already visited and used your web site is the most targeted visitor you can get, so that's traffic worth an extra effort.
For sure! Repeat visitors are generally in a much more open frame of mind to buy. It has been shown that consumers need to be exposed to something up to 8 times before they make the decision to purchase.
Look forward to hearing more about that tool when you finish Phil.
Declan _________________ Declan O'Reilly
Sometimes it pays to stay in bed on Monday, rather than spending the rest of the week debugging Monday's code.
Do what successful infopreneurs do...
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