Networth, I truly don't know what to make of your post.

I don't get hung up on a lot of things people stress out on.

If you do the right things, consistently, you will succeed.

If you don't, and want to try and shmooze google once again,
you probably won't.

If you choose to start from scratch, and do the same thing, well,
what can I say?

Why not do a gut check. Look at your sites. Where does the improvement
need to be?

I myself have actually taken off in places I was not before. The others
have stayed pretty much the same.

But I am one of those people who choose to listen to google, and preach
that daily. Others, well, they seem to either turn a deaf ear to google, or
think they have some voodoo magic.

Can I make one suggestion? SEO your puppy site for training a puppy not to bite

Paul

Thanks for the comment Paul,

What to make of my post is a couple things. First I see people posting and complaining about Google all the time. As you have alluded to if things are done right Google isn't a problem

2nd I just see a lot of negativity in the forums. People love to complain and bash other people. I hoping to get a pull yourself up by your boot straps vibe going.

3rd I just want to hear if others have worked their way back from a Google slap and had success with that domain.

Thanks,
Aaron

I think that's a great post NetWorth.

Paul as far as a lot of people knew they were serving what Google wanted and their serp positions told them that.

Now that Google decided to tweak something the question is as Networth asked, how can people get their sites back to where they were and is that even possible now?

You say that you are listening to what Google is saying, does this mean that you have taken a site that was slapped recently and put it back where it was, If so how did you do that? I'm sure many people would be interested in knowing how....

Put some quality content on your sites and build some quality links to them.. Don't rely on article links and one page wonder niche sites..

Being able to rank quickly with little to no links and relying on the keywords in domain name is a thing of the past.. Think "real SEO"...

Is it cost effective/time effective to build quality links to your niche site? Will it pay off? If not toss the site and build a quality site where there is some real traffic not 8k searches a month.

Google devalued using the domain name to rank easily, people were putting up 1 page crap sites and getting to first page using only the domain name and a few article links.

I have about 15 niche sites myself, they all have quality content .. But they dont all have quality links. Two of my niche sites have some good links coming to them .. and guess what?? They are both still doing good one is even doing better than before the algo update.

I had a feeling this was going happen, no such thing as easy money. This niche site thing was an experiment for me.. I have larger sites, 100 to 300 page authority content sites that are doing better than ever. The key with them are quality articles (written for reader and not search engine) and a crap load of different types of links, and they are all 2 years of age and over.

So I believe you can make your niche sites work with time and links, but it is cost effective.. Google knows it is not cost effective to built good links to most these sites thus making them throw a-ways.

I have already started spending the money and time to build good links to all my niche sites, have too much money in articles and custom built templates to not push them as hard as possible.. But back to building what I know works and pays the bills.

Read this article from a Google Engineer .. second to last paragraph.

Google's Maile Ohye Morning Keynote - SES Toronto - Online Marketing Blog

Thanks Terry! and Great post and link Zingo,

This is just the type of constructive conversation I was hoping to get going. Question Zingo you said that you were building out your niche sites have you had any luck with moving them up in the rankings? I'm also working on some niche sites that were around before the fallout as well as an older site that use to have some dup content that wasn't ranking in google. I"m beginning to see the older site rank but not very well.

Has anyone recovered a domain that was knocked due to an algo change? How long did it take? I assume you used the usual good content and links to get it there Right?

I think that instances like this where Google has changed its algorithm (yet again!) is the best time to rethink your strategy from pleasing the search engines to pleasing the people that visits your site.

Shift your focus to building quality content and getting natural, one-way backlinks from your readers and followers. Get the authority sites to link to you and you will never be shaken by the constant change in algorithm.

Do not just write ordinary, rewritten or recycled content. Create something that people will go back to. Maybe a resource or a breakthrough in the niche. It has to be an amazing article that authentically helps people.

Come on guys. We go through Google's algorithm change again and again!

It is better to transform your ordinary visitors to returning visitors. And get traffic from other sources like social media and blogs. I am not saying that you boycott search engines because we simply cannot do that. I am just saying that you should not depend your website's life on the search engines alone.

I know that this has not answered your questions Networth. But I hope that it will help in some way.

Aira

That just aint gonna happen for newer sites.. Become a link ninja is the key..lol

I don't really know the answers to your questions but how I would proceed would depend on whether it is a major or minor slap. I would define a major slap as losing something over 75% of your traffic from Google. This would strongly suggest to me that some sort of penalty had been imposed on the whole domain and it would be very difficult to recover.

The 1st question is once you have been knocked down in the SERPS is it possible to get back to that first page with some good content and link building.

I have a few quality sites that have endured minor slaps from time to time but they tend to come up eventually as the site ages. All my sites that had major slaps had never recovered.

2nd question is whether you are better served to buy new domains and start over again. Is the distrust that Google now has for the site going to make to to hard to get back?

I would buy new domains for major slaps but stick with those that had minor slaps.

3rd Has anyone worked a site back from getting slapped and how long did it take? I have heard stories of several years to get back in Google's good graces is this true?

I can't answer that. It seems that the ranking do move up over time with quality sites.

4th and finally should you buy those new domains in a new hosting account?

I don't think you need to use a new hosting account unless a large number of your sites have been de-indexed. Large scale de-indexing suggests that a manual review may have taken place and they will come back again. However, if you are confident in building quality sites, then I would not worry about it.


Derek

If by MAJOR SLAP you mean - totally de-indexed - gonzo .... then Id start over.

If by MAJOR SLAP you merely mean going from a decent ranking to page 99 [ position = never to be found by an organic search ] - then yes, it cancome back.

Ive had 2 sites experience this back in Jan of 2010. 1st sent went from position 4 - to 800. Not its back to 4 and holding solid - 3 weeks of hell. But it had many links already ... a few articles. I built new links - lots of them. It came back.

2nd site was #6 for a very competitive term ... one where people are building hundreds of links a day for. it too went to never never land at the same time and for about the same time ... 3 weeks. During that 3 weeks there was a switch to 2 different hosting servers ... and I didnt backlink it as much - not enough time. it hascome back to position 15 - 16 and is stuck at best spot since #13. But again I have 1.5-2k links for it - others in hte niche have 4-5-6-7 thousand backlinks to their domains - all keyword targeted [ its in the seo niche ] so they all pretty much know whats up.

So all that to sat - yes they can come back from a big drop in hte serps - if youve been de indexed may be better to start over. Really start over or find a new niche - google has embedded flash cookies and shtuff everywhere - so im told ... they know who you is ...

"Lets try to be constructive and help everyone out instead of just bitching about how we got punished. Time to make money together!"

I couldn't agree more. Great post Aaron, and thanks very much to the others jumping in and offering insight!

"I think that instances like this where Google has changed its algorithm (yet again!) is the best time to rethink your strategy from pleasing the search engines to pleasing the people that visits your site."

Well put airabongco! Again I could hardly agree more. Not that Eben Pagan has a clue about any of this stuff....but I think it was a year or more ago that I heard him go into a fair bit of detail on this very point.

Best I can tell, those who are focused on long term real business building strategies with an emphasis on original, unique, and high quality content, as well as being much more focused on "how can I under promise and over deliver massive value" rather than "how can I make more money today", are the ones who will win in the end.

I have a lot of 'expiremental' sites out there, and none of them took a serious dive. Including autoblogs with no backlinks and only kw-rich domain names and basic onpage seo. heck, some of those autoblogs have actually jumped up so far that I'm goign back and prettying them up!

The Mayday slap was for MAY. Not for lost rankings in June. Check SEOMoz's blog video and it tells you very clearly that it's not for June.

Also, my sites that were hit were not for long tails and those were hit in June. NOT May.

I have had 2 sites that got major slaps.

Both of them recovered.

It took a few months and I just kept building consistent backlinks.

One of the sites lost up to 50% traffic.

The other lost 90% traffic.