Permanently Sandboxed?

15 replies
  • SEO
  • |
Hey guys,

I'm stumped. I have a few Clickbank products that were getting a lot of search traffic and making good money up until the end of September when they started dropping out of the SERPs. I cannot figure out what is causing this. Can anyone help figure this out?

Here is one of the sites: Getting Rid of Cellulite | How to Get Rid of Cellulite Thighs

Here's a screenshot of the search traffic for the past month.


As you can see, it gets nothing for a few weeks at a time, then comes back for a day or two, then disappears again. The site never gets de-indexed, it just loses all search traffic. It still shows up when I do a site search and still has PR.

What is the deal here? It has happened with more than one of my sites too around the same time. One of them regained its original SERP positions, two others are still sandboxed just like this one.

I'm so frustrated I put so much time and money into these sites and basically lost almost all my traffic and income out of nowhere.

Does anyone see anything obvious that I am missing??
#permanently #sandboxed
  • Profile picture of the author danicat
    Im sorry, no clue about the answer to your problem. Just wanted to say that finally someone said somethingsensible and factual about cellulite. Great copy, I almost wanted to pick it up, but cellulite is the least of my worries!
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2841065].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author BloggerHigh
    Perhaps changes to the google algorithm mean that they now think your landing page is substandard qualitywise.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2841627].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author Vogin
      Aren't you experiencing the beauty of Google Dance? You know, page getting up and down until it's settled?
      Signature

      ppcsluzby.cz/en - PPC agency


      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2841827].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author jyna
    I don't think it's google dance. I think they're trying new algorithms.
    What kind of back linking have you been doing? Have you done any significant changes lately?
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2841848].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author flavius333
    hyperlite,

    I have an identical experience with one of my sites. The graph looks too similar; I was averaging around 400-500 uniques per day and now only 30-50. It even came back to the old SERPS for 2 days and I was so glad; but now 2 long weeks have gone and no sign of coming back.

    However, in this period, positions have changed - from page 1 to page 2 and 3; I'm really hoping this is just "an innocent dance".

    Anyaway, if I were to mention what I've been doing lately that got me into this situation - I can't stop thinking that I may have exaggerated with Unique Article Wizard; I had around 850 backlinks to my site and launched a 30 article UAW campaign and got the number of links to around 1500 within a month or so.

    This may mean sandbox, but for how long ? Also, as a "cure" - I'm still posting quality 100% unique articles(at least 1 a day); and these days I'll launch a press release.

    From what I know, only consequence will get you out of any kind of penalty; I'm also thinking about launching another UAW campaign soon now.
    Signature
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2841936].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author dvduval
    Does this involve just one keyword or multiple?
    Signature
    It is okay to contact me! I have been developing software since 1999, creating many popular products like phpLD.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2860285].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Rob141
    This is normal. Give it some more time and the site will eventually "settle". It will still move around but you won't see those dramatic fluctuations.
    Signature

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2862235].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Gavin Abeyratne
    Hit the site with a few high PR 4+ links and .edu/.gov links and it will stabilize the rankings and traffic levels.

    You could also just wait it out, seems to me like there is some recalculation being done due to link velocity.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2862293].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author mark587905
    Google dance is a ball ache. JKust accepts it happens and dont waste time trying to figure it out. Keep building backlinks and adding quality fresh content and you will stabalize.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2862307].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Wesley Atkins
    Originally Posted by hyperlite View Post

    Does anyone see anything obvious that I am missing??
    Your site is not Sandboxed...

    It's dropped into the supplemental results..

    About 3/4 of the page down on your site, you have this string of text..

    "Are you ready to get rid of your cellulite for good and look sexy with your clothes off?
    "

    Put this into Google in quotes.." " - as above.

    ... you will see only 2 results and a link to the "Ommited Results" at the bottom...

    Click on this link and you will get another 284 results.

    Your site in on the last page in the supplemental / ommited results..

    90% of those results are replicas of your sales letter.

    This is one of the things I talk about in my book that causes filtering in Google and results dropping into supplemental results..

    Basically your site is not deemed as important as the others for that content / search query..

    Getting your results back..

    Even though it may just naturally come back after the next Google dance, if this was my site and I was dependant on the income, here is what I would do to ensure it came back permanently...

    1. Rewrite the sale letter so that page now has at least 40% unique copy. Don't change your core message, just make the copy a little unique.

    2. Make slight changes to the TITLE and description tag to make it unique.

    3. Install a Wordpress blog on the backend.

    4. Install the Ping.fm plugin for Wordpress & configure a handful of social accounts to auto update when you add posts. (giving you incoming links to the internal blog content)

    5. Make a new post every couple days, making sure I link back to the homepage with the cellulite keywords I was ranking for before. (within the body copy of the post.)

    6. Get 5 quality incoming links from related sites in the health industry

    -- You need to make your site appear unique again because of all the copies around the internet (that I'm assuming you made) and get a handful of quality links to the site to pull it out of the supplemental results..

    That's what I would do, if it were my site :-)
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2862368].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author mjzivko
    Just keep building your links. Most sites will have the fluctuation you are experience. I normally see this when there is a period of link building followed by a period of no link building. As long as you continue to pound your site with links the traffic will come back.

    Get yourself a few higher PR Links (4-6) and I bet your traffic comes back.

    Example. I just bought a PR 7 for a site that was only averaging 30-40 visits a day for almost a year. 1 week after getting the PR 7 link the traffic went to 120-140 hits a day.

    Hope this helps.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2862645].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author hyperlite
      Hey all,

      Just came back to the thread and I really appreciate all the feedback.

      You are correct about the supplemental results thing... wow. I checked on another one of my sites and exact same thing, sitting at the bottom of the supplemental results.

      This really worries me. Why would my site be so devalued when it is the original? And I did not create those copies, those are almost all affiliate pages.

      I must have really screwed up to have the original page sitting at the bottom of hundreds of exact duplicate sites.

      Also, to those claiming its the Google dance, that's not the case. My site went from page 1 to nowhere to be found. Not jumping between pages but completely out of the results. It's been over a month since I last got an organic search visit...
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2883774].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Jordan Kovats
    I have had spikes in the past, but I have been able to attribute them to pushing out content. I have to ask the obvious, what were the sources of the most of your traffic those days you peaked? Was it all Google?
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2883823].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author hyperlite
      Most traffic comes from affiliates, but I was getting good search traffic from Google for a few months before my site dropped off the face of the earth. I maintained 1st page rankings for a while, but then at some point around the end of September I lost all search traffic. Those two spikes you see there just came randomly in October. I have not gotten any search traffic since then.

      As for my linking, you can check in Yahoo, but its mostly from articles, profiles, web 2.0 pages, blog comments, and bookmarks. I starting to think I have some links in bad neighborhoods and got nailed for it.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2883860].message }}

Trending Topics