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N00b, 4 months of learning smashed by Penguin

by trizzypballr
37 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I am a Novice at IM, I just started in January. I started off the route that im sure many of us do. I read the forum for about a month and read so many posts that said that the only way to become good at IM is to actually act, so I did. I didn't feel comfortable enough yet to do the whole "sha-bang" on my own yet so I ordered a few websites threw 2 different Micro Niche services on here, ordering 6 sites total.

In all honesty looking back at things now, all this really did was help me realize ways not to exceed! Truth be told I invested about $250 on these 6 sites, not including hosting or backlink services that I purchased. The articles were written by foreigners(certain articles cant even be understood fully), the layouts were extremely basic CTR pages, honestly they were pretty much exactly what Google is trying to stop. I didn't know any better at the time, so I couldn't complain about them.

I did as both Micro Niche Builders told me to, and ordered backlinks for the sites and got a few of them to actually rank. StatCounter showed users coming to my site (On average 30 a day) but little or no clicks. I believe I made $5 via adsense my first month after ranking those sites, which made me assume that the keywords were bad. I chalked it up to experience and moved on.

My next step was to purchase a keyword from someone selling keywords, I thought by doing so I know my keyword would be good and it would just be up to me to get the site itself right. I didn't feel totally comfortable doing the keyword research on my own yet, so I thought this would be the next step in my learning process. I grabbed the domain, built the site, but this time I could not get the site to rank.

During all of this time, I was still reading and learning everyday, so I decided to take what I learned to at least attempt to check my keywords in Google Keyword Tool, Traffic Travis, and Market Samurai. Upon doing so this new keyword seemed easier than some of the other sites I ranked. I used a small private blog network (that wasn't hit when the others were), social bookmarks, and web 2.0s to rank these sites. So post penguin this was a safe and supposedly effective way to rank easy ranking sites, it almost seemed as if maybe this domain was penalized previously or something.

Frustrated, and now owning 7 sites and still profiting nothing, I began searching for answers. I ended up friending someone on BHW who I thought was a sincere person really trying to help me out. He offered to sell me a .com MNS that he claimed he was making $50+ a month with to help get me moving in the right direction. Still not fully knowing the ropes I gladly made the purchase, not knowing at the time that a domain with a brandname in it was a no-no. Even though I didn't encounter any problems with the domain name yet, the site is not making any earnings at all. Now that i understand more, I realized that looking at the site AS A CUSTOMER there are no Adsense links on this page that a user would even be remotely interested in clicking. Its a "Medicine Side Effects" site, so there are no amazon products to try to sell on it either. The site gets approx 30 unique views a day, and has only earned maybe $5 in 2 months.

My next step as I learned more was to go back and look threw each of my sites and decide which ones I thought may be salvageable, and add more articles and do a total rehaul of the sites. Try to make them more user friendly to help with the bounce rate. Get them custom headers, add a you tube video..... I picked out 2 sites that were both products and seemed like buyer keywords. 1 of the sites, I couldn't get to rank, while the other was ranking on the first page, so I focused on that one.

The site I decided to focus on was seasonal, a pest product... So there were not very many adsense ads that actually pertained to the site, but I assumed it would get much better as it got warmer outside. I got the site up to about 70 unique views a day, and began to slowly implement a few amazon products onto it. They were very cheap products, so not much commission, but any income is better than what I was currently doing. Last month was my best month so far earnings wise, which was about 90% from this site. I made about $13 from adsense, and about $8 from amazon.

Things are starting to look good for me! I am starting to see some form of income, I begin to feel great about myself! I've finally made it! Now I just need to do what I did with this site, to more sites and my earnings will start to climb!

I came across Jan Roos method of building Amazon sites, it seems awesome! So I do my research and build my first site! Meanwhile, while I see my Amazon site start to honeymoon, and starting to build up more and more unique viewers every day, Penguin hits!

Penguin killed my site that was doing well for me! I went from about 70 unique views a day, down to 20! About half the pages that were ranking on that site are now no where to be found! Instead of getting down on this, I thought ok thats fine, I still have my Amazon site! Slowly I see my other site start to regain what it lost from Penguin! I got back to 30-40 uniques a day, and many of the pages that dissapeared were slowly coming back. This is great!!!

About a week and a half later, total tragedy hits! I wake up in the morning and check my rankings, sadly enough, but as I expected the honeymoon period of my Amazon site has ended, practually all of the pages dropped out of the top 100, and I had no unique views for the day yet. I thought to myself though, ok this was expected, I still have my other site that is slowly climbing back up from the "Penguin Massacre" it endured. I log in to statcounter to see how I am doing on the day, when I realize that I have NO VIEWS on that site! I go back to Rank Tracker to try to figure out what was going on, has Penguin hit twice!?!?!? 12 of the 15 pages on the site have dropped out of the top 100! The 3 pages still in the top 100 have dropped down to the 60s and lower...

I am trying so hard to get my foot in the door of IM. I lost my job due to a layoff back in January, and have yet to find another job, so I have been putting a lot of focus into IM since I have all of this free time, although I feel that every time I begin to get going with IM something forces me to start all over again! I am not the type of person to give up, I want to make IM my future! I want to be able to be my own boss, and give my family the lifestyle they deserve, as guys like Jan Roos have been able to! I do need some sort of guidance though. Is there a way I can save my site that Penguin demolished, or is it now damaged goods? I'm afraid to even try to backlink my new Amazon site, as I am afraid that even if I do backlink to to conform to what needs to be done according to Penguin, eventually another update will come out to kill that site also...

I've started a 2nd Amazon site, hoping to make a few sales during the honeymoon period while I try to figure out what to do about my other sites as far as backlinking goes, but obviously building a site every week and trying to make it off the honeymoon period isn't the way to go.

Any suggestions pointing me in the right direction would be a great help!
#learning #months #n00b #penguin #smashed
  • Profile picture of the author marc7
    Wow a lot of ups and downs! Sorry to hear bud! I can't go into deep details i only can go by what I experienced...

    I've had to 2 site end up in the "google sandbox" you can visit searchenginegenie.com to check your site if you'd like. When you are on the site click on "100 web tools" in the top left nav bar...The rest is simple...

    About Google Penguin You can submit a form to Google if you think your site has been hit by mistake. The guy who is over web spam says they have been evaluating the request pretty quickly...

    Here is the form: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...bkE6MQ&ndplr=1

    In the mean time if you used many paid services for back-linking, the service probably used bad links. If you can get a hold of the backlink reports you can undo the bad links and wait for Google to crawl your site again or you can submit a site evaluation by Google.

    I actually had 1 of my 2 site that was in the sandbox to pop back in the serps when penguin hit...but do not fret too much..learn to drive traffic from other sources so you will not have to put up with these Google updates...That is one thing I learned quickly!

    Hope this helped

    Marc7
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    Marc Bell Marketing.com | Branding. Selling. Networking
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    • Profile picture of the author Wealthyclark
      Over the years, I've found that my most successful strategies are rarely being discussed and when they are discussed it's not in detail.

      The way most people approach link building is considered spam anyway, that's why it doesn't work as it did in the past. The whole blogging and link building frenzy is getting pretty lame. Just look around, that's all everyone talks about but how many going that route ever make a real income? Not Many! (IMHO)
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      • Profile picture of the author trizzypballr
        Originally Posted by Wealthyclark View Post

        Over the years, I've found that my most successful strategies are rarely being discussed and when they are discussed it's not in detail.

        The way most people approach link building is considered spam anyway, that's why it doesn't work as it did in the past. The whole blogging and link building frenzy is getting pretty lame. Just look around, that's all everyone talks about but how many going that route ever make a real income? Not Many! (IMHO)
        I totally agree, but anyone that I talk to tells me that you MUST build links or you WILL NOT rank. I would love to find a Whitehat way to back link, but truth be told, artificially building any kind of link is against Googles terms. If you could share with me your secret, I would greatly appreciate it.
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    • Profile picture of the author trizzypballr
      Originally Posted by marc7 View Post

      Wow a lot of ups and downs! Sorry to hear bud! I can't go into deep details i only can go by what I experienced...

      I've had to 2 site end up in the "google sandbox" you can visit searchenginegenie.com to check your site if you'd like. When you are on the site click on "100 web tools" in the top left nav bar...The rest is simple...

      About Google Panda You can submit a form to Google if you think your site has been hit by mistake. The guy who is over web spam says they have been evaluating the request pretty quickly...

      Here is the form: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...bkE6MQ&ndplr=1

      In the mean time if you used many paid services for back-linking, the service probably used bad links. If you can get a hold of the backlink reports you can undo the bad links and wait for Google to crawl your site again or you can submit a site evaluation by Google.

      I actually had 1 of my 2 site that was in the sandbox to pop back in the serps when penguin hit...but do not fret too much..learn to drive traffic from other sources so you will not have to put up with these Google updates...That is one thing I learned quickly!

      Hope this helped

      Marc7
      A few things that you said here REALLY caught my attention. First off I'm interested in how I can remove backlinks? My main site I actually just grabbed a new domain, and was planning on just moving everything over to that domain, and wiping my old domain clean so I would not have to worry about google thinking I had duplicate content, although this may help a lot with a few other sites that I had that got hit that weren't really making much of anything, but its better to have them making something, than nothing.

      Another thing I wanted to ask you about was other ways to drive traffic to my sites other than google SERPs.

      I would have PMed you with these questions, but I don't have 50 posts yet so I was not able to.
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  • Profile picture of the author fresh68
    from what ive been reading here , adsense is a terrible business model.that being said i bought 10 sites from a company here selling sites and im making 10 -15 dollars a day,thinking of buying more and the google changes did not affect the sites at all.

    they are just simple adsense sites ,, not affilliate sites ,, im beggining to think google doesnt like affilliate sites with their adsense on them..
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    • Profile picture of the author trizzypballr
      Originally Posted by fresh68 View Post

      from what ive been reading here , adsense is a terrible business model.that being said i bought 10 sites from a company here selling sites and im making 10 -15 dollars a day,thinking of buying more and the google changes did not affect the sites at all.

      they are just simple adsense sites ,, not affilliate sites ,, im beggining to think google doesnt like affilliate sites with their adsense on them..
      Adsense IS a HORRIBLE business model, but it seems like it is the easiest for beginners to start out with. Its pretty simple to use Google Keyword Tool to find something with a good CPC and 1k+ local monthly searches, and then take your possible keywords over to Traffic Travis to check out the competition, and then grab EMDs (If they are available) of the keywords that you like and type up some content related to them. I forgot to add, that you must check to make sure that there are relevant Adsense ads to go with your site before jumping into buying a domain. But the point is Adsense is very simple.

      With that being said, realize that Google is a Juggernaut and does what ever they want to. Even some of the big dogs of the game have had their Adsense accounts banned, with no explanation as to why it was done. Adsense is great to earn a little cash, but you need to make sure to diversify with other ways to make money also, or you could be in trouble when Google hits your account with the ban hammer.

      $10-$15 a day is pretty decent for 10 MNS, thats averaging a dollar a day per site, which is better than what I was getting. How many pages does each site have?
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  • Profile picture of the author TheArticlePros
    There are ways to do this business that are proof against Panda & Penguin. I first got into IM around Christmas of 2010. The (now former) friend who was teaching me then was making a killing off of Ezine article marketing...I'm talking 5 figures a month just by sticking an article into Ezine and then slamming the bejeezus out of it with SE Nuke.

    It seemed easy enough and he taught me how to do it.

    And then Panda hit in Feb 2011 and that model went out the window.

    So I began looking for a new course of study and met up with my mentor who is a phenomenal teacher and a former search engine employee. He's been building AdSense sites for 10 years now, and he's never been hit by a single algorithm change.

    You know why?

    Without giving away all of his secrets, and he does have some doozies, the gist of his teachings are to build HIGH QUALITY site with UNIQUE articles on them and then manually backlink them only to related sites. Once you get into automation and hiring others to do the work for you, you lose control and run the risk of having things done that you might not approve of.

    Go back and look at your sites and aim for the following: Get all of your articles to be over 1000 words. Get your keyword density under 1.9%. Check out Spencer Hawes' article on AdSense placement:

    How to Test and Optimize Google Adsense on Niche Websites | Niche Pursuits

    Manually post 5-10 backlinks per day to authority sites. Silo your site structure. Rinse & repeat.

    It'll take time (3-6 months on some sites), but you will eventually build an empire that lasts.

    -- j
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    Posting About Life & Video Games:
    http://www.jarycu.com

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    • Profile picture of the author trizzypballr
      Originally Posted by JaRyCu View Post

      There are ways to do this business that are proof against Panda & Penguin. I first got into IM around Christmas of 2010. The (now former) friend who was teaching me then was making a killing off of Ezine article marketing...I'm talking 5 figures a month just by sticking an article into Ezine and then slamming the bejeezus out of it with SE Nuke.

      It seemed easy enough and he taught me how to do it.

      And then Panda hit in Feb 2011 and that model went out the window.

      So I began looking for a new course of study and met up with my mentor who is a phenomenal teacher and a former search engine employee. He's been building AdSense sites for 10 years now, and he's never been hit by a single algorithm change.

      You know why?

      Without giving away all of his secrets, and he does have some doozies, the gist of his teachings are to build HIGH QUALITY site with UNIQUE articles on them and then manually backlink them only to related sites. Once you get into automation and hiring others to do the work for you, you lose control and run the risk of having things done that you might not approve of.

      Go back and look at your sites and aim for the following: Get all of your articles to be over 1000 words. Get your keyword density under 1.9%. Check out Spencer Hawes' article on AdSense placement:

      How to Test and Optimize Google Adsense on Niche Websites | Niche Pursuits

      Manually post 5-10 backlinks per day to authority sites. Silo your site structure. Rinse & repeat.

      It'll take time (3-6 months on some sites), but you will eventually build an empire that lasts.

      -- j
      I feel that my site does have some quality, as I do write about problems and how to solve them, although I feel that some of the topics are so closely related, that it is obvious I am grabbing terms off of GKWT.

      It is awesome that you were able to find a great mentor! I wish I could be that lucky :-)

      As far as sticking to only backlinks to sites that pertain to your topic is a very good idea, because I cannot see google penalizing you for that. How do you find sites besides forums that you can actually comment that are DoFollow though?

      When you say 5-10 backlinks a day, what type of backlinks are you talking about? Forum Profiles, Forum Posts, Blog comments?
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    • Profile picture of the author LilBlackDress
      Originally Posted by JaRyCu View Post

      There are ways to do this business that are proof against Panda & Penguin. I first got into IM around Christmas of 2010. The (now former) friend who was teaching me then was making a killing off of Ezine article marketing...I'm talking 5 figures a month just by sticking an article into Ezine and then slamming the bejeezus out of it with SE Nuke.

      It seemed easy enough and he taught me how to do it.

      And then Panda hit in Feb 2011 and that model went out the window.

      So I began looking for a new course of study and met up with my mentor who is a phenomenal teacher and a former search engine employee. He's been building AdSense sites for 10 years now, and he's never been hit by a single algorithm change.

      You know why?

      Without giving away all of his secrets, and he does have some doozies, the gist of his teachings are to build HIGH QUALITY site with UNIQUE articles on them and then manually backlink them only to related sites. Once you get into automation and hiring others to do the work for you, you lose control and run the risk of having things done that you might not approve of.

      Go back and look at your sites and aim for the following: Get all of your articles to be over 1000 words. Get your keyword density under 1.9%. Check out Spencer Hawes' article on AdSense placement:

      How to Test and Optimize Google Adsense on Niche Websites | Niche Pursuits

      Manually post 5-10 backlinks per day to authority sites. Silo your site structure. Rinse & repeat.

      It'll take time (3-6 months on some sites), but you will eventually build an empire that lasts.

      -- j
      Nice tips. And what do you suggest for those who got hit due to poor quality links? Starting over? Or building new quality links using the site that has poor quality links?
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      • Profile picture of the author RMPV89
        I just want to jump in and say that I know how you feel, OP.

        My site was just starting to get some good traffic. 300+ unique visitors every day and then bam, penguin struck and the next day my site had 0 visitors. It got penalized. I have no idea why. Then I checked my header tags. Doh! They were filled with spammy keywords. A big no no in the eyes of the Big G. So I removed them.

        My site still isn't on the first page. I'm trying to build quality links but so far, it isn't helping. I went from having 300+ unique visitors a day to 4 visitors (if im lucky). It has been a week and all my white hat optimizing hasn't helped. I don't know whether to ditch my site or continue my efforts on restoring it back to the top 10.

        Sigh. What to do... oh and I'm a noob too. This is only my first year actually using what I've learned in the world of IM. I'm starting to think that I should just sell a product or service instead of depending on affiliate sites that Google can take down at any time it pleases.
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      • Profile picture of the author trizzypballr
        Originally Posted by LilBlackDress View Post

        Nice tips. And what do you suggest for those who got hit due to poor quality links? Starting over? Or building new quality links using the site that has poor quality links?
        Im also wondering the same thing.
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        • Profile picture of the author azmanar
          Originally Posted by trizzypballr View Post

          Im also wondering the same thing.
          Hi,

          So no one really answered your question.

          I don't really know whether recovery from Penguin is futile or not. It is a pretty new update. In fact there was a Panda 2 weeks before the Penguin.

          The best bet is to START OVER. New niche, new content, new strategy.

          Why?

          New sites get indexed in not even 24hours.

          Ranking starts there and then, gradually goes up or down, as competing pages are indexed.

          Before you start, consider reading these tips to overcome Panda & Penguin.

          Edit: If you don't trust my review and consider them as speculation, then you can double-check with SEO Authorities listed in this external post here.
          Signature
          === >>> Tomorrow Should Be Better Than Today
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          • Profile picture of the author Jay Emo
            Trizzyp well done for taking action you certainly went for it, I've been getting into IM for the last two months but have only dipped my toe in the water due to the paralysis of analysis. Getting my ideas squashed by all the different theories going on around niche sites and what google want. You may of lost some cash and time but you also have learnt loads by the sounds. Good luck getting your sites back up there.
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            • Profile picture of the author trizzypballr
              Originally Posted by Jay Emo View Post

              Trizzyp well done for taking action you certainly went for it, I've been getting into IM for the last two months but have only dipped my toe in the water due to the paralysis of analysis. Getting my ideas squashed by all the different theories going on around niche sites and what google want. You may of lost some cash and time but you also have learnt loads by the sounds. Good luck getting your sites back up there.
              Thank you, and good luck on your journey! Dont be afraid, jump in! Its the best way to learn! Hopefully you have picked up a few things from my mistakes, and will make your journey at least a little easier!
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          • Profile picture of the author trizzypballr
            Originally Posted by azmanar View Post

            Hi,

            So no one really answered your question.

            I don't really know whether recovery from Penguin is futile or not. It is a pretty new update. In fact there was a Panda 2 weeks before the Penguin.

            The best bet is to START OVER. New niche, new content, new strategy.

            Why?

            New sites get indexed in not even 24hours.

            Ranking starts there and then, gradually goes up or down, as competing pages are indexed.

            Before you start, consider reading these tips to overcome Panda & Penguin.

            Edit: If you don't trust my review and consider them as speculation, then you can double-check with SEO Authorities listed in this external post here.

            Thank you for your response, I read your article, very good read!

            I have a question about starting over. I feel that my articles were well written and informative on my main site that I lost. None were spun articles or anything like that. Ive been thinking, couldnt I just whipe that domain clean, and load the site onto a new domain?

            Also as far as new domains go, from what ive noticed they rank well within the first week, and then after a week or 2 they totally disappear for a month or 2? Is this something im doing wrong, or is this normal?
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    • Profile picture of the author Seleyna
      Originally Posted by JaRyCu View Post

      There are ways to do this business that are proof against Panda & Penguin. I first got into IM around Christmas of 2010. The (now former) friend who was teaching me then was making a killing off of Ezine article marketing...I'm talking 5 figures a month just by sticking an article into Ezine and then slamming the bejeezus out of it with SE Nuke.

      It seemed easy enough and he taught me how to do it.

      And then Panda hit in Feb 2011 and that model went out the window.

      So I began looking for a new course of study and met up with my mentor who is a phenomenal teacher and a former search engine employee. He's been building AdSense sites for 10 years now, and he's never been hit by a single algorithm change.

      You know why?

      Without giving away all of his secrets, and he does have some doozies, the gist of his teachings are to build HIGH QUALITY site with UNIQUE articles on them and then manually backlink them only to related sites. Once you get into automation and hiring others to do the work for you, you lose control and run the risk of having things done that you might not approve of.

      Go back and look at your sites and aim for the following: Get all of your articles to be over 1000 words. Get your keyword density under 1.9%. Check out Spencer Hawes' article on AdSense placement:

      How to Test and Optimize Google Adsense on Niche Websites | Niche Pursuits

      Manually post 5-10 backlinks per day to authority sites. Silo your site structure. Rinse & repeat.

      It'll take time (3-6 months on some sites), but you will eventually build an empire that lasts.

      -- j
      I completely agree. It takes time and it pays to always invest on quality content. When I started on IM, I focused on a single niche and hired an expensive but great writer, it all paid off eventually.
      Thanks for inspiring people!
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  • Profile picture of the author Miguelito203
    Originally Posted by trizzypballr View Post

    I am a Novice at IM, I just started in January. I started off the route that im sure many of us do. I read the forum for about a month and read so many posts that said that the only way to become good at IM is to actually act, so I did. I didn't feel comfortable enough yet to do the whole "sha-bang" on my own yet so I ordered a few websites threw 2 different Micro Niche services on here, ordering 6 sites total.

    In all honesty looking back at things now, all this really did was help me realize ways not to exceed! Truth be told I invested about $250 on these 6 sites, not including hosting or backlink services that I purchased. The articles were written by foreigners(certain articles cant even be understood fully), the layouts were extremely basic CTR pages, honestly they were pretty much exactly what Google is trying to stop. I didn't know any better at the time, so I couldn't complain about them.

    I did as both Micro Niche Builders told me to, and ordered backlinks for the sites and got a few of them to actually rank. StatCounter showed users coming to my site (On average 30 a day) but little or no clicks. I believe I made $5 via adsense my first month after ranking those sites, which made me assume that the keywords were bad. I chalked it up to experience and moved on.

    My next step was to purchase a keyword from someone selling keywords, I thought by doing so I know my keyword would be good and it would just be up to me to get the site itself right. I didn't feel totally comfortable doing the keyword research on my own yet, so I thought this would be the next step in my learning process. I grabbed the domain, built the site, but this time I could not get the site to rank.

    During all of this time, I was still reading and learning everyday, so I decided to take what I learned to at least attempt to check my keywords in Google Keyword Tool, Traffic Travis, and Market Samurai. Upon doing so this new keyword seemed easier than some of the other sites I ranked. I used a small private blog network (that wasn't hit when the others were), social bookmarks, and web 2.0s to rank these sites. So post penguin this was a safe and supposedly effective way to rank easy ranking sites, it almost seemed as if maybe this domain was penalized previously or something.

    Frustrated, and now owning 7 sites and still profiting nothing, I began searching for answers. I ended up friending someone on BHW who I thought was a sincere person really trying to help me out. He offered to sell me a .com MNS that he claimed he was making $50+ a month with to help get me moving in the right direction. Still not fully knowing the ropes I gladly made the purchase, not knowing at the time that a domain with a brandname in it was a no-no. Even though I didn't encounter any problems with the domain name yet, the site is not making any earnings at all. Now that i understand more, I realized that looking at the site AS A CUSTOMER there are no Adsense links on this page that a user would even be remotely interested in clicking. Its a "Medicine Side Effects" site, so there are no amazon products to try to sell on it either. The site gets approx 30 unique views a day, and has only earned maybe $5 in 2 months.

    My next step as I learned more was to go back and look threw each of my sites and decide which ones I thought may be salvageable, and add more articles and do a total rehaul of the sites. Try to make them more user friendly to help with the bounce rate. Get them custom headers, add a you tube video..... I picked out 2 sites that were both products and seemed like buyer keywords. 1 of the sites, I couldn't get to rank, while the other was ranking on the first page, so I focused on that one.

    The site I decided to focus on was seasonal, a pest product... So there were not very many adsense ads that actually pertained to the site, but I assumed it would get much better as it got warmer outside. I got the site up to about 70 unique views a day, and began to slowly implement a few amazon products onto it. They were very cheap products, so not much commission, but any income is better than what I was currently doing. Last month was my best month so far earnings wise, which was about 90% from this site. I made about $13 from adsense, and about $8 from amazon.

    Things are starting to look good for me! I am starting to see some form of income, I begin to feel great about myself! I've finally made it! Now I just need to do what I did with this site, to more sites and my earnings will start to climb!

    I came across Jan Roos method of building Amazon sites, it seems awesome! So I do my research and build my first site! Meanwhile, while I see my Amazon site start to honeymoon, and starting to build up more and more unique viewers every day, Penguin hits!

    Penguin killed my site that was doing well for me! I went from about 70 unique views a day, down to 20! About half the pages that were ranking on that site are now no where to be found! Instead of getting down on this, I thought ok thats fine, I still have my Amazon site! Slowly I see my other site start to regain what it lost from Penguin! I got back to 30-40 uniques a day, and many of the pages that dissapeared were slowly coming back. This is great!!!

    About a week and a half later, total tragedy hits! I wake up in the morning and check my rankings, sadly enough, but as I expected the honeymoon period of my Amazon site has ended, practually all of the pages dropped out of the top 100, and I had no unique views for the day yet. I thought to myself though, ok this was expected, I still have my other site that is slowly climbing back up from the "Penguin Massacre" it endured. I log in to statcounter to see how I am doing on the day, when I realize that I have NO VIEWS on that site! I go back to Rank Tracker to try to figure out what was going on, has Penguin hit twice!?!?!? 12 of the 15 pages on the site have dropped out of the top 100! The 3 pages still in the top 100 have dropped down to the 60s and lower...

    I am trying so hard to get my foot in the door of IM. I lost my job due to a layoff back in January, and have yet to find another job, so I have been putting a lot of focus into IM since I have all of this free time, although I feel that every time I begin to get going with IM something forces me to start all over again! I am not the type of person to give up, I want to make IM my future! I want to be able to be my own boss, and give my family the lifestyle they deserve, as guys like Jan Roos have been able to! I do need some sort of guidance though. Is there a way I can save my site that Penguin demolished, or is it now damaged goods? I'm afraid to even try to backlink my new Amazon site, as I am afraid that even if I do backlink to to conform to what needs to be done according to Penguin, eventually another update will come out to kill that site also...

    I've started a 2nd Amazon site, hoping to make a few sales during the honeymoon period while I try to figure out what to do about my other sites as far as backlinking goes, but obviously building a site every week and trying to make it off the honeymoon period isn't the way to go.

    Any suggestions pointing me in the right direction would be a great help!
    Dang, that''s a long post. I did, however, mangaged to get through it. It's at time like these I wish I had more of an appreciatation for the written word. Anyway, I've had my blog for a little more than two years. It's gone through up and downs. Interestingly though, all the updates that Google has been making to its algorithm for the past year or so have helped my site -- except with Penguin.

    My traffic has gone down a bit, but not as nearly as much as other people's traffic. The strange thing is that the only reason for the small drop in traffic is due to less traffic to only a couple of keywords in particular. Everything else has pretty much stayed the same. I also published a review during the update, which has sent me some traffic. It hasn't been as much as usual since the product had been released before, and there was a ton more competition.

    I'm looking forward to publishing some new content in the coming days with less competition to see what happens since I think the update is done for now. As for your situation, perhaps you should consider ghostwriting on elance or something like that. It would be a way for you to get paid via Paypal and not worry about the search engines.

    Good luck,
    Joey
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    • Profile picture of the author trizzypballr
      Originally Posted by Miguelito203 View Post

      I'm looking forward to publishing some new content in the coming days with less competition to see what happens since I think the update is done for now. As for your situation, perhaps you should consider ghostwriting on elance or something like that. It would be a way for you to get paid via Paypal and not worry about the search engines.

      Good luck,
      Joey
      Sorry about the long post, thanks for reading though!

      Everyone seems to think that I have decent writing skills, although I hate writing. LoL. I write articles for my sites because I know that I have to if I want to be successful, but I dread every minute of it! LoL Someone would have to pay very well for me to actually be motivated to write for someone else.
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  • Profile picture of the author ishuvonet
    Normally it takes time to make money from adsense sites.So keep some variation in your incomes sources,thats what exactly I did.Probably an online job besides your business is more than helpful.One of my major site also hit by penguin,It was a 2 year old site and I just started to build backlinks for it and I got punished.I already request a reconsideation by filling their feedback form but I doubt Google will listen since many high quality 10 year old sites also got hit drastically by this update.

    So there are two ways you can adopt

    -Dont rely only on sites to make money.

    -If you rely on sites for your income,dont rely on Google only for getting traffic.Make full use of social media sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author BulletheadX
    Originally Posted by trizzypballr View Post

    In all honesty looking back at things now, all this really did was help me realize ways not to exceed!
    "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
    ― Thomas A. Edison
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  • Profile picture of the author YasirYar
    Trust me, everyone has been through major setbacks in their internet marketing careers. A lot of newbies think that this is the first time Google has majorly changed its algorithm, but it happens on a regular basis, and almost always, internet marketers are able to recover. This time is no different.

    Clearly, you've had a much more difficult time in this field than a lot of people starting out, and most would have given up by know. Kudos to you for still wanting success.

    I would strongly recommend that you start small, with low investments. There is no point in paying people any amount to write unreadable content. The only thing you should consider paying for, besides domain names and hosting of course, is backlink building. Having said that, don't just pay anyone for it. Make sure the person knows what they are doing, specially after the Panda Update. This is key, since your site could get penalized yet again if you hire someone who is adopting unacceptable link building techniques.

    Don't fear the search engine algorithm updates. If they want to get rid of your website, they will. Just make sure you don't adopt fake link building tactics. Keep things as natural as possible, and make sure the links are only on relevant sites.

    Make your mistakes worthwhile - learn from them

    Best,

    Yasir
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  • Profile picture of the author michaelgee123
    Ouch! I have had the same problems with my website! Randomly each keyword does not rank in the top 100!
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    • Profile picture of the author trizzypballr
      Originally Posted by michaelgee123 View Post

      Ouch! I have had the same problems with my website! Randomly each keyword does not rank in the top 100!
      I have a site that was an easy to rank keyword, but for some reason could not get it to rank consistently. The site had 5 pages, 1 main keyword targeted on each page. The pages would take turns ranking for the day, one day a page would rank 30th, maybe 1 other page would join it, but the others were no where to be found. The next day a different page would rank, and the page the ranked yesterday would be no where to be found. Once Penguin hit that site was totally killed though.
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  • Profile picture of the author JeanneLynn
    I know how you feel. I started making a few new websites after Penguin, but now I think I'm just going to spend my time writing Kindle books and ebooks. I'm not going to waste anymore time writing informative content that Google will just hide from potential readers.

    I hope things get better for you.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dragontech
    No worries! about 80% of my affiliate sites (around 20 posts each) got hit by Penguin but after testing to find out the causes some of them are slowly climbing back :-)

    There are still some linkbuilding tests running so I thought I shouldn't jump into conclusion as to the "main cause" for most sites

    Here's what I've done for all those sites that are moving up again (some are slowly moving up but some are moving pretty fast):

    1) diversifying the anchor text - if you're using any linkbuilding software you can do something like this

    {lose weight fast|yoururl.com|click here|lose weight fast|how to lose weight|weight loss for women|learn more|visit here|lose weight fast|this site}

    You may search "Getspintax" and use this tool to help speed up a bit (sorry my post count does not allow posting link yet )

    Basically I've set them to have about 30-50% chances for the targeted anchor text while the remaining ones are for diversification. Just keep this in mind and do the same if you're building links manually (I used to have like 70 to 90% of the same anchor text)

    A little tip: Now for each post/page I would have at least 3 anchor text targeted. Not only has it helped to take fuller advantage of each post you have, but it will give more diversification for the anchor text (just spend a little time to do further kw research for each post, it'll certainly pay off)

    Frankly this has the most obvious positive impact for the sites that are regaining ranks, but if you'd like to go further, I think the following few tips might also help:

    2) start drip feeding your links to other pages - don't point all your links to the homepage (or just 2 or 3 pages if you have more than 10 pages)

    3) get some high pr contextual links (preferably homepage links) from Fiverr "without" using your targeted anchor text, use anchor text like your url or "click here". (read their reviews carefully before ordering, some are fake and that you can easily tell)

    4) don't stop building links, but do focus on Both quality and quantity

    5) be patient.

    There are some more testing going so I think it's better to share only when there is obvious positive rank movement due to those changes.

    Don't panic man! Just test different things out and I'm sure some of your sites are gonna come back strong again! Playing with Google is really not that hard with a positive mind!

    If you're really serious about building passive income through affiliate sites, do consider building your own blog network (a few high pr blog with low OBL could already be very strong), it's definitely worth it in the long-term.

    What's better than working at home? :-)

    Hope it helps!
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    • Profile picture of the author tylerherman
      Start building a business instead of trying to make money online. As in provide a product or service people want.

      Learn from your mistakes, which you've made lots of. Never trust anyone. Most of the info on here is either wrong or outdated. Shortcuts **** you over in the end. Don't buy products if you don't know what you are doing, just do it yourself so you can learn and save money.

      That handful of sites was never going to get your anywhere, regardless of penguin. If you want to make a living with niche sites you need 50+. Don't stop until you have 50+. IM is harder than a day job because there is no guaranteed pay. You have to bust your ass and are accountable for everything you do.

      Again, the real money makers in IM start a real business with a product people want. You might get lucky with niche sites but for most people they don't see longterm success.

      The sites you built are new, there is nothing keeping you from digging them out of the penalty box, although it doesn't sound like they are making much.
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  • Profile picture of the author Daniel Deegan
    I know it sucks and feels really discouraging. I would take it as a lesson in what not to do. As the poster above said, focus on building a business that creates value, not just something to make money online.

    Goto the library or buy some books from amazon (I can post recommendation if you like).

    Shift your thinking from "how can I make money online?" to "how can I create value others will pay for and offer it online?"

    Hope this helps,
    Daniel.
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  • Profile picture of the author cashcow
    I think there are two lessons here…

    1. As mentioned by a couple of people above, focus on creating a business that adds value.

    2. Don't depend on search engine rankings for traffic. There will always be google updates that are out of your control.
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  • Profile picture of the author louie6925
    Its not for me to say, but its getting more and more apparent that simplky relying on Google is very time consuming just to end up getting slammed by big G.

    I personally believe SEO should be left to the pros that have the ability to keep up with google and their constant changes. For a noob as the OP stated he was, is alot of work and alot of time and I personally think all that work channelled in other areas could result in more money anyhow!

    ...just my two cents
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  • Profile picture of the author azmanar
    Originally Posted by trizzypballr View Post

    Any suggestions pointing me in the right direction would be a great help!
    Hi,

    You took action. Now you have the experience you need to be successful. Your 4 months of focused efforts counts. You know what doesn't work anymore, so don't go the same path again.

    Don't follow the herd mentality and accept popular believes. Play it safe by regularly viewing opinions from the wiser ones in WF. Do it in your future undertakings.

    Here's a WF blog post that might give you some answers.
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  • Profile picture of the author lossman29
    Don't get beat by Penguin. Continue building links, diversify your backlink profile and you will be back in the game. Have some patience.
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    "There is light at the end of the tunnel. Have some faith and work hard. ALWAYS."

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  • Profile picture of the author Metrix9
    Agree with lossman29.. just be patient.
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    • Profile picture of the author TheIndex
      Sounds like you have some of the same problems I have, except that I do not build many back-links because I just don't know how.

      People say "find some blogs to guestblog on". Well, how do I know how many I have to do? It's REALLY defeating doing 4 or 5 guestblogs and then not seeing them even register as backlinks for 4 weeks and then you don't see any movement.

      So, I have to be writing QUALITY 600 word articles for people every week?

      They say to build web 2.0's. Well, how many? I mean I have 50 page sites.

      Do I do 10 guest posts, 3 link pyramids with 5 first tier blogs each?

      and then move onto my next keyword for that site? Or do I keep going with one post?

      Even then, you have to wait 1 month to see if your keyword moves, but is that enough to move it? I mean the competitor has 50 links that are not optimized.

      Do you just kind of guess how many backlinks you need?

      Those are the things that get me down, and when I do link things up like that, I find that I'm only linking/promoting 1 page at a time when I have a total of 400 pages throughout all domains to promote.

      Think things would be better if you knew how many backlinks you need TO even see SOME movement at all in the serps....

      Those are the things going through my head that stop me from building good backlinks.... Are those things going through your head when you think about manually creating backlinks?
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  • Profile picture of the author msu
    You've been through some up and downs already and you're still here. That means you have tenacity and that will help you a lot.

    If it were me, I would choose one of my sites to build out and get ranking again. Don't try and rescue them all at the same time and don't setup a new site. Unless you have some dubious links it'll be quicker to fix the site that was ranking than to start all over again from scratch.

    Take time to make the articles longer (a few hundred words) and really useful to someone. Get rid of any duplicate content - whether it's unoriginal posts that came from somewhere else (if you have any) or places on your site where posts appear twice (on a tag page, for example).

    Then get promoting on Twitter, Google+, Facebook and Pinterest (if that's a good fit).

    Keep going like that and you'll get there. The new SEO is great, original content.

    Good luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author dotgirish
    As few told here, few things which you need to do are

    -Get some guest blogs done on your same niche.
    -Create quality web 2.0 with relevant content
    -Send some social signals to these backlinks.
    -Be patient
    -Double check your onpage SEO
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  • Profile picture of the author kimoftheworld
    The SERPs at a mess right now. Literally. And Penguin update isn't mature yet, so brace yourself and don't do anything drastic at the moment. This is a perfect time to learn and rethink our strategies.

    I would recommend you what I told my self and other people via my Google Penguin post here

    1. Google makes mistakes. They do, and yes, sometimes they have the courage and decency to admit it, with Matt Cutts in front of course. Since this is clearly a mistake, Google should correct it, clearly by rolling out another Penguin update.

    2. Google is clearly reacting to spam. Those dot edu sites that are currently ranking for the buy Viagra keyword have had their fair share of spammy blog comments and web 2.0 pages created ON them… these sites were among the favorites of high competition blackhat SEOs (those that usually work in viagra, ugg boots etc niches). The same can be said on the other keywords as reflected by the respective posts.

    3. SEO can be really very exciting. I am excited. I’m very excited to the point that I had to blog this after my half a year blogging hiatus. The SEO community has never been this alive, happy, sad, angry all at the same time. There’s even a petition on Change.org calling Google to kill the Penguin update.

    4. SEO is still an endless and viable source of FREE traffic that literally amounts to millions of dollars , and to dominate the game you need more knowledgeable and updated all the time. So kudos to you for reading this post, it means that you care about the industry.

    5. Penguin and previously the Panda update has made ranking in Google really hard for spammers and cheap businessmen and marketers, and yes, that’s good for the web since we all want quality web results right?

    6. Google’s Algorithm is not fool proof, there are glitches, loopholes and flukes and it’s the role of every responsible Internet user to safeguard the Internet.. unless of course Google is doing this on purpose, to make SEO seem unreliable. If that’s the case, then that will be the end of Google.
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    • Profile picture of the author TheArticlePros
      First off, please forgive me for any typos. My article writing biz has been swamped this week as I got in a deluge of orders over the weekend. It's 1A and my anti-typo thingamabobber isn't operational.

      Originally Posted by trizzypballr View Post

      I feel that my site does have some quality, as I do write about problems and how to solve them, although I feel that some of the topics are so closely related, that it is obvious I am grabbing terms off of GKWT.

      It is awesome that you were able to find a great mentor! I wish I could be that lucky :-)

      As far as sticking to only backlinks to sites that pertain to your topic is a very good idea, because I cannot see google penalizing you for that. How do you find sites besides forums that you can actually comment that are DoFollow though?

      When you say 5-10 backlinks a day, what type of backlinks are you talking about? Forum Profiles, Forum Posts, Blog comments?
      There's nothing wrong with grabbing KWs off of the GKWT -- that's what it's there for. You have to make sure that they are relevant to the site and PROPERLY used in the content. If you just take a 1000 word article and randomly insert the keyword into it, Google's gonna hate you. If you at least rewrite an article, make sure that it has perfect English (no spelling errors, grammar errors, or typos), and the keywords flow naturally, then you've done what you are supposed to do.

      As far as finding a mentor, I was lucky as can be. This guy is phenomenal. He doesn't come over here to the WF, but he does visit other prominent forums.

      For backlinks, you want contextual backlinks if at all possible. Check out Alexa's post and MYOB's posts about article syndication and you'll start to get the idea. (They are both PHENOMENAL people to follow here by the way. If I happen to see that Alexa has posted something, I'll read the thread just to see what she posted.) Forum linking, comment linking, and even profile links are all necessary evils. You want to do them in moderation, though, and don't overdo any type of link. PR is also becoming a lot less important...Google is slowly phasing it out as an SEO factor. Try and find a few .EDU and .GOV links and throw those into the mix. If you're not good at finding them, Google "Paul's Backlinks" and sign up for his service.

      Originally Posted by LilBlackDress View Post

      Nice tips. And what do you suggest for those who got hit due to poor quality links? Starting over? Or building new quality links using the site that has poor quality links?
      If you have a site that was hit by Penguin, I'd start with the site and review the content. Any articles that aren't at least 1000 words need to be upgraded. As each article is upgraded, also check the ad placement and make sure it's properly SEO'd. Silo your site structure. Finally, go and start doing KW-related backlinks to the site.

      Originally Posted by Seleyna View Post

      I completely agree. It takes time and it pays to always invest on quality content. When I started on IM, I focused on a single niche and hired an expensive but great writer, it all paid off eventually.
      Thanks for inspiring people!
      I've slowly raised my prices and I've realized this from the other side of the counter, so to speak. I started off as one of those $0.01/word writers and I'm currently up to three times that. I'm about to raise my prices again because I'm gaining new skills every day and the quality of my articles continues to increase. People have to remember that a website is nothing but an empty XML file if there is no content. If there is @#$%ty content, I'd rather have the empty XML file.

      You need HIGH QUALITY and UNIQUE content if you want to begin to prevent frostbite to your site.

      -- j
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