Noob Searching for Help

[TTran]

Hey everyone, I am new to this forum and am new to the Internet Marketing world. I will try to tell you my story so far so you'll know where I'm at. Hopefully, it won't be too boring.

I first started my journey after seeing a commercial on TV about making money online with a survey site. I later researched the internet for a whole bunch of survey sites and ad clicking sites to sign up for. I started taking multiple surveys per day and clicking a whole bunch of ads per day for about a week. They began to annoy me very much and caused me to think that there must be a better way to make money online.

I then began my search for a better, more profitable, and a more thought-provoking method of making money online. I somehow ran into the download link for the e-book, "Niche Marketing On Crack." The content intrigued me and really motivated me to try to create a stable income online. I started out my NMOC course as instructed in the guide with a free blogging site (blogger). BTW, I'm still in high school and am trying to do things risk-free because I make no money.

Anywho, I followed the steps on the guide and everything with the initial articles and article submissions. My site had not gotten on any decent page of google yet as I was still trying to build up backlinks and waiting for articles to approve. However, I was pretty solid on page 8 or something after my site was indexed. Unfortunately, one day when I checked for my site on google, I was no where to be found. I used the site:asdf function and found that only 1 of my articles on blogspot were still indexed. The other articles and the main home page were completely out.

I researched around Webmaster Tools and concluded that they removed me because I was using an html code to mask my affiliate links. So I fixed the links and submitted the site for reconsideration. I then started on my next attempt of a NMOC site. Same process.. I follow the guide blah blah and am on page 7 for a while with few backlinks and waiting for article approvals. Today, I try to search my main keyword up in google and can't find my site anywhere. I do the site:sdfd function again and same results. I only find my article pages and the home page seems to have been removed.

That got me very frustrated. Does google not like sites of this kind on blogspot or something? =( I did not do any excessive backlinking or anything like that. I don't see why they've been removed from index.

Anyways, switching the subject a little bit, I've gathered a bunch of helpful posts from warrior forum and some ebooks I've read and was planning to make an outline for me to follow. I wanted to have an oragainzed plan that I could alter and hopefully find the formula for success. As I'm just about to work on this, I find that my second NMOC site has been removed. That ruined my motivation.

Sorry for the very long post. But just to recap there's a couple questions I'd hope you guys could help me with

Why did my pages get removed?
When comparing free blogging sites, blogger is much more customizeable, but is wordpress my only option?

and..

Is my plan to make an outline for me to follow a good idea?
Are there any courses you guys could recommend that I start out with?

Again, sorry for the super long post, thank you for your help

[Undergrad]

Check out www.thirtydaychallenge.com never stop learning and take action.

Peter

[acedalright]

Were you using low competition keywords?

Did you build deep links to your internal pages?

[morry]

It's a bit hard to say why you had problems with blogger without knowing more. I know of the book you mentioned and I think it's alright, although I've never gone through it in depth.

I'd suggest you educate yourself a bit more about this stuff. 30 day challenge is supposed to be good (I've never done it myself) and I'm obviously going to recommend the link in my sig (completely free, nothing to sell there) but there are loads of places to
check out.

Sean

[TTran]

I've signed up for the 30daychallenge.

I did use very low competition keywords, however, I'm not too sure what you mean by building deep links.

The main thing I'm wondering though is if anyone has had a similar problem like this before?

[Laura B]

How long ago did you set up your niche site? It can take several months for sites to settle in the SERPs. Also, could it be that your site could be considered a "thin" site - meaning light on content, heavy on ads? Just a couple of things to consider.

If you're talking about wordpress.com, then yes, it's limited, but wordpress.org on a self-hosted site is extremely versatile, powerful, and you can put advertising on it, unlike wordpress.com. You do have to buy a domain name and hosting that way, but you can do that for under $10 a month, which you might be able to find in your couch cushions!

[TheSuperman]

Oops, posted with old account.

[TTran]

Hmm, I know it can take months to settle but is it normal that they remove the main site from the search index? x)

And yes, I was comparing blogger and the free wordpress dot com. I am definitely considering just buying a domain but I first want to know why my pages are being removed so I don't make the same mistake. If you guys want to check out the sites I made, I've put them in my signature.

Thanks for the help though!

[netkid]

Hello TTRAN

I wouldn't lose sleep about the search engines. I make blogs in "spite" of the search engines and ranking. Frankly, to a certain extent, its overhyped. When I first started in IM two years ago, I was in the same boat as you just obsessing about my Google search engine rankings.

As time went on and I religiously posted articles on my blogs and did multiple things like posting comments on other blogs, compiling some past posts and making a report I can sell, registering my blog URL to blog directories, of course-article submission to article directories, posting on forums, and joining groups of my related niche with backlinks, passing out business cards and flyers that point to my blog URL, inserting opt-in boxes to gather an email list, and so on, my blog became successful on its own.

So, when promoting your blog, think of it as a "hub" and your main mission is to generate so many different avenues of linkbacks to your blogs. They are your "spokes" that lead back to the blog. Over time, you will get your blog in favorable listings.

Also, your topic/niche needs to be a fairly popular one or if not a very specialized on that people would not be able to get information on that topic anywhere else.

One important thing, you need to get your own domain name and get a hosting account to do this right. I exclusively use Wordpress...it works like a charm.

Have the patience to build your blog steadily. This is not a get rich quick plan or a "how to cheat the search engines" strategy. If you are serious about building a sound business, build it one day at a time and don't give up...be persistent.

Good luck!

Bruce

[TTran]

Thank you for the motivation Bruce, I won't give up =)

So was it normal for your site to be completely removed off Google's index? That's what worried me most (investing time in a site that is not even listed).

And thanks Vitesh, I'll be following the 30 day challenge closely.

[FifthDimension5]

What I suggest is that you use a self-hosted wordpress blog, and use some php link cloaking code - something like php link cloaker - this is because Google recently updated its algo to penalize affiliate links appearing in search results. You may also want to target the alternative engines like Bing. Further, you may want to build backlinks - if you are looking for free then link exchange is the way to go - this gives you more leverage with the engines.

[TTran]

Originally Posted by FifthDimension5

What I suggest is that you use a self-hosted wordpress blog, and use some php link cloaking code - something like php link cloaker - this is because Google recently updated its algo to penalize affiliate links appearing in search results. You may also want to target the alternative engines like Bing. Further, you may want to build backlinks - if you are looking for free then link exchange is the way to go - this gives you more leverage with the engines.

Intersting, thank you FifthDimension. Do you think if I used a site like tinyurl to cloak my links, google would be okay?

And if so, should I submit my sites for reconsideration in google webmasters?

Yes, I was planning to work on building backlinks with article marketing as I've read a lot of useful guides about article marketing on this site. =) But, when all of this happened I've only wanted to find a solution. I'll be okay with leaving these sites behind if it's too late. I just want to make sure I don't get myself into the same hole with a new website.