and clueless about it.
Yes, you read it right. I’m still clueless about how in the first place I lost my Google ranking in a day and never recover since. I’m not an expert in the knowledge of SEO but at least I do understand a little bit of optimization of certain keywords to secure a comfortable place in the search results. The truth is I did it.
This blog has been in existence for less than 45 days and has managed to be at the top 10 in Google for the following keywords since day 10,
1. Blog for Beginners
2. Blogging Tips for Beginners
3. WordPress Tips for Beginners
Take a peek at the top 20 search queries for this blog, it isn’t the most impressive of all but on the personal level, it’s quiet an achievement in itself.
It has proven that what I’ve learned from the SEO experts in the blogging community has worked pretty well for me. Until recently when this blog was ranked nowhere even in the top 100 results for that same keywords. What amazes me further that this blog wasn’t even on the first page for the the keyword: “thoushallblog”, if you what I mean. Sad but it’s true.
A quick check later revealed that my blog had not been de-indexed by Google which was more comforting to know if it was. The fact that it has not been de-indexed and fell into a nowhere land put me into a guessing game and reassessed what I have done that may anger the Gods of Google.
FYI, all my rankings with Yahoo for the same keywords have been left intact but sadly to say, I get more traffics from Google more than from any other search engines. In fact, Google accounts for 60% of my blog traffic.
One thing is certain, I haven’t done any questionable thing that may warrant penalization - such as buying and selling text-links, keyword stuffing or any other, what one would usually refer to as, ‘black-hat’ SEO strategies.
The closet to what I could have done wrong, I think, would be to forward one of my domain wpbeginners.com to thoushallblog.com which may have triggered duplicated contents. (I have since de-forwarded it) Could this be the real reason I have been penalized by Google? I don’t know, you tell me. I hope someone would enlighten me on this as I’m still searching for the right answer.
Have you ever been in similar situation like this? If you have been, I appreciate if you would share with me your experience, the things you have done that may have caused the drop and the steps you have taken to remedy the situation. Help me see the light. I would not be able to solve the issue if I don’t even know the cause of the problem, wouldn’t I?
About This Blogger
Yan: Hey my friend, I think that you got sandboxed. Why don’t you check when the last time Google Bot crawled your blog. I use AWstats, and it’s under user agents. Look for things like Tahoo Slurp or Google Bot… and match the date up with your loss of rank. That might start giving you a clue about what may have happened.
The other end of the deal comes from a hosting perspective. Since I provide hosting, I’m pretty damned experienced in the drama that can ensue from a shared server going all wrong.
When using a shared server, you can sometimes be penalized for the actions of others. For example, if I was selling animal porn and I started spamming… those are two blips against my record. If people started flagging my mail as spam… that’s a third red mark against your record. In some cases, your ISP can block your IP and blacklist it… that said… anyone using that host’s IP address can suffer.
I ran a quick check on your IP and here are some of the other sites sitting on your shared server.
1) NET2FONES.COM
2) afsfibc.net
3) agoraglobalholdings.com
4) bamboo-view.com
5) beruangmadu.com
6) citaromedia.com
7) community-tale.com
8) copercls.com
9) designersmart.biz
10) donjuaner.com
11) fifa2010sa.info
12) htewhalban.com
13) kreislerstringquartet.com
14) limkimhui.com
15) m2n-e.net
16) malaysiacctv.com
17) mercantile-ct.com
18) mitaalsteels.com
19) mjari.net
20) nutrimadu.com
21) rejectperfumegarden.com
22) sengchye.com
23) senihost.com
24) shahsramblings.com
25) suhailarahiman.com
26) symphoniaworld.com
27) tafeitbusiness.net
28) techground.org
29) thoushallblog.com
30) unstoppable4u.com
31) zonpanas.com
None of these sites look to suspicious, but heck you never can tell if they’ve been mail spamming or something. This also applies to your forward… if your forward was sandboxed, and you pointed it at this blog, it may have poisoned the water.
Finally, I ran your domain through CopyScape. You have LOTS of duplicate pages found on entirely different domains. Keep in mind that when scraper sites pick up your content, it becomes duplicate. It only ads fuel to the fire if the scraper site has been banned too.
What to do? Maybe change hosts… revamp your SEO… and read Joost DeValks latest post on how to handle WordPress Optimization. wordpress seo
Piss Biscuit’s last blog post..The advertising experiment
Unfortunately, it sounds like the Google Sandbox… Google “google sandbox” and see what internet marketers have written about it… unfortunately, it could be 3month to a year worth of being way low in the rankings, but not deindexed….
Sorry man…. continue to build links, so when you get out of the sandbox, you’ll shoot to the top!
Link Building Bible’s last blog post..How to Easily Spot NoFollow Links
Hey PB, do you know what makes you unique from the rest of the pack? Apart from the way you tilt your head and your smile on your gravatar, you have, as always, dropped a long and useful comment. I knew it was you the moment I saw it.
It’s very kind of you to come out with a piece of useful analysis of my situation which others may probably charge me for the same. I have been scratching my head over the course of few days trying to find the answer.
I’m new to the idea of being “Sandboxed”. Coincidentally, I only read about it last night on Bloggingtips.com and how it would just happen to some but not all new sites. Google doesn’t seem to put too much credibility on new sites. Well, it sounds more comforting than to be penalized and de-indexed altogether. I guess the only best option right now for me, as what LBB has mentioned, continue to build more backlinks and enjoy the process of “waiting”.
With regard to the issue of duplicate contents, I merely submit my articles to the trusted social bookmarking sites. Thanks for the head up on CopySpace.
But PB, you have made a very good point on the use of shared server where one action may have an effect on the rest who share that same server. I’m not too sure if this could be the reason but my experience with this particular host has not been that satisfactory either. Not only I experience continuous downtime, it doesn’t seem to have a proper customer service in place. My email hasn’t been replied even after several attempts to contact them. I’m contemplating to move to another host, what have you got to offer, PB?
@Link Building Bible: I appreciate your point of view. As long as I’m not de-indexed by Google, the waiting is fine for me. Do you know if there is anything I could do to speed up the process of getting out of that Sandbox?
Okay this is the second time writing this post… I forgot to do the spam protection math and it deleted the last 10 minutes of writing…. quite frustrating so this one is sure to be shorter. :-(
Fixing the Google issue:
Easy but long fix: Follow LBB’s direction
Hard but short fix: New Domain, New Host, Same content. Say goodbye to the “follow” tags, and use the export all feature from WordPress to duplicate your blog’s content. Remove this one all together for a few months.
As for hosting: I’m pretty costly at $25.00 a month. I host about 400 clients right now and don’t really want to get to much bigger. I like the one on one service I can offer and you never have to wait on hold. I don’t have tiered service calls so I’m a one stop shop, live and in living color, you get me on the phone when you call.
Oh, I was thinking too… it really be nice to put a face with a name! How about a picture? I like to see who I’m talking to :-)
Piss Biscuit’s last blog post..The advertising experiment
@PB: Looking at how things work out to be right now, I guess I have chosen the “easy and long fix” method. I’m not prepared to invest $25 a month for a hosting at this stage of my blog development. But hey, thanks for the offer.
Wait, what’s that $25 for? A shared hosting or VPS?
PS: I’m so sorry about the spam protection, it takes a bit of getting used to it in the beginning but it does help me a lot from getting unwarranted spammy comments.
@ Yan: Well… My hosting ain’t for everyone. It’s for those who run online business, need a VPS and want one on one service. :-) The average blogger… can get away with other options just fine. You asked, I told. :-P
PB, I wouldn’t mind paying $25 for a VPS. Do you happen to have any online presence?
On a second thought, probably here may not be the right place to ask you about all the details but if you are worth the talk, I wouldn’t mind passing some free publicity to you.
I experienced something similar with my blog. After about 3 Months my Blog got a nice PR of 3. Then one month later it had no PR at all. A little more than 1 month later I recovered to a PR of 3 again, without any additional marketing efforts from my side. Maybe google is just not working once in a while.
Anyways, a blog should still work even if google doesn’t provide visitors by using other sources of visitors.
Hong Kong Resident’s last blog post..Lan Kwai Fong
@HK Resident: That proves a point that Google does filter and re-scan all new sites even after it have passed some PR to them. This ‘Sandbox Theory’ is real and it will happen to anyone regardless of whether you have done your SEO or otherwise.
You are absolutely right. There are other proven methods of site traffic apart from Google and yet many tend to overlook them and depend mostly on G.
PS: You are from HK. How’s the weather lately?
Keep working hard on your blog.. you’ll get back up there… don’t get discouraged when big G pushes you down… just get back up and get through it! :)
One Year Millionaire’s last blog post..Issue 76 : Becoming a Millionaire Overnight!
hi PB, http://www.bamboo-view.com is my website, an i got another 2 subdomain which is http://www.gallery.bamboo-view.com and http://www.vocab.bamboo-view.com
i hope you can give some advice and feedback weather my website is causing any problem or not since i have no tools nor idea to analyze it.
thank you
@Timmy: Can you elaborate further what’s your actual problem as I don’t notice anything wrong with your site?
Hi,
I have lost my ranking within 4 days. Last week ranking in google.com
was top. But today there is no ranking in under 10 pages.
what can be happned?
Please suggest me.
[WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The poster sent us ‘0 which is not a hashcash value.
@ajeet - Hi Ajeet, I think your site was sandboxed by Google. Don’t worry, it usually happens to most, if not all, of newer blogs.
I have given you the link above. Go and read it, it should give you a better idea of what is actually happening. Let me know if I could be of help.