I'm scared for my micro niche site - should I?

[yukon]

Originally Posted by torentash

I just wanted to ask which auto pilot you use to generate unique article, when you self replied .

I never auto pilot content, it wouldn't work for my sites anyways.

Originally Posted by torentash

So you have only 2 sites? What's the PR of the older one?

I now have 10 sites. I was going to make more smaller sites, & decided it would be easier/smarter to use my already existing free laser targeted niche traffic. The recycled traffic gives me a 2nd chance to monetize.

My +550 page older PR-4 site, makes the most $$, out of all my sites. I spent a lot of time on that site upfront, now it's a steady stream of free $$.

Originally Posted by torentash

According to your layout I can see that you're dealing with products and that's probably the reason you have so many pages.

I deal with legal file downloads that I create. Each page gets a single download, this allows me to create pages fast.

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by Nexus7

Answer this: how does a theme/layout pose a risk to advertisers?

You are confusing the Adsense/Adwords team with the search quality team. While they're both made up of Google employees they have different, and sometimes contradictory, goals. Adsense team is only concerned with how well a site converts for advertisers without breaking their TOS so far as placement and content is concerned. Search quality team is concerned about removing thin affiliate sites of all types and monitoring other SEO tricks.

The information I've gathered in this area, which is what Jacob is referring to for the most part, comes from various discussions, private and public, with current and former Google employees and contractors and other trusted sources as well as training documents and such that have been circulated around the web. It is also based on my own personal experiences.

The search quality reviews consist of a 30 second or less glance at a site's index page. Reviewers have 100's of sites to look at on a daily basis. Content and the size of the site isn't considered at all. Reviewers have been given sample screen shots of thin affiliate sites to guide them in their decision to flag a site for deindexing. I don't know if XFactor style sites are on this sample list or not but some other themes/templates that have been pushed by various Adsense gurus and promoted on popular public IM forums are.

Does it mean that every site that uses such a template or theme will be deindexed? No, not at all. While some scripts, such as YACG and BANS, get automatically deindexed based on a footprint, there's no evidence I've seen that suggests common Adsense WordPress themes are scanned for by a footprint. That's why you'll see some sites surviving and even thriving while other, very similar sites, are deindexed. But, if a site gets on a review list for one reason or another, such as a competitor reporting it as a spam site, it very well may be deindexed based on a quick visual review matching a known MFA profile.

The kind of quick review I'm describing isn't the only kinds of reviews the search quality team does. It's just the first tier of quality checking they apply. They may very well review a site in depth for things like content, site size, link structure and so forth if they feel that there's reason to do so. But this isn't all that common.

The 2 basic things I recommend is to make your niche sites look unique to some degree, something that's as easy as adding a custom topical header. This also helps with getting click-thrus from search engine thumbnails on Bing and now Google. The second thing is to have adequate relevant content for visitors and the search engines. You don't have to have Pulitzer Prize winning articles, just look at thefind.com or bizrate.com. But you do need to meet or exceed visitor needs and expectations while targeting buying keywords.

[calfred]

Were you a member of the Google search quality team?

I remembered they were employing people since few years ago. This particular job position is now closed.

[torentash]

Did anyone find out when the site will light the red light in Google? I suppose that's gonna happen when one starts earn certain amount of $ per day (or month). Does anyone know what this amount is?

[Jacob Martus]

Originally Posted by torentash

Did anyone find out when the site will light the red light in Google? I suppose that's gonna happen when one starts earn certain amount of $ per day (or month). Does anyone know what this amount is?

It's suspected to be when you reach $100/day that your account gets a review from Google. This isn't confirmed but there are several people who have seen Google referral strings in their logs after they reached the $100 per day mark. This article has a little bit of information about that:
How Not to Make Money Online | How to Make Money Online with SEO

[torentash]

Originally Posted by Jacob Martus

It's suspected to be when you reach $100/day that your account gets a review from Google. This isn't confirmed but there are several people who have seen Google referral strings in their logs after they reached the $100 per day mark. This article has a little bit of information about that:

I know of this article. I've read it already. But just a little clarification: do you mean 100$ a day FOR 1 SITE or 100$ a day for ALL SITES? I do not reach this amount for 1 site, but it's easily done if you have 50+ sites.

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by torentash

Did anyone find out when the site will light the red light in Google? I suppose that's gonna happen when one starts earn certain amount of $ per day (or month). Does anyone know what this amount is?

As I mentioned above, these are two separate and distinct teams at Google, Adsense/Adwords and Search Quality. People tend to lump them together, even in this thread, but they're two different groups with two different agendas. If you've ever worked in a large corporation, you should know how much office politics plays into cooperation between teams who often have opposing goals.

I've not seen any indications that there is any set Adsense earnings amount that triggers a review by search quality. Some people have claimed this but, from what I've seen, many of them have been given STFU penalties for boasting about their sites and/or SEO techniques. Others may have been caught by various web spam detection methods. There is more evidence that suggests that once one site is flagged for deindexing that other sites with identical information in the vast Google databases (Adsense ID, Analytics ID, etc) may be queued for search quality team inspection as well.

In general though, this isn't something to worry about too much if you do everything legit. Certainly, don't let such fears kill your productivity and earnings.

[Nexus7]

Originally Posted by paulgl

Obviously, you have not been a member of this forum long enough to know the
difference. Contrary to popular belief, the WF is not filled with just people bashing
each other. It's actually filled with some pretty solid senior members who
go out of their way to give good, solid, free advice. Take it or leave it.

Paul

Free but misleading advice, in this case.

[Nexus7]

Originally Posted by Jacob Martus

Really? Looks to me like you made some claims.

Sorry, but I did NOT use the word "FACT" like you did. That's making a bold statement on something that's been proven to have happened.

My small piece of advice to the OP comes from the Google's own Webmaster Guidelines. Write good content and you will be rewarded. Why do I need to defend that?

Originally Posted by Jacob Martus

Speculation or not, there have been plenty of people who have had sites de-indexed while using common MFA themes like Bluesense or the Xfactor template. Argue that all you want, but it happens.

You've shown nothing to support this claim and do not take into account that other factors may have been the reason.

Originally Posted by Jacob Martus

Yes, it does. And Bgmacaw is one of the most credible members of this forum as evidenced from his many helpful posts and huge number of Thanks.

I didn't say Bgmacaw wasn't credible; I was pointing out that you can't say this process of de-indexing sites is based solely on the look of a site without knowing it's a fact. It's fine to speculate; but guessing holds no water.

Originally Posted by Jacob Martus

Call it a wild guess, call it whatever you want. The fact is, telling people that it's perfectly fine to use templates that are associated with MFA is bad advice.

It's only bad advice if it's been proven, without a doubt, to be toxic.

Originally Posted by Jacob Martus

There have been plenty of people right here in this forum who have had entire networks of sites de-indexed and guess what...they were using Xfactor templates or other similar MFA themes.

Did Google tell them this, or were they just guessing? That one thread you pointed to shows someone doing too many backlinks at once. Hmm...

Originally Posted by Jacob Martus

Maybe it's you that has the reading problem. I never said anything about not so good looking sites. I've already pointed that out to you but you keep glossing over it.

Didn't you say Google does a 30 second review and they base a poor site on the look it it? You never went into the fine details on how they judge a site's worthiness. Do you know the exact process or are you just guessing?

Originally Posted by Jacob Martus

I'll say it again and hopefully this time you actually read it. Not so good looking sites are fine. Sites that are using common MFA themes like the Xfactor one are more prone to being de-indexed.

Think about it. Quality reviewers see hundreds of MFA sites all using the same theme but they just let it slide? Get real.

Maybe you're right. But without something to back up your claim it's a bit misleading to tell people this. Wouldn't using black hat methods be more of a reason to de-index a site?

Originally Posted by Jacob Martus

Roll your eyes all you want. Kubrick, Thesis, etc are not common MFA themes. They are used by a wide variety of bloggers in many different markets with many different forms of monetization unlike the Xfactor theme which is predominantly used by people running MFA sites.

MFA sites existed long BEFORE the Xfactor theme came into existence.

What made the Xfactor theme evil in Google's eyes? I would think more clicks would be good for publishers and more conversions would be good for the advertisers. Other and more popular WP themes do the same thing, but they're considered safe?

Originally Posted by Jacob Martus

Actually you did make claims. Should I quote them again?

Yes, please do. Did I state them as fact?

Originally Posted by Jacob Martus

No. I'm saying that Google will de-index a site running a common MFA theme whether the content is good or not. If you would do some searching in this forum you'd find plenty of examples of people with good content having their entire network of sites de-indexed for running all of their sites on the same or similar themes.

Was it the theme or something else? I haven't seen one thread that showed hard evidence that it was, with 100% certainty, the theme. It's easy to assume things, but it's harder to prove it without hard evidence, like an email, letter, video, etc.

Originally Posted by Jacob Martus

Seriously, there are more than enough examples of people having their sites de-indexed despite having good content.

And you're only assuming the theme could be the only reason?

Originally Posted by Jacob Martus

You're not looking for evidence then. There are ALWAYS posts about people having their networks de-indexed. If Google sees a website running a theme associated with mass MFA, you can bet they aren't even going to bother reading the content.

The one thread I read on the Google Adsense forum showed someone with a bunch of sites that were de-indexed because they used doorway pages. The theme they were using had no relevance.

Originally Posted by Jacob Martus

Here's an example I found after searching for literally 20 seconds:

How Not to Make Money Online | How to Make Money Online with SEO
Hmm, there's some evidence for you. I'll quote one specific sentence to help you out:

"The future is changing folks and it’s time to adapt and evolve. It’s pretty clear from Google’s actions that the Adsense/Google search team is on the rampage to clean up the SERP’s. Any site that remotely looks like an MFA site is likely to get tossed out of the index and the owner’s adsense account banned."

Didn't the Mayday update change the way they rank sites using long tail keywords? Maybe I'm missing something here.

Originally Posted by Jacob Martus

Here's another example:

Every Site I Own Was De-Indexed - Is That Possible?

Let me quote a line out of that one for you:

Most adsense sites were the xfactor/clickbump style adsense sites, but all content was very high quality either written by a high quality American writer or myself.

I didn't see any evidence in that thread. It's not possible that it was something else, like black hat stuff? I could use the same Woo theme, like Fresh News, on 100 websites and they could all be de-indexed if Google found out I used black hat methods to trick their search engine.

Originally Posted by Jacob Martus

Is this enough evidence for you? Or no, it's not direct from Google so it must not be accurate? You've sure done a lot of arguing against my point but haven't even spent the time to do any research. I literally spent 20 seconds searching and came up with those two examples, both of which are fairly accurate depictions of what is happening to people using the Xfactor theme.

I've only argued your point because you made the claim it was a "fact."

I'm not trying to be a dick, but when you make a claim like that then you better be able to back it up with some hard evidence. Pointing to other forum threads that don't provide any concrete proof isn't helping to support your argument.

Originally Posted by Jacob Martus

I didn't make up anything in this thread. Everything I have said is direct from my research and experience. There are LOTS of Adsense publishers who have lost their entire business because they were running all their sites on common MFA themes. And guess what...they all had good content.

You haven't been able to come up with anything that convinces me. If these people can only guess that's what happened then it's misleading to claim, as "fact," that this will happen to anyone.

Originally Posted by Jacob Martus

Notice a common denominator? Hmmm???? Oh, they were all using common MFA themes.

I'm sure you're going to say something along the lines of, "Well they probably didn't actually have good content." Whatever dude. Do what you want, but don't call me out for "speculating" when I'm going off of what I've read, researched, and experienced.

What does Google classify as a common MFA theme? Then tell me why every single two-column WP theme isn't at risk.

Yeah, but at least I'm being honest by making a guess as to what might have caused it to happen. Google does frown on poorly written or spun content. They also frown on any type of black hat method to gain page rank, which I mentioned could have been a reason.

Originally Posted by Jacob Martus

I gave you some evidence. There is a lot more of it out there. But, I'm not going to do the research for you. I've done it for myself and apparently sharing that knowledge here gets your panties all in a bunch because I'm not credible enough. And neither is the member whom I quoted earlier.

I didn't ask you to provide anything other than one source that shows, without a doubt, Google is doing this to sites using the Xfactor or similar theme. Guessing isn't evidence.

I have no problem with sharing the knowledge that Google may be de-indexing sites based on a certain MFA look. Where credibility goes out the door is when someone claims it's a FACT and then provides no concrete evidence.

Originally Posted by Jacob Martus

But you have misled people into thinking that using common MFA themes is a good idea.

I said no such thing. I've posted in another thread telling the OP to use a variety of themes.

[Nexus7]

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

The search quality reviews consist of a 30 second or less glance at a site's index page. Reviewers have 100's of sites to look at on a daily basis. Content and the size of the site isn't considered at all. Reviewers have been given sample screen shots of thin affiliate sites to guide them in their decision to flag a site for deindexing. I don't know if XFactor style sites are on this sample list or not but some other themes/templates that have been pushed by various Adsense gurus and promoted on popular public IM forums are.

From Google's Webmaster Guidelines:

Thin affiliate sites: These sites collect pay-per-click (PPC) revenue by sending visitors to the sites of affiliate programs, while providing little or no value-added content or service to the user. These sites usually have no original content and may be cookie-cutter sites or templates with no unique content.

There's nothing there about Xfactor or other common two-column templates being toxic. Notice that they do take into account the content.

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

Does it mean that every site that uses such a template or theme will be deindexed? No, not at all. While some scripts, such as YACG and BANS, get automatically deindexed based on a footprint, there's no evidence I've seen that suggests common Adsense WordPress themes are scanned for by a footprint. That's why you'll see some sites surviving and even thriving while other, very similar sites, are deindexed. But, if a site gets on a review list for one reason or another, such as a competitor reporting it as a spam site, it very well may be deindexed based on a quick visual review matching a known MFA profile.

Many spam sites use high quality themes, so it wouldn't make sense to let those get a pass while sites that provide a lot of high quality content get the ax if they were using a so-called MFA theme. If this is the case then they need to change the way they review sites.

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

The 2 basic things I recommend is to make your niche sites look unique to some degree, something that's as easy as adding a custom topical header. This also helps with getting click-thrus from search engine thumbnails on Bing and now Google. The second thing is to have adequate relevant content for visitors and the search engines. You don't have to have Pulitzer Prize winning articles, just look at thefind.com or bizrate.com. But you do need to meet or exceed visitor needs and expectations while targeting buying keywords.

Good advice. Thanks.

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by Nexus7

Free but misleading advice, in this case.

You do a lot of quoting, but very little reading and learning.

This thread is way longer than it should be. The real advice is good.

The advice from senior members of the WF is stellar. Yes, 99% of the
members are not, sadly, but it sure ticks most of us off to see good advice
and info ignored. The WF is about helping people succeed with tips, tricks, and info
gleaned from experience. Take it or leave it, but stop the insanity. This is
how the WF gets filled with crapola. 60+ post thread, but 50+ just nonsense
or replying to nonsense. Should not happen.

Paul

[Nexus7]

Originally Posted by paulgl

You do a lot of quoting, but very little reading and learning.

I simply asked for solid evidence and didn't get it. If that makes me an asshat then ask me to leave. Don't try to hide it.

Originally Posted by paulgl

The advice from senior members of the WF is stellar. Yes, 99% of the
members are not, sadly, but it sure ticks most of us off to see good advice
and info ignored. The WF is about helping people succeed with tips, tricks, and info
gleaned from experience. Take it or leave it, but stop the insanity. This is
how the WF gets filled with crapola. 60+ post thread, but 50+ just nonsense
or replying to nonsense. Should not happen.

I agree that a lot of the advice here is great. But when someone claims something as "fact" without providing evidence then it should be questioned. That's "good advice"?

[Nexus7]

Originally Posted by Jacob Martus

Here's an example I found after searching for literally 20 seconds:

How Not to Make Money Online | How to Make Money Online with SEO
Hmm, there's some evidence for you. I'll quote one specific sentence to help you out:

"The future is changing folks and it’s time to adapt and evolve. It’s pretty clear from Google’s actions that the Adsense/Google search team is on the rampage to clean up the SERP’s. Any site that remotely looks like an MFA site is likely to get tossed out of the index and the owner’s adsense account banned."

I just wanted to reply to this one again because the person does offer some good advice. I actually read this a few months ago but wasn't convinced (and still not).

While he provides no real evidence that using a MFA theme caused his sites to be de-indexed, he did mention this:

However, all these people had dozens of sites on the same adsense account with similar style layouts (though different themes).

Different themes? This leads me to believe it was for another reason. Is making $100 a day with adsense possible in four months without resorting to black hat methods? I'm nowhere near this and have been at it for five months.

The 10 tips he provides are pretty good, but I wouldn't take them all as gospel. Still, good stuff if you are just getting into niche site building or buying.

I'd keep at it despite the warnings. I think the key is to do it slowly and make your sites a good experience for the user by adding more content like videos and product reviews.

This person stated at the start of the article that it was an experiment, which leads me to believe he did more than just use a MFA theme to get his sites de-indexed. Something prompted the review team to check his sites because he appears to know more about this than anyone else. If it were merely the theme, I think he would have left it at that.

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by Nexus7

From Google's Webmaster Guidelines:
There's nothing there about Xfactor or other common two-column templates being toxic. Notice that they do take into account the content.

They say that they do but, in practice, they don't. If they did actually take content into account sites like thefind.com or bizrate.com (and many lesser known sites with similar custom scrapping scripts) would be deindexed for being the massive, yet thin content, sites they are.

Originally Posted by Nexus7

Many spam sites use high quality themes, so it wouldn't make sense to let those get a pass while sites that provide a lot of high quality content get the ax if they were using a so-called MFA theme. If this is the case then they need to change the way they review sites.

I think you understand this a bit better now.

The challenge for Google is that there are too many sites for them to have any hope of accurately manually reviewing for quality and algorithms also do a poor job of it. On top of that, word has it that top engineers from the search quality team have been farmed out to other projects at Google, taken sabbaticals or left for other opportunities. So, they have to use techniques that will give them some chance of improving web search quality. A semi-automated quick visual review based on known thin affiliate templates is one of the best ideas they've come up with, so far.

Maybe, at some point, they'll come up with new techniques. They're certainly trying but it's a tough thing to do, especially when they, by their hiring practices, exclude ideas from "old fuddy-duddies" and people who have lesser educational pedigrees.

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by Nexus7

Different themes? This leads me to believe it was for another reason.

In his case, probably so. It's most likely what I like to call the 'STFU' or 'warning shot' penalty where someone is getting popular teaching techniques that work but the search quality team doesn't want them to become well known. That's one reason why I usually avoid a lot of specifics and details (aka 'evidence') here and elsewhere.

Originally Posted by Nexus7

Is making $100 a day with adsense possible in four months without resorting to black hat methods?

It's possible depending on what kind of traffic you can generate in that time. IMO, 4 months is too short a time frame for most people since they can't build up a site or network of sites that fast. However, some people can either through investment (outsourcing, buying established sites, etc.) or leveraging previous work.

[calfred]

I do agree that the website layout (the look) is important.

Too ugly and it looks spammy.

At least, the proper spacing and proportion are sorted out.

Since this applies to the real world (attractive people are more preferred than less attractive ones) too.

[Nexus7]

Originally Posted by calfred

I do agree that the website layout (the look) is important.

Too ugly and it looks spammy.

At least, the proper spacing and proportion are sorted out.

Since this applies to the real world (attractive people are more preferred than less attractive ones) too.

Actually, many of the good looking themes look more spammy than simple looking themes that make it easier to navigate and find information.

Niche sites tend to only have one ad block under the title of the first post. Bigger sites with nicer looking themes tend to load up the header and sidebars with ads.