Why Are Some MFA Sites Still Ranking Well?

[NetWorth]

Hello All and thanks in advance for your advice.

Short and sweet. I got knocked by the whole MayDay thing and early last month I had 50+ sites go from ranking well to the 10 page of google or not ranking at all.

So I accepted my fate and started building out higher quality sites. But I keep running across 1 to 5 page sites that are ranking really well by just using WP and an exact domain name. While I now have sites with 7 to 10 pages, no adsense, no affiliate products, with links to other authority sites, youtube videos and 5 to 10 spoke link wheels that google has back on page 10 or isn't ranking at all.

For an example of a small site that use to rank in the top 10 I have a site 84inchshowercurtain.org right now it is on page 7.

If you Google (84 inch shower curtain) you will find the .com .net and .info within the first two pages none of which have more than 5 pages. They are using the same MFA sites that got many people knocked last month.

1. Is it worth me trying to build this site out?

2. Should I host new domains with a different hosting account?

3. Is there any logic behind why some people sites survived and NONE of mine did?

Thanks Again!

NW

[Jacob Martus]

Originally Posted by NetWorth

Hello All and thanks in advance for your advice.

Short and sweet. I got knocked by the whole MayDay thing and early last month I had 50+ sites go from ranking well to the 10 page of google or not ranking at all.

So I accepted my fate and started building out higher quality sites. But I keep running across 1 to 5 page sites that are ranking really well by just using WP and an exact domain name. While I now have sites with 7 to 10 pages, no adsense, no affiliate products, with links to other authority sites, youtube videos and 5 to 10 spoke link wheels that google has back on page 10 or isn't ranking at all.

For an example of a small site that use to rank in the top 10 I have a site 84inchshowercurtain.org right now it is on page 7.

If you Google (84 inch shower curtain) you will find the .com .net and .info within the first two pages none of which have more than 5 pages. They are using the same MFA sites that got many people knocked last month.

1. Is it worth me trying to build this site out?

2. Should I host new domains with a different hosting account?

3. Is there any logic behind why some people sites survived and NONE of mine did?

Thanks Again!

NW

Mayday didn't affect just small sites, it affects all size sites. Maybe there is something in the way you build a site or a way that you backlink for it that set off the downfall from Mayday.

There are plenty of large sites which took big hits as well. So I would take a closer look at how you promote and build your sites. There has to be a common denominator if all 50+ of your sites took a hit. Look for it. I can't tell you what it is, because not a single one of my sites took a hit during Mayday. And the majority of them were small 1 to 4 page sites with EMD's and wordpress.

To answer your questions,

1.) If you think that you can rank the site and it will earn money then yes you should build it out. The same things that worked before are still working now at least in my experience. Focused content and backlinks are taking my sites right on up the ranks and holding them there.

2.) I don't think it would be hosting related unless you did get some sort of manual review and they just penalized all of your sites. Even then, it wouldn't be related to your hosting. If you're using shared hosting there are 1000s of sites on the same IP. I doubt that all of them were affected. Again, look for a common denominator that distinguishes your sites.

3.) There is some logic to this happening but no one except Google employees know what it is. Search engines are a fickle beast and nobody but their creators know exactly how they work.

[divinity001]

How are you building your sites? I've noticed one or two out of many still ranking well, while doing keyword research.

[NetWorth]

Most were built in a very similar way to what you saw from the link above.

[NetWorth]

Jacob could you do me a huge favor and take a quick look at the site I posted. Is there anything that stands out as being different from what you do that may have caused this?

[Jacob Martus]

Originally Posted by NetWorth

Jacob could you do me a huge favor and take a quick look at the site I posted. Is there anything that stands out as being different from what you do that may have caused this?

Well, at first glance your site has no visible privacy policy which you need to take care of ASAP. That is part of the Adsense terms of service and without it you are liable to lose your adsense account.

I will look at in a few hours. I'm a bit busy at the moment writing a few articles but when I get time I will look at it.

Get that privacy policy up ASAP. There's a plugin to do it easily. Install the plugin: Easy Privacy Policy and get that page up on your site.

Also, your about page is the standard wordpress about page. That shouldn't have affected your rank but it makes the site look as though not much time or thought was put into it without an about page. It doesn't have to be something huge. You could even get rid of it. Also, add a contact page.

On all of your sites, make sure you have a contact and a privacy policy page if they are running adsense. I'll take a look later. Get those two things in place in the mean time.

[Craig McPherson]

Originally Posted by NetWorth

If you Google (84 inch shower curtain) you will find the .com

Gee, you could have given me a backlink too.
Only joking. My site hasnt moved for months so Google must love it

[NetWorth]

Lol Craig are you the one who owns the other 84 inch shower curtain sites??? That's kinda funny. Hey man your almost a legend on the net. I see your sites everywhere! Do you have any advice on this one??? I don't get why every site I had got punished hard and a lot of people didn't experience anything. Do you guys use a public registration when you purchase your domain? Could that be it?

Thanks again

[yukon]

NetWorth,

You have duplicate content on your blog. Looks like you made a test page & Google indexed the site before you deleted the test page, have a look:

1)

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:71QwvuH3HT4J:www.84inchshowercurtain.org/+site:www.84inchshowercurtain.org&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1

2)

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:EMmkWG3_JQYJ:www.84inchshowercurtain.org/hello-world+site:www.84inchshowercurtain.org&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1

Both the Index page & the hello-world page have the same blog post content.

You need to delete the hello-world page then do a 301 for the test page, point the hello-world page back at the Index page.

[yukon]

Originally Posted by NetWorth

Lol Craig are you the one who owns the other 84 inch shower curtain sites??? That's kinda funny. Hey man your almost a legend on the net. I see your sites everywhere! Do you have any advice on this one??? I don't get why every site I had got punished hard and a lot of people didn't experience anything. Do you guys use a public registration when you purchase your domain? Could that be it?

Thanks again

You lost me.

Who owns the link in the OP?

[Andr3w]

Originally Posted by NetWorth

Lol Craig are you the one who owns the other 84 inch shower curtain sites??? That's kinda funny. Hey man your almost a legend on the net. I see your sites everywhere! Do you have any advice on this one??? I don't get why every site I had got punished hard and a lot of people didn't experience anything. Do you guys use a public registration when you purchase your domain? Could that be it?

Thanks again

These are XFactor style sites, that's probably why you see so many of them.

As regards the Google results, remember that as good as Google is, it is still just a dumb machine and the ordering will not always make sense.

[SladeK]

Originally Posted by Craig McPherson

Gee, you could have given me a backlink too.
Only joking. My site hasnt moved for months so Google must love it

Just out of curiosity; does this keyword get nearly the traffic Market Samurai says it does? I remember coming across this keyword about 6 months back when all of the domains were still available; but passed due to how tightly focused the phrase was (I like building micro niche sites; but not THAT focused). Anyway, I just found it odd that such a seemingly strange item would get so many queries.

At any rate, the trends weren't showing an accurate correlation to the amount of queries the keyword was supposedly generating.

Was just curious if it actually does generate a lot of traffic for you.

[Black Hat Cat]

Originally Posted by NetWorth

Hello All and thanks in advance for your advice.

Short and sweet. I got knocked by the whole MayDay thing and early last month I had 50+ sites go from ranking well to the 10 page of google or not ranking at all.

So I accepted my fate and started building out higher quality sites. But I keep running across 1 to 5 page sites that are ranking really well by just using WP and an exact domain name. While I now have sites with 7 to 10 pages, no adsense, no affiliate products, with links to other authority sites, youtube videos and 5 to 10 spoke link wheels that google has back on page 10 or isn't ranking at all.

For an example of a small site that use to rank in the top 10 I have a site 84inchshowercurtain.org right now it is on page 7.

If you Google (84 inch shower curtain) you will find the .com .net and .info within the first two pages none of which have more than 5 pages. They are using the same MFA sites that got many people knocked last month.

1. Is it worth me trying to build this site out?

2. Should I host new domains with a different hosting account?

3. Is there any logic behind why some people sites survived and NONE of mine did?

Thanks Again!

NW

The three other sites have backlinks to them, and two of them have PR. Your site has neither.

[Tom Goodwin]

Originally Posted by Jacob Martus

Well, at first glance your site has no visible privacy policy which you need to take care of ASAP. That is part of the Adsense terms of service and without it you are liable to lose your adsense account.

I will look at in a few hours. I'm a bit busy at the moment writing a few articles but when I get time I will look at it.

Get that privacy policy up ASAP. There's a plugin to do it easily. Install the plugin: Easy Privacy Policy and get that page up on your site.

Also, your about page is the standard wordpress about page. That shouldn't have affected your rank but it makes the site look as though not much time or thought was put into it without an about page. It doesn't have to be something huge. You could even get rid of it. Also, add a contact page.

On all of your sites, make sure you have a contact and a privacy policy page if they are running adsense. I'll take a look later. Get those two things in place in the mean time.

Yikes, no privacy page on a MFA

Personally, I just use quick WP plugins for privacy (the plugin you recommended) and the contact page (contact form 7 or something). I just delete the about page because IMHO it isn't needed or even helpful on these types of sites. All 3 of those changes should be able to be completed in a couple of minutes. I actually created a ubot to do it for me, but i love automation.

Tom

[Crew Chief]

Originally Posted by NetWorth

Hello All and thanks in advance for your advice.

Short and sweet. I got knocked by the whole MayDay thing and early last month I had 50+ sites go from ranking well to the 10 page of google or not ranking at all.

So I accepted my fate and started building out higher quality sites. But I keep running across 1 to 5 page sites that are ranking really well by just using WP and an exact domain name. While I now have sites with 7 to 10 pages, no adsense, no affiliate products, with links to other authority sites, youtube videos and 5 to 10 spoke link wheels that google has back on page 10 or isn't ranking at all.

For an example of a small site that use to rank in the top 10 I have a site 84inchshowercurtain.org right now it is on page 7.

If you Google (84 inch shower curtain) you will find the .com .net and .info within the first two pages none of which have more than 5 pages. They are using the same MFA sites that got many people knocked last month.

1. Is it worth me trying to build this site out?

2. Should I host new domains with a different hosting account?

3. Is there any logic behind why some people sites survived and NONE of mine did?

Thanks Again!

NW

NetWorth, to answer your third question, I have pure MFA sites that I've been monitoring for about two years now. These sites break every Adsense TOS you could imagine but they are still up and running.

The logic is; there is no logic! It's like people who deal drugs; some get caught while others never seem to get busted.

Google doesn't have the resources to catch every IMer who has MFA sites. BUT, they have established some patterns to help them spot MFA TOS offenders with pretty average accuracy.

One of those tell tale signs is having a bundle of Adsense sites, (and that could be anywhere from 30 or more site) that all have the same template, low page count, little to no content and were all launched in a relatively short span of time).

With those parameters MFAs are easy to spot because the Adsense account gives them away. Another variable is the sites are reported to Google by the competition. When that happens, the entire MFA empire comes tumbling down in short order.

As far as your answer about building the site out; only you can answer that based on the CPC and estimated income provided that you ranked well on the targeted keywords.

As to the issue of using a new host, that's a little over the top. The hosting company is not being penalized and neither is that IP address. So the answer would be no.

What I would do is institute alternate monetization options such as Commission Junction, Shareasale, etc. and go from there.

BUT most importantly learn how to do Off Page SEO like a Stealth Warrior!

Giles

[Wakunahum]

The other sites like the .net and .info have backlinks. Yours does not.

You do need some backlinks to rank.

I have some small mini sites and none of them lost any rankings in May or June. Get solid backlinks that are worthwhile and keep them up in the listings.

I know some who did lose rankings. They got some real backlinks versus just forum profiles and found that they got the rankings back. Google might have adjusted some long tail keywords a bit but it's not that much. It doesn't mean you can't continue to rank when CLEARLY others are ranking well with the same types of sites.

[NetWorth]

Originally Posted by SladeK

Just out of curiosity; does this keyword get nearly the traffic Market Samurai says it does? I remember coming across this keyword about 6 months back when all of the domains were still available; but passed due to how tightly focused the phrase was (I like building micro niche sites; but not THAT focused). Anyway, I just found it odd that such a seemingly strange item would get so many queries.

At any rate, the trends weren't showing an accurate correlation to the amount of queries the keyword was supposedly generating.

Was just curious if it actually does generate a lot of traffic for you.

I was getting pretty good traffic from it when it was ranking well.

[NetWorth]

Originally Posted by yukon

NetWorth,

You have duplicate content on your blog. Looks like you made a test page & Google indexed the site before you deleted the test page, have a look:

1)

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:71QwvuH3HT4J:www.84inchshowercurtain.org/+site:www.84inchshowercurtain.org&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1

2)

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:EMmkWG3_JQYJ:www.84inchshowercurtain.org/hello-world+site:www.84inchshowercurtain.org&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1

Both the Index page & the hello-world page have the same blog post content.

You need to delete the hello-world page then do a 301 for the test page, point the hello-world page back at the Index page.

Hey Yucon you lost me. I can't find the hello world post. I have either deleted it or posted over it with the current first page.

What do I need to do from here?

[NetWorth]

Originally Posted by Wakunahum

The other sites like the .net and .info have backlinks. Yours does not.

You do need some backlinks to rank.

I have some small mini sites and none of them lost any rankings in May or June. Get solid backlinks that are worthwhile and keep them up in the listings.

I know some who did lose rankings. They got some real backlinks versus just forum profiles and found that they got the rankings back. Google might have adjusted some long tail keywords a bit but it's not that much. It doesn't mean you can't continue to rank when CLEARLY others are ranking well with the same types of sites.

Thanks I'll try this

[thaismr]

I had a few of my sites vanish from the first page these weeks, too.

They had little backlinks, but I wasn't worried about that because they were ranking high despite that. I concentrated efforts on other sites which didn't rank so easily.

I too think the biggest problem can be the number of pages and backlinks. Also, I wasn't updating them much. I am now going to update the site, add a few articles, and make sure I build some backlinks. That should work to get us back on the game.

[RichardHK]

As covered above, yes, you need that privacy policy and contact page to satisfy AdSense. And the top three 84inch sites (.com, .net, .info) all have backlinks, although only a small number really. .com has 71 backlinks with 39 '84 inch shower curtain' anchor text in those links. The .info in second place only has 22 links and 4 of same anchor text. So get to work as suggested. Positions 4 to your 25 are all 0 backlinks!!

And as asked above - Were you actually getting traffic and sales on this niche?

[yukon]

Originally Posted by NetWorth

Hey Yucon you lost me. I can't find the hello world post. I have either deleted it or posted over it with the current first page.

What do I need to do from here?

This is the duplicate page of your Index page:

http://www.84inchshowercurtain.org/hello-world

The link above (hello-world) needs to be deleted, since the exact same content is on the Index page.

Here is a plugin that will handle 301 redirects, it's really simple just add the old URL that you will delete, then ad the location (url) you want to redirect to.

The reason you need to 301 redirect is, Google still has a cached page in the Google SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).

[Craig McPherson]

Originally Posted by SladeK

does this keyword get nearly the traffic Market Samurai says it does? Was just curious if it actually does generate a lot of traffic for you.

Nowhere near it. I have been #3 since mid Jan and have averaged only visitors a day for that search term. Other terms bring in over 145 uniques a day. MS says over 1300 a day on exact so I reckon they are Liar, Liar..Pants on Fire

Craig


ps: Average 3 sales a day on Amazon and $5.93 a day on Adsense.

[jijaybajay]

Originally Posted by Craig McPherson

Nowhere near it. I have been #3 since mid Jan and have averaged only visitors a day for that search term. Other terms bring in over 145 uniques a day. MS says over 1300 a day on exact so I reckon they are Liar, Liar..Pants on Fire

Craig


ps: Average 3 sales a day on Amazon and $5.93 a day on Adsense.

Did you set your Google datacentre same as your targeted Market Samurai's country?

[Kakashi]

This is weird....
My site is first page on google & page 4 in yahoo.
backlinks not even more than 20.

Until now, there's no visitor....

Does anybody know what was happened ?

[kmachine]

I have a website that was ranked #1 for months and a site that I almost sure that is owned by Xfactor was #3, and now I think that both were penalized because can't be found on first 10 pages of G.

[Kakashi]

Means the site will be remain for a while and later on will be penalize by G?
Hmm... seems like it will happen to me soon....

[Zeb]

Make sure that you've signed out of personalized search. You can even get personalized search when not logged into your G account. Do a search, then look for "web history" to disable personalized search.

[misterkailo]

You sure you are not sandboxed? How long have you had these sites?

[adamv]

Originally Posted by Craig McPherson

Gee, you could have given me a backlink too.
Only joking. My site hasnt moved for months so Google must love it

Just a heads up for you. I clicked on 84inchshowercurtain.com (which was ranking #1 in google) and it set off my avast warning saying a threat has been detected and there was possible malware on the site.

[A L Moten]

I had no idea that there was a plugin to generate a privacy page. This forum is by far the best resource for anyone that has an interest in marketing online and offline.
To all Warriors,

Thank YOU immensity. Updating my blogs as we speak!