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White Hatter Who Testified On Behalf Of Google Gets Eaten By Panda

by Sylonious
48 replies
  • SEO
    • |
The relationship between Google, Inc. and Tim can be illustrated by the fact that Tim has testified before on Google’s behalf when issues of anti-trust litigation have arisen, and he has been referenced as a success story on Google’s behalf on more than one occasion.

But something happened with 2011′s Panda and 2012′s Penguin updates that you may not be aware of: this knight-in-shining-armor for white hat SEO practices has lost 70% of his traffic thanks to updates that were supposed to reward “quality, original content” and “punish webspammers.”

Visit The Site To Read More
I am not the owner of the site.

This guy was a long time favorite of Google and he was often used as an example of a White Hat Adsense success story and he lost 70% of his traffic last year and even more after Penguin.

Please do whatever you can to get the word out about this article. Tweet it, link to it, like it, stumble it, make a Youtube video about it. Spread the word about it.

This is it, now or never!
#behalf #eaten #google #hatter #panda #testified #white
  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    There's a lot more to that story than what they would lead you to believe, basically their on-page SEO doesn't really exist.

    http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...rview-mp3.html

    This isn't about Google algo. updates, it's about not actually trying to rank a page.

    If your not doing on-page SEO or off-page SEO, what's left?

    Get all the facts before starting a witch hunt.
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    • Profile picture of the author Sylonious
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      There's a lot more to that story than what they would lead you to believe, basically their on-page SEO doesn't really exist.

      http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...rview-mp3.html

      This isn't about Google algo. updates, it's about not actually trying to rank a page.

      If your not doing on-page SEO or off-page SEO, what's left?

      Get all the facts before starting a witch hunt.
      I thought that was the point of the penguin update. To reward sites with great content, but no SEO. Google actually used his site as a white hat SEO example of a successful adsense publisher.

      So, I don't get what you're saying here.

      Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

      Can't people post this shtuff without giving lame
      people backlinks?!?!

      Does "the average genius" need to get spam links?

      Paul
      I have to give attribution back to the original site that I quoted.
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Sylonious View Post

        I thought that was the point of the penguin update. To reward sites with great content, but no SEO. Google actually used his site as a white hat SEO example of a successful adsense publisher.

        So, I don't get what you're saying here.
        Lol, it doesn't matter what Google ever says about SEO or ranking a page in the SERPs, there's only two important things to rank a page, links + text.

        There's no panda, penguin, or kangaroo rewards for ranking in the SERPs, a guy either does SEO (links, text) or their not really interested in ranking a page.
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      • Profile picture of the author retsek
        Originally Posted by Sylonious View Post

        I thought that was the point of the penguin update. To reward sites with great content, but no SEO. Google actually used his site as a white hat SEO example of a successful adsense publisher.

        So, I don't get what you're saying here.
        Google prides itself in saying that their left hand doesn't know what their right is doing. Whether or not, we believe that is another matter. It's what they state publicly and there's evidence that it is so. Just look at the adsense team recommending prominent above the fold positions while the search quality teams releases an algo the specifically filters sites that do that.

        If the site has issues that makes it likely to be filtered by Panda, then that has nothing to do with the Adsense team's recommendations or case studies or the fact that he testified for them.
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        • Profile picture of the author Sylonious
          I really wasn't focused much on his "abandon the search engines" talk. Stress will do that to you sometimes. You lose 70% of your income and it will eat away at you over time. So I understand him saying to "hell with it", but I can't do that.

          I do believe that this article was educational because you have all these people who are abandoning SEO after the algo change. Now we have an example of a person who had great content and didn't do any SEO and his site was still hit by Panda. You can't get any better than having a natural link and endorsement from Google themselves.

          Also I've noticed a recurring theme with these authority "white hat" sites being hit by Google. They all have a ton of their content being plagiarized on other sites.

          This makes me wonder would it help if you did DMCA notices for all the sites that scrape your content? Then did a DMCA with Google to get the cache removed?

          Probably a ton of work, but I know you can hire a VA to get this work done.

          Originally Posted by yukon View Post

          Lol, it doesn't matter what Google ever says about SEO or ranking a page in the SERPs, there's only two important things to rank a page, links + text.

          There's no panda, penguin, or kangaroo rewards for ranking in the SERPs, a guy either does SEO (links, text) or their not really interested in ranking a page.
          I know that's the reality, but if they tell him specifically that he is doing the right thing that's completely different. They even used him as an example for other adsense publishers.
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          • Profile picture of the author yukon
            Banned
            Originally Posted by Sylonious View Post

            I really wasn't focused much on his "abandon the search engines" talk. Stress will do that to you sometimes. You lose 70% of your income and it will eat away at you over time. So I understand him saying to "hell with it", but I can't do that.

            I do believe that this article was educational because you have all these people who are abandoning SEO after the algo change. Now we have an example of a person who had great content and didn't do any SEO and his site was still hit by Panda. You can't get any better than having a natural link and endorsement from Google themselves.

            Also I've noticed a recurring theme with these authority "white hat" sites being hit by Google. They all have a ton of their content being plagiarized on other sites.

            This makes me wonder would it help if you did DMCA notices for all the sites that scrape your content? Then did a DMCA with Google to get the cache removed?

            Probably a ton of work, but I know you can hire a VA to get this work done.



            I know that's the reality, but if they tell him specifically that he is doing the right thing that's completely different. They even used him as an example for other adsense publishers.
            Here's the thing about most large sites that pump out content very fast (ehow, etc...). A lot of large sites are not very focused on ranking specific keywords, they rank keywords by bombarding the SERPs with thousands of relevant keywords.

            A smaller site with say 1,000 pages has it a lot easier as far as staying focused on ranking specific keywords that bring in the traffic. It's just easier to manage 1k pages than 1 million pages.

            I know Google used his site as a positive example on their Adsense blog, but that is no reason for ATB to drop the ball & not do SEO.
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            • Profile picture of the author Sylonious
              Originally Posted by yukon View Post

              Here's the thing about most large sites that pump out content very fast (ehow, etc...). A lot of large sites are not very focused on ranking specific keywords, they rank keywords by bombarding the SERPs with thousands of relevant keywords.

              A smaller site with say 1,000 pages has it a lot easier as far as staying focused on ranking specific keywords that bring in the traffic. It's just easier to manage 1k pages than 1 million pages.

              I know Google used his site as a positive example on their Adsense blog, but that is no reason for ATB to drop the ball I not do SEO.
              It wasn't so much that he dropped the ball. It was that he was encouraged not to do SEO by Google. They used him as an example because he didn't do any on-page SEO.

              Had they not praised him for that he probably would have picked up SEO on his own. He was apart of an SEO mastermind group and they didn't really say anything. What can you say to a guy when Google links to them and uses them as an example of what to do.

              Originally Posted by imlogic View Post

              Google has to change the rankings because they dont want people creating websites for the sole purpose of ranking. They do not want people to base their business models around organic traffic so every so often they mess people up. They change up the rankings and everybody runs around like chickens with their heads cut off...

              "ooooh google now wants this or that, this isnt working anymore, dont do this, do that..." the truth is it doesnt matter. Do whatever you want and once you think you've figured it out your rankings will change again.
              Lol, that's the big misconception. The top guys are still ranking and pulling in money. The guy in my niche was #1 and he dropped to #2 just under the product owner now. He also had 10-15 other sites in the top 5 for the profitable keywords he's targeting.

              He's ranking with his own private network of sites. None of the sites in his blog network were de-indexed.
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              • Profile picture of the author retsek
                Originally Posted by Sylonious View Post

                It wasn't so much that he dropped the ball. It was that he was encouraged not to do SEO by Google. They used him as an example because he didn't do any on-page SEO.

                Had they not praised him for that he probably would have picked up SEO on his own. He was apart of an SEO mastermind group and they didn't really say anything. What can you say to a guy when Google links to them and uses them as an example of what to do.
                Will you stop saying that? Where did Google praise him for SEO ? Where did they use the word "white hat" ?

                They used his site an example of what adsense publishers should aspire in terms on content creation.

                There is no excuse for him barely doing any SEO at all at that level. And to just give up as soon as Panda hit and not even try to recover by making changes that WERE needed.
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              • Profile picture of the author yukon
                Banned
                Originally Posted by Sylonious View Post

                It wasn't so much that he dropped the ball. It was that he was encouraged not to do SEO by Google. They used him as an example because he didn't do any on-page SEO.

                Had they not praised him for that he probably would have picked up SEO on his own. He was apart of an SEO mastermind group and they didn't really say anything. What can you say to a guy when Google links to them and uses them as an example of what to do.
                Yes, ATB did drop the ball on SEO. ATB made their own decisions to stop doing SEO, they also did a major site overhaual that didn't turn out so well SEO wise.

                Like retsek said above, ATB was featured on the Adsense blog, that featured article has nothing to do with SEO, Google was promoting Adsense not SEO.

                I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but If people seriously think Google is going to help them with SEO, they are dreaming! Googles income is based on Adwords, the organic SERPs is just a way to generate traffic for Adwords. This was Googles business model from the start (1997), so don't all the anti-Google folks (people in general) start preaching "Google just wants us to buy Adwords" (well duh...).
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                • Profile picture of the author dmtaylor247
                  Originally Posted by yukon View Post

                  Yes, ATB did drop the ball on SEO. ATB made their own decisions to stop doing SEO, they also did a major site overhaual that didn't turn out so well SEO wise.

                  Like retsek said above, ATB was featured on the Adsense blog, that featured article has nothing to do with SEO, Google was promoting Adsense not SEO.

                  I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but If people seriously think Google is going to help them with SEO, they are dreaming! Googles income is based on Adwords, the organic SERPs is just a way to generate traffic for Adwords. This was Googles business model from the start (1997), so don't all the anti-Google folks (people in general) start preaching "Google just wants us to buy Adwords" (well duh...).
                  Look at the pagerank of the links they gave him and the source - they are a very high quality backlinks, plus look how much Google actually earns from Adsense $10 Billion a total of 27% of their total revenue.

                  It's not the first time that Google have given some pretty powerful links to websites that support their services like Adsense and Google checkout. This isn't an isolated case.

                  Here look at all these people getting pagrank 6 links from Google;

                  Google Checkout

                  Pagerank 7 links here;

                  https://www.google.com/adsense/success

                  There are countless more examples of Google building links to websites across websites they own, you never had a link from Google? you never know you might have one somewhere, but you just don't know it.

                  So what you trying to say Yukon.. that Google don't do seo, it's looks like they are trying to manipulate their own algo from where I'm standing. Just right after a load of people complained on this forum about the pagerank 10 Google play link on their homepage they removed it.

                  It must have benefited him at some point, I don't know what he's bitching about, he made alot of money, enough money to retire.. why be greedy? unless he's blown it all on cruise holidays! LOL
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                  • Profile picture of the author yukon
                    Banned
                    Originally Posted by dmtaylor247 View Post

                    Look at the pagerank of the links they gave him and the source - they are a very high quality backlinks, plus look how much Google actually earns from Adsense $2.88 billion a total of 27% of their total revenue.

                    It's not the first time that Google have given some pretty powerful links to websites that support their services like Adsense and Google checkout. This isn't an isolated case.

                    Here look at all these people getting pagrank 6 links from Google;

                    Google Checkout

                    Pagerank 7 links here;

                    https://www.google.com/adsense/success

                    There are countless more examples of Google building links to websites across websites they own, you never had a link from Google? you never know you might have one somewhere, but you just don't know it.

                    So what you trying to say Yukon.. that Google don't do seo, it's looks like they are trying to manipulate their own algo from where I'm standing. Just right after a load of people complained on this forum about the pagerank 10 Google play link on their homepage they removed it.

                    It must have benefited him at some point, I don't know what he's bitching about, he made alot of money, enough money to retire.. why be greedy? unless he's blown it all on cruise holidays! LOL
                    I agree the guy got some free & awesome publicity for his site (Winning! , as Charlie Sheen would say).

                    Even If the Google backlink on the guys featured article was a nofollow, or javascript link (no SEO in play), the guy still had to get massive traffic from those links & the mp3 rant probably stirred that traffic up a 2nd time.

                    ATB is still running Adsense (last time I looked at the site), I don't think it's a good idea to bad mouth a business (Google) that's paying the bills, that's bound to bite someone in the a$$ sooner or later.

                    If they want to dis. Google that's fine, it's their own choice, but publicly going off on Google is not a wise move while Adsense is still bringing in revenue. Like that old saying, don't bite the hand that feeds you.
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                    • Profile picture of the author Sylonious
                      I was just wondering if establishing "Google Authorship" through +1 would help in circumstances like this. It seems like this guy got dinged in the same way that many article directories and content syndication were dinged for having syndicated content on other sites.

                      I just notice that every time I hear about some "authority site" hit by panda it's always some old site that had much of their content scraped and put on different sites.
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                      • Profile picture of the author retsek
                        Originally Posted by Sylonious View Post

                        I was just wondering if establishing "Google Authorship" through +1 would help in circumstances like this. It seems like this guy got dinged in the same way that many article directories and content syndication were dinged for having syndicated content on other sites.

                        I just notice that every time I hear about some "authority site" hit by panda it's always some old site that had much of their content scraped and put on different sites.
                        ATB was late in getting socialized. You can't lapse on these things. All that traffic, and look at the dismal social counts. Barely 5k fans on facebook. He's got authorship, but right now that doesn't do much more than improve your CTR in the serps. In future, it may definitely contribute to rankings.

                        As a publisher you have no excuse not to protect your content. I protect mine like a hawk.

                        I call Saturday's "DMCA day" - that's when I mass send all my DMCA's to Google & Google Adsense against people who've copied content. I don't waste time by sending it to hosting providers. There's countless services out there to make content protection easy to manage.

                        Doesn't look like ATB did any of this, instead he just complained, expected Google fix it for him, and then gave up.
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      • Profile picture of the author dmtaylor247
        Originally Posted by Sylonious View Post

        I thought that was the point of the penguin update. To reward sites with great content, but no SEO. Google actually used his site as a white hat SEO example of a successful adsense publisher.

        So, I don't get what you're saying here.
        Sylonious, at the end of the day you'll never know what Google's game plan is, they are not transparent about their business and will be ruthless till the very end. They publically supported Tim and his website and it's not to say they still don't, but how don't you know that Tim wasn't just another allegation of manipulated search results in favour of Google's business model? anything Google does is scrutinised very carefully, they know that. They gave him high pagerank links for God's sake!! which, helped his pages rank in their own search engine, what's all this talk about no seo? Larry Page did Tim's off page seo.

        What about all the traffic that was going to Tim's website, where is it going now? You just don't know what they are up to. You never know if Tim's website was a good performer in terms of the ad revenue it generated. What if they paid him $600k and only provided $200k of revenue to their advertisers?, what are Google going to do about it? Google are only going to pay for what something is worth. ATB could have done alot better for $600K, it was only 6500 pages deep!! In either case it was a nice little earner and now times have changed, time to move on!

        Times change, trends change, economies change - Google don't tell you nearly anything you need to know about the chopping and changing they do the the web. It goes to show whitehat, blackhat, Osama Bin Laden - nobody escapes Google.. If there is more profit to be made sending your web traffic to another webpage then they will surely do it. Tim in my opinion was nothing more than a liability.
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      There's a lot more to that story than what they would lead you to believe, basically their on-page SEO doesn't really exist.

      http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...rview-mp3.html

      This isn't about Google algo. updates, it's about not actually trying to rank a page.

      If your not doing on-page SEO or off-page SEO, what's left?

      Get all the facts before starting a witch hunt.
      EDIT:

      Never mind, just read that he lost about 40% of traffic earlier and then he seemed to have screwed his site himself by redesign and moving away content.

      Still odd that a site that is Googles role model loses 40% of traffic due to an update
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  • Profile picture of the author SuzanneH
    And item #3 in that post:

    3) Please join me in my new venture if you want traffic resources you CAN trust.
    SEO is just one traffic resource, but it’s no longer one you can base a business on. Since I’ve been online, Google has been shaking the search community up in regular intervals.
    If you’re an SEO, they do NOT have your best interests at heart: Google owes no SEO a lick of traffic, that message is loud and clear.
    So while I think writing senators and taking a part in getting this message out there is a step in the right direction, it won’t get you traffic, either.
    So what now?
    Do you keep building sites that are “Google friendly” when Matt Cutts claims that Google punishes sites “they believe” are engaging in webspam (even when they are not)?
    My answer?
    Quit riding the Google roller coaster. Get most of your traffic from other resources Google doesn’t control.
    To learn more, please join me in my new venture by entering your email below, we all need traffic but we don’t need Google (and they don’t reward white hat SEO – more on that in future posts from my own front yard).
    With a sign up form... Just sayin'! ;-)

    Suzanne
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    • Profile picture of the author James Hussey
      Originally Posted by SuzanneH View Post

      And item #3 in that post:



      With a sign up form... Just sayin'! ;-)

      Suzanne
      Suzanne -

      I didn't do the interview with Tim for a sign up form, but the fact is that the need for traffic is very real (ya think?) and I've been hit on key sites.

      So moving from an SEO-based business to actually marketing my business apart from Google is something that fit in that post, so I put it up. I capitalized on an opportunity, it doesn't detract from the interview.

      Lastly - notice I didn't do a pop-up, pop-under, or popup domination form - I didn't put the opt in to my list as front and center, it's well beneath the key parts.

      Before detracting from my message, please get to know me and my story, FWIW.

      Just sayin'!
      Signature
      My Internet Marketing
      Failure > Success Story

      Author of Duct Tape SEO, CJ Tactics and the new Tidal Wave Traffic.
      SEO strategist and analyst for hire.
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      • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
        Originally Posted by JamestheJust on Elance View Post

        Suzanne -

        So moving from an SEO-based business to actually marketing my business apart from Google is something that fit in that post, so I put it up.
        However this is still a SEO forum and theres nothing in your post or in this thread that anyone can take away to guide them in SEO.

        I capitalized on an opportunity, it doesn't detract from the interview.
        It detracts from any balance the interview or the piece could have had. Its basically just another Google sucks and SEO as a business model is dead which it is not. But you are honest about it - Penguin has created a big opportunity for those pushing other kinds of traffic to say that one of the main ones is now dead and gone. It suits the pitch even if it is not entirely true.

        I don't know the guy behind askthebuilder but it kind of seems he thought his relationship with Google would shield him. Like Yukon points out his on page is HORRIBLE. SEO 101 is at least have some target words in your page title but he doesn't even do that. its surprising to see a site around that long that seems so thin.
        Signature

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  • Profile picture of the author dmtaylor247
    I've actually got alot of empathy for Tim but the thing is, he was probably an ideal target for Panda...

    The first Panda update was to give content farms the boot, if you go through Tim's site carefully you will see alot of different writers all contributing content.

    Now this isn't any different from a news site but Tim's site isn't a news site, it is more like Ezine articles, made for Adsense cash.

    Another thing his some of his pages are very low quality, they have no more than 50 words of content and he has got a load of ads per content.

    He has got some great backlinks including PR5 links from Google so it does seem a bit strange that they would give him a testimonial and then slap his website?

    His site has definately gone down hill since the updates, he tried optimizing the site design and not the content, he really should go through the site content and try to improve it instead of complaining. Remove some of the ads and improve the on page seo.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by dmtaylor247 View Post

      I've actually got alot of empathy for Tim but the thing is, he was probably an ideal target for Panda...

      The first Panda update was to give content farms the boot, if you go through Tim's site carefully you will see alot of different writers all contributing content.

      Now this isn't any different from a news site but Tim's site isn't a news site, it is more like Ezine articles, made for Adsense cash.

      Another thing his some of his pages are very low quality, they have no more than 50 words of content and he has got a load of ads per content.

      He has got some great backlinks including PR5 links from Google so it does seem a bit strange that they would give him a testimonial and then slap his website?

      His site has definately gone down hill since the updates, he tried optimizing the site design and not the content, he really should go through the site content and try to improve it instead of complaining. Remove some of the ads and improve the on page seo.
      I don't think the ATB problem has anything to do with any recent Google algo. changes.

      ATB isn't even trying to rank pages in the SERPs, how can anyone pass blame to Google when they aren't doing the work to make the page actually rank, that's just ridiculous.

      Look at the sites internal links & the rest of the site structure, the site isn't focused on ranking any particular page.

      Content alone will never rank a page in the SERPs. People can wish upon a star all they want, but that content is nothing to the SERPs without SEO.
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      • Profile picture of the author dmtaylor247
        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

        I don't think the ATB problem has anything to do with any recent Google algo. changes.
        I agree, but I think the intial algo change (panda1) was to blame and I can see why, it's just to thin and low quality with loads of writers and ads.

        I don't agree with what he said about needing an army of writers for a home improvement blog, I could probably pump out 10k + words per day, that's more content in 1 year than his site has produced in 15 years.

        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

        ATB isn't even trying to rank pages in the SERPs, how can anyone pass blame to Google when they aren't doing the work to make the page actually rank, that's just ridiculous.

        Look at the sites internal links & the rest of the site structure, the site isn't focused on ranking any particular page.

        Content alone will never rank a page in the SERPs. People can wish upon a star all they want, but that content is nothing to the SERPs without SEO.
        Again I agree, even Google agrees that seo is a good thing. You can have the best intentions in the world and still get nowhere if you don't know what you're doing.
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        • Profile picture of the author paulgl
          Can't people post this shtuff without giving lame
          people backlinks?!?!

          Does "the average genius" need to get spam links?

          Paul
          Signature

          If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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          • Profile picture of the author Black Hat Cat
            Banned
            Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

            Can't people post this shtuff without giving lame
            people backlinks?!?!

            Does "the average genius" need to get spam links?

            Paul
            "Genius" is something that should probably never appear anywhere near your username, lol, because, once again, you show how clueless you are. Guess you haven't had a chance to look up the definition of spam yet.

            ATB isn't even trying to rank pages in the SERPs, how can anyone pass blame to Google when they aren't doing the work to make the page actually rank, that's just ridiculous.
            So, in other words, he's pretty much doing EXACTLY what Google says they want webmasters to do.....not focus on seo, or trying to rank.

            Content alone will never rank a page in the SERPs. People can wish upon a star all they want, but that content is nothing to the SERPs without SEO.
            While that may be true, this guy is complaining because he actually WAS ranking with this site, and ranking quite well for several years doing what he was doing. At one point he was making $50,000 a month with this site via adsense. So, it doesn't make a lot sense to say he will never rank doing things the way he's doing them when he's been ranking quite well for 5-6 years doing just that.

            Sadly, he has made things worse for himself, imho. His current design is a trainwreck of aggravation. I couldn't click the back button fast enough. Whatever following he has left isn't going to stick around for long with the way the site is now.
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            • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
              Originally Posted by Black Hat Cat View Post


              So, in other words, he's pretty much doing EXACTLY what Google says they want webmasters to do.....not focus on seo, or trying to rank.
              BHT Google has been telling people for years to do proper on page SEO. Theres no excuse for an established old site owner not knowing that.
              Signature

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            • Profile picture of the author James Hussey
              Originally Posted by dmtaylor247 View Post

              I agree, but I think the intial algo change (panda1) was to blame and I can see why, it's just to thin and low quality with loads of writers and ads.

              I don't agree with what he said about needing an army of writers for a home improvement blog, I could probably pump out 10k + words per day, that's more content in 1 year than his site has produced in 15 years.



              Again I agree, even Google agrees that seo is a good thing. You can have the best intentions in the world and still get nowhere if you don't know what you're doing.
              Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

              Can't people post this shtuff without giving lame
              people backlinks?!?!

              Does "the average genius" need to get spam links?

              Paul
              Originally Posted by dmtaylor247 View Post

              I've actually got alot of empathy for Tim but the thing is, he was probably an ideal target for Panda...

              The first Panda update was to give content farms the boot, if you go through Tim's site carefully you will see alot of different writers all contributing content.

              Now this isn't any different from a news site but Tim's site isn't a news site, it is more like Ezine articles, made for Adsense cash.

              Another thing his some of his pages are very low quality, they have no more than 50 words of content and he has got a load of ads per content.

              He has got some great backlinks including PR5 links from Google so it does seem a bit strange that they would give him a testimonial and then slap his website?

              His site has definately gone down hill since the updates, he tried optimizing the site design and not the content, he really should go through the site content and try to improve it instead of complaining. Remove some of the ads and improve the on page seo.
              Originally Posted by yukon View Post

              There's a lot more to that story than what they would lead you to believe, basically their on-page SEO doesn't really exist.

              http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...rview-mp3.html

              This isn't about Google algo. updates, it's about not actually trying to rank a page.

              If your not doing on-page SEO or off-page SEO, what's left?

              Get all the facts before starting a witch hunt.
              Originally Posted by yukon View Post

              I don't think the ATB problem has anything to do with any recent Google algo. changes.

              ATB isn't even trying to rank pages in the SERPs, how can anyone pass blame to Google when they aren't doing the work to make the page actually rank, that's just ridiculous.

              Look at the sites internal links & the rest of the site structure, the site isn't focused on ranking any particular page.

              Content alone will never rank a page in the SERPs. People can wish upon a star all they want, but that content is nothing to the SERPs without SEO.
              Originally Posted by Black Hat Cat View Post

              "Genius" is something that should probably never appear anywhere near your username, lol, because, once again, you show how clueless you are. Guess you haven't had a chance to look up the definition of spam yet.



              So, in other words, he's pretty much doing EXACTLY what Google says they want webmasters to do.....not focus on seo, or trying to rank.



              While that may be true, this guy is complaining because he actually WAS ranking with this site, and ranking quite well for several years doing what he was doing. At one point he was making $50,000 a month with this site via adsense. So, it doesn't make a lot sense to say he will never rank doing things the way he's doing them when he's been ranking quite well for 5-6 years doing just that.

              Sadly, he has made things worse for himself, imho. His current design is a trainwreck of aggravation. I couldn't click the back button fast enough. Whatever following he has left isn't going to stick around for long with the way the site is now.

              I think the majority of you are missing the point.

              Those saying that he didn't know what he was doing for SEO don't realize he's MOVED a lot of his content to premium platforms like Kindle (he mentions it in the interview if you listen in full). It may seem thin now, but that's because he's migrating FROM SEO to something new, so it doesn't matter what the spiders see at this point.

              What he's done is capitalize on the fact that since he can't trust Google for traffic (don't kid yourself if you think you can), he's taking matters into his own hands and capturing more leads for his marketing efforts.

              So sure it looks "thin and low quality" (which you've GOT to be kidding me - have you seen his site previously? Google totally disagrees with that assessment if you followed my links in the post), but he's changed things because Google isn't bringing people back.

              They ARE, interestingly enough, sending traffic to places like ehow and other Demand Media content farms.

              You know: the type of places they said that Panda would take care of?

              yeah, those places...

              The fact is that a lot of people in the WF are depending on SEO and Google to keep rewarding their traffic gen efforts and link building or social media campaigns. You might be 2 steps ahead right now, but future success can't rely on present success with SEO.

              Google has no love for SEO's.

              Moving the conversation away from Tim, I've written Duct Tape SEO and CJ Tactics all telling methods I've used in my own affiliate business.

              I've used website silo architecture to get my internal link structure passing the "proper" amount of PageRank to my necessary money pages.

              I've done nothing BUT used my own original content, well-researched for my audience - I've done SEO both on and off page for my sites.

              Oddly, some of my sites (the big winners) have tanked. Others have done better post-Penguin. So no matter what Tim or others say, the fact is that Google doesn't need to be nor do they aim to be predictable for SEO's to reverse-engineer the algo.

              If anything, Penguin mucks up the analytics to such a degree it's difficult to say for a fact which methods work - but reading this thread you'd think everyone here works at Mountain View and has seen the Mother Ship.

              No offense to my fellow Warriors, but building on SEO is simply not the best way to move forward, and if your business depends on that traffic, you're tempting fate.

              I'm not someone who's made up a story without having experience in what I'm talking about, SEO's been paying my bills since 2009. Now? Not so much.

              I did that post because it's just a matter of time when people moving forward with Google traffic get smashed - yesterday's AdSense gurus and SEO pro's have been telling us at least since MayDay in 2010 that SEO is unreliable.

              Those of us who didn't get hit just kept rolling.

              I moved from AdSense to affiliate marketing, made thousands of passive income month after month - even published my methods and made more on the book sales - but if you get nothing from the interview, let the message sink in:

              You can't trust Google. Today's traffic is tomorrow's algo shift. Time to diversify your traffic, seriously.
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              • Profile picture of the author yukon
                Banned
                Originally Posted by JamestheJust on Elance View Post

                I think the majority of you are missing the point.

                Those saying that he didn't know what he was doing for SEO don't realize he's MOVED a lot of his content to premium platforms like Kindle (he mentions it in the interview if you listen in full). It may seem thin now, but that's because he's migrating FROM SEO to something new, so it doesn't matter what the spiders see at this point.

                What he's done is capitalize on the fact that since he can't trust Google for traffic (don't kid yourself if you think you can), he's taking matters into his own hands and capturing more leads for his marketing efforts.

                So sure it looks "thin and low quality" (which you've GOT to be kidding me - have you seen his site previously? Google totally disagrees with that assessment if you followed my links in the post), but he's changed things because Google isn't bringing people back.

                They ARE, interestingly enough, sending traffic to places like ehow and other Demand Media content farms.

                You know: the type of places they said that Panda would take care of?

                yeah, those places...

                The fact is that a lot of people in the WF are depending on SEO and Google to keep rewarding their traffic gen efforts and link building or social media campaigns. You might be 2 steps ahead right now, but future success can't rely on present success with SEO.

                Google has no love for SEO's.

                Moving the conversation away from Tim, I've written Duct Tape SEO and CJ Tactics all telling methods I've used in my own affiliate business.

                I've used website silo architecture to get my internal link structure passing the "proper" amount of PageRank to my necessary money pages.

                I've done nothing BUT used my own original content, well-researched for my audience - I've done SEO both on and off page for my sites.

                Oddly, some of my sites (the big winners) have tanked. Others have done better post-Penguin. So no matter what Tim or others say, the fact is that Google doesn't need to be nor do they aim to be predictable for SEO's to reverse-engineer the algo.

                If anything, Penguin mucks up the analytics to such a degree it's difficult to say for a fact which methods work - but reading this thread you'd think everyone here works at Mountain View and has seen the Mother Ship.

                No offense to my fellow Warriors, but building on SEO is simply not the best way to move forward, and if your business depends on that traffic, you're tempting fate.

                I'm not someone who's made up a story without having experience in what I'm talking about, SEO's been paying my bills since 2009. Now? Not so much.

                I did that post because it's just a matter of time when people moving forward with Google traffic get smashed - yesterday's AdSense gurus and SEO pro's have been telling us at least since MayDay in 2010 that SEO is unreliable.

                Those of us who didn't get hit just kept rolling.

                I moved from AdSense to affiliate marketing, made thousands of passive income month after month - even published my methods and made more on the book sales - but if you get nothing from the interview, let the message sink in:

                You can't trust Google. Today's traffic is tomorrow's algo shift. Time to diversify your traffic, seriously.


                ATB says he has a 100k email list, I'm sure he built a lot of those subscribers from SERP traffic over the years. I would be very surprised If the list wasn't mostly built from SERP traffic.

                A lot of us WF SEO members see the Google did me wrong complaints all the time (most days), thing is, I still make money from SERP traffic so I'm not a believer that targeting Google SERP traffic is a failure.

                Really, as long as my bills are getting paid & that includes SERP traffic generating income, I don't care how anyone else generates traffic.

                I'm defiantly not naive enough to think that Google is the only source of traffic. My first online experience with generating targeted traffic started out in forums like this forum. I still to this day generate about 1-3k traffic from those niche forums (daily).

                So, again I'm all for diversifying traffic, but giving up on one source because a few keywords dropped isn't an option. I know SERP traffic equals money, not giving up that easy.

                If ATB thinks he is on easy street with Amazon, he best hope the day never comes that Amazon doesn't drop the axe on his state & ban affiliates. So dumping Google traffic for Amazon traffic doesn't mean that Amazon traffic will be long term, If his state of residence pisses off Amazon over tax laws.

                I wish the guy the best of luck with his business, but one thing I've learned in life, don't burn your bridges, a day may come when you need to get back to where you started from.
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                • Profile picture of the author DonDavis
                  Originally Posted by yukon View Post

                  ...one thing I've learned in life, don't burn your bridges, a day may come when you need to get back to where you started from.
                  Amen brother.
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              • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
                Originally Posted by JamestheJust on Elance View Post

                It may seem thin now, but that's because he's migrating FROM SEO to something new, so it doesn't matter what the spiders see at this point.
                Good night James - It takes what? ten seconds to put up a relevant page title. You have to deliberately NOT want Web traffic not to put it in. As for all the other nonsense that he's moving everything away from his websites so it doesnt matter. :rolleyes:

                My goodness. That tells me even more. You have been big for so long and you don't even have enough repeat visitors (who don't use Google anymore to find your site)that you go ahead and start scrapping your site. What does that say about the site that it doesn't have the years of loyal users that are worth having a reasonable site up for? or that they don't matter?


                No offense to my fellow Warriors, but building on SEO is simply not the best way to move forward, and if your business depends on that traffic, you're tempting fate.
                Garbage. Nothing personal you are far from the first to say something like that but My cup runneth over seeing this same old tired song and dance so you might see the mother of all rants on this subject soon. Heres whats so dead wrong and cross eyed in this thinking.

                NO ADVERTISING MODEL ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH WAS EVER OR WILL EVER BE DESIGNED THAT WILL BEAT GROWING REPEAT TRAFFIC. EVERY SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MAKES MORE MONEY FROM THEIR EXISTING CUSTOMER BASE THAN THIS YEAR"S NEW CUSTOMER ACQUISITION.

                A website or company that needs to advertise on TV every day to make money is doing something wrong, A website or company that has to run radio ads, newspaper ads every single day to make money is doing something wrong.

                SEO is fine and dandy and can be relied on FOR YEARS if you have a business model that looks toward RETURN TRAFFIC. The purpose of SEO is not to get the serp traffic every month for the rest of your life. Its to take the traffic it gives you and BUILD ON IT.

                Heres where marketers have been bone head silly and yeah I am now going to call out in particular affiliate and adsense marketers. Lets take a keyword that gets 40,000 searches a month.

                They say SWEET!! I rank number one. Kaching and sit back. Thats their fault not SEO. Why?

                Because they are not using their noggin. Out of 40,000 people who search for "dog training" how many will be using Google to find their dog training site 4 months from now? Very few. So what does that mean? It means the 40,000 each month are but a drop in the bucket of people who have an interest and will visit a dog training site. Lets say those searchers will search for two months until they find the site and info they want. IF a marketer gets that traffic for 6 months lets say that represents 120,000 or even 80,000 new seekers for "dog training"

                Now offline show me a business that gets 80,000 referrals with a great product, a great price and great customer service that will fold up and be out of business in a year? Just the word of mouth on the 80,000 will bring in new people.

                Now of course on the internet theres a higher fall off. its just a website but its also JUST ONE KEYWORD. Take each keyword as an advertising campaign and the potential to capture repeat traffic that was built BY SEO but no longer requires a type in of a keyword at Google and the potential of SEO is huge.

                What kills people using SEO is not SEO and the fact that they may not be able to hang on to the top spot for ever. What kills people is not having a thing worthy of anyone coming back to. Its their business model not their advertising and its going to kill them no matter what new gizmo "this is the greatest new traffic system" you want to sell them.

                Because in the end if they listen to you and run from SEO with their same old site and business model they will be just as dependent on your system and it not falling tomorrow as they ever were to SEO.

                SEO like any advertising is a prospecting tool to convert people to loyal customers only its free. Its crazy to not utilize it. What people holding your position do is act like if you fall from your ranking your whole business is gone because you have people looking at only the monthly serp traffic which was just the wrong way to look at it from the start.
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              • Profile picture of the author dmtaylor247
                Originally Posted by JamestheJust on Elance View Post

                If anything, Penguin mucks up the analytics to such a degree it's difficult to say for a fact which methods work - but reading this thread you'd think everyone here works at Mountain View and has seen the Mother Ship.
                You don't need to work at Google to know crappy content stuffed full of ads doesn't rank, until now that is

                Originally Posted by JamestheJust on Elance View Post

                You can't trust Google. Today's traffic is tomorrow's algo shift. Time to diversify your traffic, seriously.
                Good luck to Tim, I think if anyone fully relies on Google then yeah it's a big mistake. If he has found an outlet where people are willing to pay for his content then good for him and if we can all learn from what happened to him then it's a lesson worth learning.

                I do think he could have saved his website too, he made some drastic changes that probably put the final nail in the coffin, even before there were thin pages and the site could have had better on page seo.

                Tim was rolling around in $600,000 of adsense earnings every year, but look at the content your telling me it couldn't get any better? and more of it? please...
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            • Profile picture of the author yukon
              Banned
              Originally Posted by Black Hat Cat View Post

              So, in other words, he's pretty much doing EXACTLY what Google says they want webmasters to do.....not focus on seo, or trying to rank.



              While that may be true, this guy is complaining because he actually WAS ranking with this site, and ranking quite well for several years doing what he was doing. At one point he was making $50,000 a month with this site via adsense. So, it doesn't make a lot sense to say he will never rank doing things the way he's doing them when he's been ranking quite well for 5-6 years doing just that.

              Sadly, he has made things worse for himself, imho. His current design is a trainwreck of aggravation. I couldn't click the back button fast enough. Whatever following he has left isn't going to stick around for long with the way the site is now.
              Yes, the site is currently ranking for a few keywords that I checked, but to point fingers at Google because they no longer rank for better keywords isn't even practical.

              It's the guys own choice If he wants to give up on SERP traffic, but that doesn't mean that right now today other sites/webmasters just now starting out with SEO won't see the money from future SERP traffic.

              I'm not sure If you know this or not, but the owner of ATB did a site overhaul, I actually thought the old site/layout looked good, I'm not sure why they did an overhaul on the site.

              It looks like they have just given up on the current site & everything related to SEO.

              Maybe the guy got pissed off because a few major keywords dropped, IDK? I listened to the mp3 but I don't think he said the exact major keywords that dealt the -70% traffic drop.
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  • Profile picture of the author lovboa
    Banned
    Old site looks way better.

    New site looks like he read a WSO on list building and then just ruined his site.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
    Incidentally according to compete data the site was still topping over 200.000 unique visits per month as of March . Yes he saw another dip in April to 121,000 but theres no way of stating that he won't get some back this early after a major algo change.

    I'd say that SEO traffic has been good to him and still is being because a great deal of that is exactly what I was talking about - repeat traffic FROM SEO and he is doing himself absolutely no good taking the approach that those visitors and his site don't matter anymore.
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    • Profile picture of the author dmtaylor247
      Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

      I'd say that SEO traffic has been good to him and still is being because a great deal of that is exactly what I was talking about - repeat traffic FROM SEO and he is doing himself absolutely no good taking the approach that those visitors and his site don't matter anymore.
      I think organic seo is a privilege not a right. What I don't get is people taking a view that they have the right to all this traffic, even by simply believing they have played by the book and done nothing wrong - it's their right..

      If you ask me, Google are pumping people who are having it easy, they want you to sweat like a ******* for that kind of money + they want your ads to convert, in all honesty he could have done more! Spammers included are getting it too easy and that's why Google are pumping them.

      I definately agree that simply dumping his site could be one of the most costly mistakes he has ever made rather than trying to improve it, but he has found an outlet regardless so good luck to him but there are still people coming to his site, but for what now?, it goes to show he really doesn't give a damn about them but how much money his content is going to make.
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  • Profile picture of the author retsek
    It's not even too late for him to turn it around. Just hire competent people who know their ****.
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  • Profile picture of the author footfoot
    Newest posts under q&a
    Hold Down Anchor Tips #1 on google
    How to Remove Algae #29
    Concrete Pier Design #8
    Lot Clearing Tips #1
    Chimney Top Construction Tips #1
    Tips for Patio Pavers #nowhere
    Lamp Post Pole Tips #1
    Wall Removal Tips #5

    Half are #1. Not sure if those posts are in chronological order or listed by popularity.

    Some if his inner posts are way to general:
    Garage Door Opener
    Cheap Shelving
    Toilet Bowl Cleaner
    Building Cost
    How to Paint
    Asphalt Shingles
    Asphalt Driveway
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  • Profile picture of the author imlogic
    Google has to change the rankings because they dont want people creating websites for the sole purpose of ranking. They do not want people to base their business models around organic traffic so every so often they mess people up. They change up the rankings and everybody runs around like chickens with their heads cut off...

    "ooooh google now wants this or that, this isnt working anymore, dont do this, do that..." the truth is it doesnt matter. Do whatever you want and once you think you've figured it out your rankings will change again.
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  • Profile picture of the author mosthost
    15,000 visitors a day from Google and still not happy about it.

    I think 'ungrateful' isn't a strong enough word to describe this guy
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    • Profile picture of the author Sylonious
      Originally Posted by mosthost View Post

      15,000 visitors a day from Google and still not happy about it.

      I think 'ungrateful' isn't a strong enough word to describe this guy
      Yeah, insane this guy is.

      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      Yes, ATB did drop the ball on SEO. ATB made their own decisions to stop doing SEO, they also did a major site overhaual that didn't turn out so well SEO wise.

      Like retsek said above, ATB was featured on the Adsense blog, that featured article has nothing to do with SEO, Google was promoting Adsense not SEO.

      I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but If people seriously think Google is going to help them with SEO, they are dreaming! Googles income is based on Adwords, the organic SERPs is just a way to generate traffic for Adwords. This was Googles business model from the start (1997), so don't all the anti-Google folks (people in general) start preaching "Google just wants us to buy Adwords" (well duh...).
      Lol, not me lol. I'm sticking with Google.

      I understand where he's coming from though. It's very stressful when you're income drops like that.

      Originally Posted by FraserC View Post

      Build a real business that solves problems for people and you're way ahead of the game.
      Quite a few "real businesses" got hit by this latest update.



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      • Profile picture of the author FraserC
        Originally Posted by Sylonious View Post

        Quite a few "real businesses" got hit by this latest update.
        I understand that many great businesses were hit unfairly. But those great businesses have real customers who would look them up no matter what, and could keep going until they figured out the SEO issues.
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        • Profile picture of the author Sylonious
          Originally Posted by retsek View Post

          ATB was late in getting socialized. You can't lapse on these things. All that traffic, and look at the dismal social counts. Barely 5k fans on facebook. He's got authorship, but right now that doesn't do much more than improve your CTR in the serps. In future, it may definitely contribute to rankings.

          As a publisher you have no excuse not to protect your content. I protect mine like a hawk.

          I call Saturday's "DMCA day" - that's when I mass send all my DMCA's to Google & Google Adsense against people who've copied content. I don't waste time by sending it to hosting providers. There's countless services out there to make content protection easy to manage.

          Doesn't look like ATB did any of this, instead he just complained, expected Google fix it for him, and then gave up.
          Wait so you send the DMCA to Google without sending them to the ISP? I tried that and since the page was still up they wouldn't remove it from web search.

          Please advise me on how to do a Google DMCA without first getting the ISP to take down the page.

          I don't think he has authorship set up properly. He does link to his site and his Youtube account in his profile, but in order to claim ownership you have to link back to the profile with the rel=author tag.


          Matt Cutts stated that it's supposed to establish you as the owner of your content over other sites where your content might be published.

          Originally Posted by FraserC View Post

          I understand that many great businesses were hit unfairly. But those great businesses have real customers who would look them up no matter what, and could keep going until they figured out the SEO issues.
          I don't think there is anything more to "figure out" with those sites SEO wise. If you find anything wrong with them SEO wise please share.
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          • Profile picture of the author retsek
            Originally Posted by Sylonious View Post

            Wait so you send the DMCA to Google without sending them to the ISP? I tried that and since the page was still up they wouldn't remove it from web search.

            Please advise me on how to do a Google DMCA without first getting the ISP to take down the page.
            There's this one:

            https://www.google.com/webmasters/to...ashboard?hl=en

            Real humans review your request and they either approve or deny. Of the hundreds I've sent out, I've only had a handful of denials.

            If the offender has Webmaster Tools, they'll be alerted. If they don't, they don't get any notification. Their infringing pages just get removed from the serps. (To get it back, they have to add their site to WMT tools and respond, OR do a reconsideration request).

            And then there's this one:
            https://support.google.com/adsense/b...olation_report

            They changed it up recently. It used to work just like the one above, but with the added bonus of getting the infringer's attention. If they don't take action, and remove the content immediately they can get their adsense account banned. Over the years now I've gotten quite a few Adsense accounts banned completely. The threatening emails I got after were also fun to read.

            Most times though, Adsense just disables serving of ads to that particular page that has your content.
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            • Profile picture of the author Sylonious
              Originally Posted by retsek View Post

              There's this one:

              https://www.google.com/webmasters/to...ashboard?hl=en

              Real humans review your request and they either approve or deny. Of the hundreds I've sent out, I've only had a handful of denials.

              If the offender has Webmaster Tools, they'll be alerted. If they don't, they don't get any notification. Their infringing pages just get removed from the serps. (To get it back, they have to add their site to WMT tools and respond, OR do a reconsideration request).

              And then there's this one:
              https://support.google.com/adsense/b...olation_report

              They changed it up recently. It used to work just like the one above, but with the added bonus of getting the infringer's attention. If they don't take action, and remove the content immediately they can get their adsense account banned. Over the years now I've gotten quite a few Adsense accounts banned completely. The threatening emails I got after were also fun to read.

              Most times though, Adsense just disables serving of ads to that particular page that has your content.
              Thanks, I looked around for a few hours and couldn't find out how to get copyrigted content pulled out of the index. Thanks.

              Yeah, I don't think I will go after their Adsense. I just don't want that kind of stress.
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  • Profile picture of the author Fernando Veloso
    Some of the posts in this SEO sub-forum are (indeed) funny to read...

    Now it's: "he needs to optimize his site" BUT if anyone goes back to your lasts SEO (coff coff) posts, you can bet the advice is the opposite: "he optimized his site, he's guilty"... OR "he shouldn't have optimized his site, everybody knows it's bad..." OR... "there are no penalizations/filters for on page over optimization" and then "oh he over optimized his on page SEO...".

    I'm amazed some of you still get "air time" in here, for ****ing sake...
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    People make good money selling to the rich. But the rich got rich selling to the masses.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Fernando Veloso View Post

      Some of the posts in this SEO sub-forum are (indeed) funny to read...

      Now it's: "he needs to optimize his site" BUT if anyone goes back to your lasts SEO (coff coff) posts, you can bet the advice is the opposite: "he optimized his site, he's guilty"... OR "he shouldn't have optimized his site, everybody knows it's bad..." OR... "there are no penalizations/filters for on page over optimization" and then "oh he over optimized his on page SEO...".

      I'm amazed some of you still get "air time" in here, for ****ing sake...
      Yep, what we say now doesn't really matter, the guy has given up & is moving everything to Amazon.

      Like I already mentioned, Amazon is very touchy about state tax laws in the US, ATB best hope Amazon doesn't ban his state from being affiliates. That would totally suck to depend on Amazon as the majority of the traffic, then get dumped as an affiliate & don't anyone think that couldn't happen, because when Amazon gets pissed off at state tax laws, they react very fast.

      I would have done a 50/50 split on the traffic (Amazon/search traffic) instead of just saying to hell with search traffic, but hey, that's me.

      The thing I just don't understand about ATB is, they claimed all this great income over the years with search traffic. They claim that people are willing to buy the same free content as ebooks on Amazon (what?), why on earth wouldn't a person monetize both Amazon & search traffic with the same content at the same time?

      Maybe I'm missing something, does Amazon require that the content not be available anyplace else on the net? If so, just make the site a subscription site filled with teaser content & hide the same Amazon content behind the subscription pages.
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    • Profile picture of the author retsek
      Originally Posted by Fernando Veloso View Post

      Some of the posts in this SEO sub-forum are (indeed) funny to read...

      Now it's: "he needs to optimize his site" BUT if anyone goes back to your lasts SEO (coff coff) posts, you can bet the advice is the opposite: "he optimized his site, he's guilty"... OR "he shouldn't have optimized his site, everybody knows it's bad..." OR... "there are no penalizations/filters for on page over optimization" and then "oh he over optimized his on page SEO...".

      I'm amazed some of you still get "air time" in here, for ****ing sake...
      There's a difference between optimization and over-optimization.
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  • Profile picture of the author FraserC
    As Yukon said, there are plenty of basic SEO issues with his site, and footfoot hit the nail squarely on the head. At some point, ATB realized that he could get search traffic for writing keyword-targeted articles, so he went overboard.

    Take a look at his sitemap, and you'll see the keywords he was targeting.
    http://www.askthebuilder.com/sitemap.xml

    Instead of raging publicly against Google, he could have made a big effort to clean up his site and get it back into Google's good graces. I don't think it would have taken that much effort since he didn't engage in any of the linkbuilding that punished so many other sites. With better technical SEO, improved layout, I think he could have recovered an enormous amount of traffic.

    But that bridge is burned.

    As a guy who runs a pure content site, I can tell you that it's a terrible business model. Instead of trying to monetize content, you should build something real. Then use SEO and other marketing methods to drive traffic to it.

    Mike Anthony is exactly right when he says:

    Now offline show me a business that gets 80,000 referrals with a great product, a great price and great customer service that will fold up and be out of business in a year? Just the word of mouth on the 80,000 will bring in new people.
    Build a real business that solves problems for people and you're way ahead of the game.
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    • Profile picture of the author dmtaylor247
      Originally Posted by FraserC View Post

      Build a real business that solves problems for people and you're way ahead of the game.
      Urgh I wish people would stop saying that it really gets on my wick end, "solving people's problems" - but thats what ATB did right? People wanted to know how to build a shed and he told them, problem solved.

      Well he has his stain solver product so i'm sure he will make yet more millions from that and have you seen what he is charging for a one day consultation? Go and look in his shop.
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  • Profile picture of the author rambo9600
    Yep, he should have talked with me 5 years ago and I would have told him he's a fool.

    It's great when you're on top, but when you practically get delisted everyone cries Google is screwing them.

    Having a good laugh at this.
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