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Now I can say "it's happened to me"

by Lisa Gergets
34 replies
My friggin' Etsy site's url has been de-indexed by Google.

I've been wondering why, for the past two weeks, my sales have dried up when they should be going crazy. Just went to Scroogle to check my rank and see where I was and I'm nowhere to be found when looking up "fingerless gloves." Double checked using Rank Checker and it's gone.

The funny thing was...I've been promoting the site this year using a bit of backlinking, a bit of social bookmarking, a bit of relevant blog commenting...but nothing over-the-top. First I was in 9th position. Then 12th. Then 15th. Then 18th. Now, POOF! Gone. As well as the majority of my sales.

I can't really even wrap my head around this since, like so many others, I didn't do anything wrong. I just don't get it.

I'm just kind of speechless. :confused:

Jesus...they stripped both my PR3 and all my backlinks, too.
#it happened to me
  • Profile picture of the author Jill Carpenter
    tinker fingerless gloves - Google Search

    I see you at #2 here
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  • Profile picture of the author Lisa Gergets
    Yes but now look up fingerless gloves...nowhere...not even "fingerless gloves". I was targeting fingerless gloves and wool fingerless gloves because those get searched the most.
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    • Profile picture of the author JayXtreme
      Originally Posted by TinkerAndPo View Post

      Yes but now look up fingerless gloves...nowhere...not even "fingerless gloves". I was targeting fingerless gloves and wool fingerless gloves because those get searched the most.
      I see your point,

      But, AvenueGirl's search shows that your site hasn't been de-indexed...

      You just don't rank for your keywords any more

      Some smart promotion via the social networks and some authority backlinking is required. You are in competition with some strong sites right there.

      I'm not saying the keyword(s) is difficult, just that you will need a constant approach for a while to hold your high ranking in place above some of the competition.

      Peace

      Jay
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      • Profile picture of the author Jeff Baxter
        Yes Tinker.Jay is absolutely right. It's just a matter of your website showing up for the long-tail keyword but not for the shall we say "market" keyword phrase itself. Don't worry too much about it, you should be able to rank back for that short keyword phrase in no time dear.

        My 0.02
        Jeff
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    • Profile picture of the author Jill Carpenter
      Well, the main page I just clicked on had not been stumbled, so I submitted that, and clicked on the pink gloves and stumbled those as well.

      I'd suggest going through and stumbling every one of your pages, and doing a bit more bookmarking.

      It will give you a temporary boost.

      Do you have a video? Put those photos into a video on youtube and some other sites and link that in.

      I'm guessing you have done the other stuff like squidoos, hub, weebly, articles about unique gifts and gloves etc....
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  • Profile picture of the author Lisa Gergets
    See, that's what I don't understand...

    Ok this is exactly what I've been doing:

    1 post a week to 4 separate Ning sites
    2 or 3 times a week I'll bookmark 2 individual glove urls using Onlywire
    Blog commenting to relevant, high PR blogs

    And I always use "fingerless gloves" as my anchor keyword.

    Another thing that's got me completely stumped...even if the Google dance knocked me off the radar for now, I still should retain my PR and backlinks, right? They're gone!
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    • Profile picture of the author Jeff Baxter
      How many backlinks do you have to these sites? You could be in competition with authority sites. Sites that have wayyy more backlinks and are listed with dmoz and yahoo.
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    • Profile picture of the author Jill Carpenter
      Well, not all backlink checkers are the same.

      Also, be careful - are you putting in a www or without? are you consistent?

      Sometimes you have to check for both when checking the checkers.

      I have heard of people having issues using onlywire.

      I use socialmarker and it has served me well.

      Go with some article and video submission.

      Also, do a free press release if you have not. I dare you.

      In my comment, I mentioned your gloves as being a great gift for the woman who has everything.
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  • Profile picture of the author Lisa Gergets
    That's another thing that's strange. When I check my backlinks using Rank Checker, it (now) says 0. But if I look in Yahoo Site Explorer, it's showing 237.

    ???
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    • Profile picture of the author Jill Carpenter
      Originally Posted by TinkerAndPo View Post

      That's another thing that's strange. When I check my backlinks using Rank Checker, it (now) says 0. But if I look in Yahoo Site Explorer, it's showing 237.

      ???
      Yep.

      That happens.

      But, I just found some more things.

      Looks like you have the dot com. That is not stumbled either.

      Also, what I was looking for when I found that was a free wordpress blog.

      It is my understanding - I could be wrong, so do look into this if you don't know already - but it is my understanding that etsy is one of the only "free" types of sites you can promote using a wp.com blog. meaning, you can own tinkerandpo.wordpress.com and you can sell on it - which is HUGE IMO. I just went to that addy, and is is selling "Eco friendly iPod cases!" - is that you? if not, do you have a free wp.com blog?

      Here is the thing, you can freaking rank heavy with those and quickly. This is why I believe affiliate blogs are not entertained, but I have read where there is a deal with Etsy.

      Is any of this clicking or known to you?

      Again, I never heavily researched it, but recall coming across it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Lisa Gergets
    Well, I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but it appears that Etsy has changed the format of our store urls. My shop used to be www . tinkerandpo . etsy . com and that's the url I've been using for most of my backlinking. Now it appears that the addy is www . etsy . com / shop / tinkerandpo

    Could that have something to do with it?
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    • Profile picture of the author Jill Carpenter
      Originally Posted by TinkerAndPo View Post

      Well, I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but it appears that Etsy has changed the format of our store urls. My shop used to be www . tinkerandpo . etsy . com and that's the url I've been using for most of my backlinking. Now it appears that the addy is www . etsy . com / shop / tinkerandpo

      Could that have something to do with it?
      Um, yeah!

      LOL, did they send you a warning on this?

      OH! you really should do this.

      Ok, this will get a bit crazy, but you might consider getting a different domain for the etsy shop alone, and using a "cname" on the domain options. It is different than a redirect and you can rank it.
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      • Profile picture of the author Lisa Gergets
        Originally Posted by avenuegirl View Post

        Um, yeah!

        LOL, did they send you a warning on this?

        OH! you really should do this.

        Ok, this will get a bit crazy, but you might consider getting a different domain for the etsy shop alone, and using a "cname" on the domain options. It is different than a redirect and you can rank it.
        Etsy is the venue...they control the domains for their shops. The shopowners have VERY little control as to what goes on behind the scenes, if any at all, really. And no, they didn't tell us, as sellers. They are FAMOUS for treating their sellers like sh!t, but we put up with it because there's nowhere else you can get the traffic and exposure you can get with Etsy...
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        • Profile picture of the author Intrepreneur
          Hey TinkerandPro. I notice you backlink using the subdomain.etsy.com rather than etsy.com/tinkerandpro. Not sure how this affects anything but might be worth swapping it raound because google seem to favour the other way.
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          • Profile picture of the author holla22
            Hi Tinker,

            The Google Caffeine Algo has been implemented and is messing with a lot of results. I'm in the gambling niche on google.co.uk, now when you type in online bingo you will see the third result. It has only about 300+ links to the site and it's out ranking most major players.

            This is mind boggling! Because the guys that where up there before the algo change had in the 70 000 of links and they've been there for over a year and is now gone with the wind.

            So I'm guessing that back links aren't counting that much anymore? Don't know for sure need to test it.

            What do you guys think?
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            • Profile picture of the author Martin Luxton
              There is a lot of speculation about Google's algorithm, but one thing I have seen repeated by quite a few of the SEO experts (including Dan Thies and Leslie Rohde) is that Google is looking for "natural" links.

              If the anchor text for every single backlink you have is "fingerless gloves" how natural is that?

              Maybe a few "cool gloves" and "warm gloves" backlinks would help.

              Again, this is what people are saying. It makes sense, but it is educated guesswork rather than fact.

              Martin
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              • Profile picture of the author holla22
                Originally Posted by Martin Luxton View Post

                There is a lot of speculation about Google's algorithm, but one thing I have seen repeated by quite a few of the SEO experts (including Dan Thies and Leslie Rohde) is that Google is looking for "natural" links.

                If the anchor text for every single backlink you have is "fingerless gloves" how natural is that?

                Maybe a few "cool gloves" and "warm gloves" backlinks would help.

                Again, this is what people are saying. It makes sense, but it is educated guesswork rather than fact.

                Martin
                I've seen sites that rank better when they use the same anchor a lot more then have multiple anchors.

                This has been tested and works. The thing is if I was your competition and I wanted you penalized for the main keyword then I could of just used the same keywords and spam the hell out it to effect your rankings so that you get dropped from the serps.

                But it does not work that way. Hmmm, something to think about right!
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                • Profile picture of the author Martin Luxton
                  Originally Posted by holla22 View Post

                  I've seen sites that rank better when they use the same anchor a lot more then have multiple anchors.
                  No argument there

                  Originally Posted by holla22 View Post

                  This has been tested and works. The thing is if I was your competition and I wanted you penalized for the main keyword then I could of just used the same keywords and spam the hell out it to effect your rankings so that you get dropped from the serps.

                  But it does not work that way. Hmmm, something to think about right!
                  They weren't saying you should have shedloads of multiple anchors, just that if ALL your backlinks were exactly the same it would likely flag your site as suspicious to Google. A sprinkling of alternative anchor texts here and there would allay suspicion.

                  Martin
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    • Profile picture of the author badfun
      Originally Posted by TinkerAndPo View Post

      Well, I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but it appears that Etsy has changed the format of our store urls. My shop used to be www . tinkerandpo . etsy . com and that's the url I've been using for most of my backlinking. Now it appears that the addy is www . etsy . com / shop / tinkerandpo

      Could that have something to do with it?
      That has everything to do with it I'm afraid. I went through the same a couple of years ago with sites I reorganized (changing directory structure just like this) and I thought they would bounce back after a couple of weeks. They never did. That is a shame that Etsy would do that, you are essentially starting from scratch.
      brent
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  • Profile picture of the author Popstar
    I googled "fingerless gloves etsy" (without the quotes) and you're #1 in the listings. But with just "fingerless gloves" (again without the quotes), you're nowhere to be found in the first 6 or 7 pages, but there are other etsy sites listed.

    I think Jay and Jill are right. Just do a little promotion.

    Debbie
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  • Profile picture of the author Lisa Gergets
    Yup, Popstar, that's exactly what I'm going to do!


    Thanks everyone!
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  • Profile picture of the author Loren Woirhaye
    Don't freak out - you'll probably get re-indexed for the
    phrase in a week or a month or sometime. Google shakes
    up for unknown reasons from time to time.

    That's why SEO traffic is unreliable and shouldn't be your
    whole traffic plan.
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    • Profile picture of the author Lisa Gergets
      Originally Posted by Loren Woirhaye View Post

      Don't freak out - you'll probably get re-indexed for the
      phrase in a week or a month or sometime. Google shakes
      up for unknown reasons from time to time.

      That's why SEO traffic is unreliable and shouldn't be your
      whole traffic plan.
      I've just never experienced a Google dance where my PR is gone as well as my backlinks.

      As far as traffic is concerned, I get a boatload of traffic from both Facebook and Twitter and, surprisingly, WF! LOL
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  • Profile picture of the author Lisa Gergets
    No, none of it. I have, in the past, had a free TinkerAndPo blogger blog, and I did buy tinkerandpo.com, so that's mine. The free wp.com blog looks like something I did when I didn't know anything about blogging. LOL I'll grab that and put it up properly hasta pronto.
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  • Profile picture of the author John Rogers
    Do Etsy shops typically retain PageRank? I suspect part of the problem might be that Google all of a sudden figured out your site was an Etsy shop and decided that a sales page with little content wasn't worthy of the previous ranking.

    Here's what I would do.

    Gloves fingerless is going to be much easier to rank for than fingerless gloves. I would change your primary keyword, at least until you get a foothold in the SERPs again. (knit fingerless gloves is good too)

    Buy a domain with the words fingerless and gloves in the name. Install Wordpress on that domain and start publishing content about your gloves. Create backlinks to the Wordpress site, and send the visitors from that site to Etsy instead of focusing on getting your Etsy store ranked.

    Keep doing what you were doing before. It obviously worked. But focus on your own site instead of Etsy.

    John
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    • Profile picture of the author Lisa Gergets
      Originally Posted by John Rogers View Post

      Do Etsy shops typically retain PageRank? I suspect part of the problem might be that Google all of a sudden figured out your site was an Etsy shop and decided that a sales page with little content wasn't worthy of the previous ranking.

      Here's what I would do.

      Gloves fingerless is going to be much easier to rank for than fingerless gloves. I would change your primary keyword, at least until you get a foothold in the SERPs again. (knit fingerless gloves is good too)

      Buy a domain with the words fingerless and gloves in the name. Install Wordpress on that domain and start publishing content about your gloves. Create backlinks to the Wordpress site, and send the visitors from that site to Etsy instead of focusing on getting your Etsy store ranked.

      Keep doing what you were doing before. It obviously worked. But focus on your own site instead of Etsy.

      John
      Done and done. Thanks John!
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  • Profile picture of the author kevinfar
    But what if the anchor texts were submitted in a consistent manner and were the same as well?

    Would that also trigger suspicion?
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  • Profile picture of the author Droopy Dawg
    "fingerless gloves" is pretty competitive, and Yahoo Site Explorer has you down for 2 backlinks for your URL (check it out)... may be time to write some articles or buy some links.
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  • Profile picture of the author Gail Sober
    I just searched for fingerless gloves without quotes and you're on page two. #14 to be exact. With quotes, 2nd page... #11 position.
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    • Profile picture of the author Elmer Hurlstone
      T&P,

      I pulled this from Google's Webmaster's Help Forum:

      #pagerank
      Q: My site's PageRank has gone up / gone down / not changed in months!
      A:       Don't worry. In fact, don't bother thinking about it. We only update the PageRank displayed in Google Toolbar a few times a year; this is our respectful hint for you to worry less about PageRank, which is just one of over 200 signals that can affect how your site is crawled, indexed and ranked. PageRank is an easy metric to focus on, but just because it's easy doesn't mean it's useful for you as a site owner. If you're looking for metrics, we'd encourage you to check out Analytics, think about conversion rates, ROI (return on investment), relevancy, or other metrics that actually correlate to meaningful gains for your website or business.
      PR, per se, may not have the importance we give it...

      Elmer
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      • Profile picture of the author Lisa Gergets
        Originally Posted by Elmer Hurlstone View Post

        T&P,

        I pulled this from Google's Webmaster's Help Forum:

        PR, per se, may not have the importance we give it...

        Elmer
        {whines} But I liiiiiiked my 3! :p
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    • Profile picture of the author Lisa Gergets
      Originally Posted by Gail Sober View Post

      I just searched for fingerless gloves without quotes and you're on page two. #14 to be exact. With quotes, 2nd page... #11 position.
      That. Is. So. Weird.

      Okay, carry on, nothing to see here....da da dummmm...la la laaaaaa....

      Please everyone, excuse the extreme freak-out. :rolleyes:

      For anyone interested, here's a link to the reasoning for all this.
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  • Profile picture of the author John Rogers
    You're still gray on the Google toolbar. It'll be interesting to see if it goes back to white, and if you get any pagerank back.

    John
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  • Profile picture of the author rondo
    It's at 15 for me without quotes. I'd go and get 20 quick links to the new url to give it a boost.

    Before you do that you may want to fix this small seo error: Your meta description does not currently contain your keyword at all. It appears that your meta description is generated from your Shop Announcement, so I suggest you change the following line: "TinkerAndPo has got you covered!" to "TinkerAndPo fingerless gloves have got you covered!"


    Andrew
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