Google Slapped -- Likely Hidden Text For Cosmetic Reasons

I recently had a site get Google slapped. After a little grumbling and moaning, I decided to make it a learning experience. I've been trying to figure out why. This graphic should help avoid the question of "Are you sure you got slapped?"



Yes, I've done some grey hat backlinking, not paid links but not far from it either. A couple of tools I bought through Warrior Forum, I'm not going to mention their names because I don't think they had anything to do with it. Though at first, I did. That good old human tendency to blame someone else.

I'm getting ready to re-publish the site on a different domain and I'd like to avoid doing it again.

Here is what I THINK happened. I used the product name/number for my site title. I thought it was a little risky as it might draw the ill will of the company but my domain name was generic. I'm not going to use the model number in the title this time. That was an experiment and the results were not so good.

Because I have a header graphic that would look like crap if I displayed the title of the site in the header I used a a transparent graphic that hid the text. My purpose wasn't to do anything underhanded but it is hidden text.

The site was finally listed on page one, getting around 150 visits per day but converting at nearly 4%. It had made nothing for two months and then boom, 8 affiliate orders in about 10 days. It had been ranking well for about 2 weeks total.

After the slap, I was getting 2 visitors per day. Totally killed the site.

So my question is, is there a way I can avoid the Google slap for hidden text?

If I edit the graphic and put it on the graphic will that appease Google? My guess is, that it will not but there has to be many sites doing that.

It was in a niche that a lot of "big dogs" are in and the experts told me not to go after that niche because it was too competitive. I can't help but wonder if some of my competitors helped point it out to Google and got it reviewed. Sites like PC Mag and Cnet cause i was beating them. Probably a smaller competitor that actually went after me. It could have been just bad luck too?

It made too much money in those few days for me to give up on it.

I also wondered about the number of affiliate links I had on each product review. I was "taught" to do four. I always wondered about that. Seems like it would increase the odds of "affiliate thin site." No, yes? Will using a url shortener help with that if I make the links no follow? They were no follow before.

I'd post the link to the site but I took all the articles offline while I get ready to clone the site to its new location. I don't want all the articles to show up at once at the new location.

Though I think it was the hidden text that most likely nailed me, I also wonder if getting PR4 to P6 backlinks for a 10 page website might look a little odd. Yes, no? I didn't get a lot, less than 10 of them. Still, how many two month old sites will get 8 PR 5 backlinks?

This was my first serious try at affiliate marketing in many years because I learned the old school ways in the 90's and they quit working for me a long time ago.

If you managed to read all of this. Thanks and thanks for the help.