Pick Yourself Up, Dust Yourself Off, And Move On

[Zeus66]

This is a tale of mindset and rolling with the punches.

My top passive income earning site just got some kind of Google slap. At least I think so. It's been firmly entrenched in the Top 10 for months and earning nice money from a couple of hands-off sources. All of the other sites ranked around it for the past few months are still there, occupying the high ground as usual. My site is still indexed, so it's not a question of being booted out of Big G. But it isn't coming up for any of the major keywords any longer.

I've gone from several thousand unique visitors each day from that site to 50 today.

OK, so what I want to stress here is that how you react to the bad mojo is often what determines your long-term success in this crazy business.

For about 10 minutes I kind of sat here at my desk in stunned disbelief. I ran through the rolodex of things that I thought might have caused this to happen. I considered the hit to my family's income this represents. It's not insignificant, ok.

And then I put it all aside. I moved on.

And that's really my point here. When bad stuff happens out of the blue like this - without any real rhyme or reason - you cannot allow yourself to wallow. You cannot allow the event to derail your overall plans and goals. I needed those 10 minutes to be sad, shocked, and upset. That's human nature. To deny an emotional reaction would also have been wrong. So I let it play out. But not for very long.

See, at the end of the day, it's about what I can do. It's about what I've learned over the years. And it's about being confident that 'this too shall pass.'

It's about never letting a setback dictate how you conduct yourself and your business.

When I was newer to all of this, something like this would have festered in my head and devastated me. I'd have been its slave for weeks. And meanwhile, very little else would have gotten done. And then, after all that time of trying to "figure out why," I'd still have had to get back on the horse and pick back up where I left off. That part NEVER changes.

Roll with the punches. It's all you can do.

Please take this to heart the next time you get slapped around by the whims of Big G.

John

[Lisa Gergets]

And see, this is why I love you. LOL

I've had my share lately as well. After flipping several sites successfully, my last two didn't sell. BOO! Okay, I'm over it.

See, I have a big butt so I bounce back quite easily.

Thanks for the inspiration!

[samuelbell]

Sorry to hear about your loss, Fantastic post!

[reidcardwell]

I'm still new enough here I don't know where the freakin "Thank" button is, but this post is good to read as I get started in IM. I know there will be disappointments, and although I hate you've had one yourself like this, it's good to know that I'm not alone when they come.

[michael_nguyen]

Just to add, yesterday I had one of my sites disappear from the #1 spot in Google. That site brings in about 50 uniques a day and thats enough to make some affiliate sales. Was abit pissed but hey what can you do? Move on and create more sites. To me it's all a numbers game. So yes, if you're feeling this way, get over it cause time is the only thing you cant get back!

[adamv]

I've experienced something similar. I was just getting started making some real money, about enough to match my full time income when I had a J.O.B.

One day my income dropped down to about 20% of what it was and when I tried to go to my site to have a look, the site wouldn't even come up. It was a word press site and it had been hacked.

I was finally making some good money and all of sudden, it was gone. It took me a little longer than 10 minutes to get over it. I was still learning and things went from going very well to going horribly wrong.

When you have a little more knowledge and experience, it's a little easier to get past this kind of thing but for me, just starting to see real income for the first time and then to have it taken away was devastating.

This all happened to me just a few months ago and I'm finally recovering. I have new sites up. I'm getting traffic to them again, and the money is starting to flow again. Now that I have more knowledge and experience, I also have confidence that if I have to rebuild again at some point in the future, I'll be able to do it.

[Kevin_Hutto]

Just keep working on it and it will probably come back. Google is often testing and tweaking the results in the serps. I have seen lots of weird things like this over the years. If you are following best practices and keep building quality links it will come back.

[Zeus66]

Originally Posted by Kevin_Hutto

Just keep working on it and it will probably come back. Google is often testing and tweaking the results in the serps. I have seen lots of weird things like this over the years. If you are following best practices and keep building quality links it will come back.

Yep, I think you're probably right about that. I'm no spring chicken and I've seen it happen before. It was just a particularly big hit because it was my #1 passive income site. The fact that it was consistently lodged in the TOP 10 for several good keywords accounted for that. I don't know how many hours I spent building backlinks, not to mention the money I spent outsourcing same. And now it's gone. I mean, it's in the index still, but it's nowhere in the Top 20 PAGES now. From about #5 to gone, for half a dozen really good keywords.

At least I didn't have all my eggs in that basket. It was a pretty hefty chunk of the total, but I'll get it back in a few months, even if that site never returns.

Thanks for the encouragement, all!

John

[Kevin_Hutto]

I had a clients site I was working on that had 250k pages indexed and page one rankings for close to a thousand keywords and all of a sudden rankings started disappearing and about 100k pages got de-indexed a few weeks later. It was a nightmare, but after about 6 months we got all the pages back in the index and the rankings back. We never knew what caused it. No changes on our/client's end and no shady stuff either. Like you said we just had to roll with it and start rebuilding as talking to G didnt help.

[Josef_Benjamin]

I borught over $500 worth of fake merchandise I honestly thought was real I was going to resale on ebay for a great profit. Looked like a great plan, but I didn't play it safe and order just one first to check it's validity.

Long story short, over $500 went into the garbage, sure I steamed a bit, but I bounced bake after taking a nice cold shower.

It took a few weeks to recover from that...

but now I'm making well over what was supposedly "lost". and I have several baskets to put eggs in, so no matter what happens to either streategy I use, I know I will NEVER run into money problems again.

I hope the lesson helped you learn that perhaps next time, instead of one big passive income source, you'll have atleast 2 or 3 to cover you.

[Mr Money Maker]

Google is cleaning house, creating room ...more memory and making changes to there system.
They been updating for a few weeks. I do know web sites are still up.

With my new site I am creating,I have not tried to rank it on Google's SERP pages yet, it's going through changes untill I get a good balance between keyword phrases and what I really want to say.

Now if Google's changes are huge...Then I'll know this in a few weeks when I go to rank the site.....( it's Site with my link for Mr Money Maker)
If you are wondering ....It's going to be an FREE Experimental site teaching the real slick tricks of Internet Marketing that's not revealed online, including secret codes,hypnotic word tricks for marketing,New SEO strategies and ect.....sure I have the link up already. Because I want Google to know it exist.
But it's still in the thought process and all my pages will be reposted better.

Now If Googles giving you trouble... here's what I'd do If I were you.
Go and post a few press-releases with your keywords and write up...you can delete them later if they get ranked above your website.

1.) post you're font page on a press release and see it it comes close to getting ranked.....if it doesn't you have some work to do.
If it pops on, then be cool and wait it out.....remember google is a business and will make changes...also Google works in different topic or keyword area's for a given amount of time.
A year ago some of my sites went down for 2 weeks....only to pop back on.

2.) The reason I am suggest using a press-release is because they deal with hundreds of thousands of online businesses....in other words those press-release sites are loaded with business information and marketing keywords.
It's very easy to rank a press-release on goodle in under 2 hours time...if your good at it.
and.....Google won't normally pull down a huge monster press-release site.
If your keywords are a problem, you'll know soon enough, on a press-release

3.) Next....Every day the keywords on the Internet are in a constant state of Fluctuation. And it's more than Keywords that rank sites, it's high powered keyword phrases....this is why keyword density checkers can be a huge waste of time.

Also remember - what works right now on google SERP pages or - (Search Engine Rank Places ) ...may not work an hour form now.....most times the law of averages plays out still and your website should be fine.And still ranked...but....other factors come into play. Such as a ton of new people posting new websites that alter the keyword ranking system....this is not really that hard to understand.
Example....when you were a young kid you had your playground talk, you grew up with your friends and the slang words of your era......but now lets move forward 25 years....the young kids talk different, have new sayings and words.....and you really don't understand a word they are saying at times...LOL.....well this is how keyword phrases can change.....a new group comes in and changes the world of Google...I have seen it happen.

But there another way Google's keywords can change also......if a professional web designer build a monster website and stacks the deck in his favor,with better keyword phrases and then publishes that website even though it's never seen before online...he can rule the Internet. Imagine a 100,000 page website, with new keywords and highly rankable?
Many of you think it takes months to get ranked on google...it can be done in 24 hours. All you have to do is know the right secrects.
And I know many of you here already know this as a fact on google.

So If I were you....I wouldn't worry yet.....do some research. Get a feel for what has happened.
So don;t cry over loosing your top rankings.......Figure out why you lost it. Get it fix...and don't look back.
Thanks

[Zeus66]

Just wanted to update the situation...

I was wrong. It looks now like Google was just dancing harder than usual. My site has returned to the top of Page 2, which is still a bit lower than it was, but needless to say I'm breathing a huge sigh of relief.

With a few good backlinks I'll get it back on Page 1. The money is already rolling in again like someone turned the water spigot back on. WHEW! I was so afraid all the hard work for months and months was going to be down the drain.

Still, lesson learned for me. I'm in the process of spreading my eggs around to a lot more baskets.

John

[CliveG]

Good to hear that you are "back in business". Looks like the key lesson is to diversify and not be too dependent on a single source of income, particularly when that income is completely dependent on another company which you have not influence over whatsoever.

[ebizman87]

Originally Posted by Zeus66

Just wanted to update the situation...

I was wrong. It looks now like Google was just dancing harder than usual. My site has returned to the top of Page 2, which is still a bit lower than it was, but needless to say I'm breathing a huge sigh of relief.

With a few good backlinks I'll get it back on Page 1. The money is already rolling in again like someone turned the water spigot back on. WHEW! I was so afraid all the hard work for months and months was going to be down the drain.

Still, lesson learned for me. I'm in the process of spreading my eggs around to a lot more baskets.

John

Looks like everything is just fine!! Good luck

[Sandor Verebi]

Originally Posted by Zeus66

...Still, lesson learned for me. I'm in the process of spreading my eggs around to a lot more baskets.

John

Hi John,

Sure. This will be the best action what you may to do. For example my business income comes from three sources. If one of them puts up a poor show then I have others which bring some money. Diversification is profitable.

Cheers,

Sandor

[cheesy]

Originally Posted by Zeus66

Just wanted to update the situation...

I was wrong. It looks now like Google was just dancing harder than usual. My site has returned to the top of Page 2, which is still a bit lower than it was, but needless to say I'm breathing a huge sigh of relief.

With a few good backlinks I'll get it back on Page 1. The money is already rolling in again like someone turned the water spigot back on. WHEW! I was so afraid all the hard work for months and months was going to be down the drain.

Still, lesson learned for me. I'm in the process of spreading my eggs around to a lot more baskets.

John

Things always turns out well if you stay possitive This is a great example.

[Bev Clement]

Also, have an exit plan which you can implement almost immediately when something happens. With an exit plan it might be getting out of something, or doing it differently.

[wisecrone333]

Hi John,

Great to hear it looks like things have improved for you but I just wanted to say thanks for starting the thread in the first place - I was sitting here planning to have a bonfire with my computer because well...because I don't know enough yet - but your attitude is tops and just what I needed

Thanks

[Lisa Gergets]

Originally Posted by Zeus66

Just wanted to update the situation...

I was wrong. It looks now like Google was just dancing harder than usual. My site has returned to the top of Page 2, which is still a bit lower than it was, but needless to say I'm breathing a huge sigh of relief.

With a few good backlinks I'll get it back on Page 1. The money is already rolling in again like someone turned the water spigot back on. WHEW! I was so afraid all the hard work for months and months was going to be down the drain.

Still, lesson learned for me. I'm in the process of spreading my eggs around to a lot more baskets.

John

WOOHOO! Excellent news!

[melanied]

I don't know if other people have had this experience, but I've had long-established sites all but disappear from the rankings for long periods - a couple of days to a couple of weeks - and then equally as suddenly and without explanation jump back into the rankings at even stronger positions than before.

It's happened a few times with my own sites. No biggie. It happened once with a client's site, and OH MY GOD, was that stressful! Luckily, I had had it happen to my own sites before, so I was able to calmy explain about Google dancing, and blah blah. Even to my own ears it sounded like I was making excuses! Luckily, when it came back even stronger, I looked like a genius/psychic. LOL. But it wasn't a fun week until that point.

[Mark-Dickenson]

That happens to me in my competitive niches. I just had one site that was number 3 for a competitive keyword and dropped out for a few weeks...it happens with new sites...and then it came back to number 3 for a day, made me $150 and then dissapeared.

I am not worried, though. It will be back. I have found that if google ranks you high like that initially, you will come back ranking higher than ever

The key for newer marketers is to keep on making more sites so that when these sites gain more trust down the road, they will have a slew of them in the top spots

-Mark

[SRLee]

"Find a path that works, and expand on that road to success."

That's my personal motivational sentence. I have to find a method to make money, and create duplicates of it to earn massive, passive income to fund my RM1mil Lamborghini Gallardo.