Not sure where to go with this but tell you what: I’m about to simply shut this blog down and keep mum while earning my living. What I’ve found with my website that’s now NOT earning my living is that someone had the bright idea of simply using a cloning technique (the WP Twin plugin, maybe?) to copy my site and then re-write my content.
Edit: WP Twin can’t be used on other websites. Sorry about the misinformation on that note.
Essentially I found someone who took my place in Google by simply rewriting my site: oh, they used my images and copied my affiliate program to boot – but the layout and images, the theme and overall site navigation: all 100% (OK, 95%) my site.
Thank you, Google, for taking the time to allow the great Panda Update to totally jack me.
Why do I suspect Panda? Simple: I found 10 pages at least of web content of mine strewn about the net – and that means someone subscribed to my RSS feed because you can’t copy my content thanks to a plugin I have installed…so this particular savage decided to subscribe, copy my content (entire site – maybe using the page source from the browser), get my theme and go to town.
This same person (I suspect) used the content to publish all over the internet, then reported me for dupe content.
And that, folks, is how easy it is to not only take #1-10 rankings from your competition, but to rank with no backlinks showing?!
To the joker who had the audacity (and intelligence + lack of an ethical backbone) to sabotage me, hat’s off to you. To Google’s so-called “webspam team” and “search quality team” – Is this quality? Is this the goal? Reward content scrapers and scrap the honest businesses?
You Know What To Do
Thanks to Google’s “new and improved algorithm,” you don’t have to research, folks. Not at all. Just check out the top 10 competitors, find one that’s ranking and making a potential living, then copy and paste everything.
Just copy the content from the website, or use WP Twin (I think you can do that, I don’t know for sure since I don’t own it, didn’t see the point of it)…
I mean: images, videos, affiliate links (make sure they’re your own of course)…
Rewrite the content, of course! Silly rabbit…
Voila!
Oh! Don’t forget to file a complaint with Google’s ever-vigilant “webspam team” since we know Matt Cutts is on top of things, or is it Larry Page himself? Not sure – either way, thanks to a purely automated and JACKED UP SEARCH ENGINE, you can take anyone out.
Who needs to research?
Just rewrite! Google = the rewrite engine. No backlinks needed. Done.
/rant.
Hey, Google – epic fail.
Update 8/30/2011:
My rankings on the site in question have returned with a vengeance about a month after publishing this post. Looking back on the matter, it’s pretty clear Google was doing several things.
They were running a new version of Panda, and updating PageRank. In the interim, I wound up making several improvements to the site and wound up with more PageRank and better rankings than I had previously.
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He might have a ton of backlinks hidden behind a 301 redirect – that’s a common part of that all-to-common strategy. Or it could just be that he has a temporary Query Deserves Freshness kind of boost. But very sorry to hear… :(
Michelle recently posted..April 2011 Earnings Report
The more I read you, M, the more I realize I’d hate to piss you off…301 redirected backlinks, eh? That’s camouflage I haven’t considered…
Right? I wonder if Michelle has a dark side :)
Carrie recently posted..April 2011 Earnings
Or a light side. She is an SEO Sith. I mean that in a good way, Empress.
:) I probably spend too much time reading the black hat forum threads. Not because I want to do that kind of stuff, but because I want to know a little about what I’m up against. Anyways – you people really have nothing to fear from me… :)
But wow, I don’t visit this tread for a day and… well, wow…
Michelle recently posted..April 2011 Earnings Report
No worries, M – I figure you can teach me what I don’t read enough of, I think the black hatters have a lot to teach in terms of what works and how to rank. Nothing wrong with learning a few things.
But I still don’t want to make you angry. You might somehow obliterate my income – hold on…dangit. That already happened.
Long live the tax return, what’s left of it anyway. :)
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!
Sorry, this is no time to joke. But I will anyway. I’m insensitive like that.
(sorry – this stinks big time!!)
Carrie recently posted..April 2011 Earnings
I laughing.
Man, I’m sorry to hear of your site’s demise, and even more of your plan to shut down your blog. I’m hoping that’s just a symptom of the frustration you must feel, & you will reconsider when you’ve slept on it – you dispense some interesting stuff, and I’ll miss it.
Good luck on getting everything back up, & nuking the scum bag that did you in, but I’m thinking if your theories are right, it may be a formidable task, he/she is probably pretty savvy.
~Bruce
Bruce recently posted..Simplifying The Twitter Experience with “Buffer” – A Great Tool
It’s one of those things where I think I’m just too transparent about what I do and how – Leo Di Milo and others provide great content without tipping their hands too much, I’m really paranoid about it. This is also why I’ve stopped reporting my income – it makes me a target…if you read my past posts you can probably find my sites easily enough.
Hi James!
google are the worst suckers online – they are proving it all the time – banning adwords adverts wihtout reasons (people who made google TONS of millions), treating webmasters like scum and so on.
the worst thing is – they want to dominate everything and become a sort of God, who will judge who will live, who will die… They’re constantly breaking own rules for SEO, set for “the rest of us”…
—————-
Well, that scraper cannot use WPTwin to clone your site, as WPTwin requires access to your FTP – I own this tool and it’s great for quick transfer of site to another domain.
I’d definitely address DMCA – the hosting company of your scraper will take measures as this is serious issue and hosting companies are not tolerant to abuses (at least the majority of them), esp from DMCA.
I had this situation back in 2009. I wrote to google about competitor who basically cloned everyhing I’ve done, site structure, main keywords – everything! Their answer – I’d translate it as “we don’t care”. Eventually my site was deindexed.
THis is the price we pay for working in google enviornment…
Ouch! Sorry to hear it, Anton…and I was afraid that would be the outcome.
Not sure where to start with this comment. For one, the images on the site are all supplied by the affiliate programs. As for the theme I have a license with flexsqueeze. Is the site very similar to yours? Yes. Is it the same? Nope, not anymore than the other results in the top 10. When Target started competing with Wal-mart do you think Wal-mart blamed all their problems on them? Ever notice how there’s an advance auto parts right by every Autozone? It’s called competition.
The thing that annoys me is not that you want the site taken down, I get that. The thing that annoys me is that you REALLY think that I fucked you over somehow. I never “sabotaged you”. You did that to yourself by overlinking a keyword with tiny competition. Want to know how I know that? Because I did the same thing to my own site. If you payed attention to the SERPs you would have seen my site ranking right under yours from late march up until April 28th when I tanked it. Only difference is instead of blaming the backlinks I used and then blaming a competitor, I figured out what I needed to do to get back in the SERPs.
I honestly cant believe you think I “told google” or “reported you to google” like that would actually do something. Do you honestly think google is so stupid that people could sabotage rankings that easily? Shit if that were the case why would I be fucking around with such low competition keywords? I tell you what, you said that you’ve taken action to have my site removed. I’m assuming that means you reported it to google. So by your logic I’ll be out in a day or two anyways. But really, Google is smarter than you think (and dont believe everything Matt Cutts tells you).
But anyways, I know what you really want to know is how to get your site back to where it was. It sounds like we ended up with similar penalties. Here’s a screenshot of my rank tracker when mine happened:
http://i53.tinypic.com/2ppbjv5.png
If you want I’m willing to tell you what I did to get back to my original Ranks and answer any questions you have. That is if I don’t have to rewrite my pages (I fucking hate writing). It’s up to you. I’m down to share what I’ve found and what I did because I don’t know of many people who actually APPLY the shit they read and actually try SEO instead of dicking around dreaming about it all day.
But it’s up to you. If you want I’ll take down the domain and start over on a new one. (No need for you to blow $200 on an “Expert”). Those keywords are not hard to rank for. I seriously just hate writing. Hell, if you really want I’ll even push you the domain in namecheap for $9. Oh and if it makes you feel any better, The spots I rank for only have made 1 sale a month.
Also If you want I’ll let you know how to better hide your more important websites so your readers cant find them.
-The “Scumbag”
Hi, “Scumbag” –
Here’s the FUNNY THING:
The site I had in question was created May 13th. So now what you’ve just done is tell me:
A) You read my blog and copied one of my sites.
B) You’re a SECOND copycat.
You bring up some interesting points, though. First you say that the images are provided by the affiliate program – funny thing, the site I was talking about copied my homepage images that had nothing to do with any affiliate program…
You also mention flexsqueeze: easy enough, I talk about that theme enough here – anyone can guess that’s the theme.
Also you mention this is “competition” and bring up Wal-Mart and Target. Hey, dude – if you can’t tell the difference between Target and Wal-Mart, you need some therapy or glasses. There’s a world of difference in their product lines for the most part, and the culture of either store. One has a website dedicated to it called “people of Wal-Mart” you should check to catch my drift…funny stuff.
But what I’m talking about is copycat content: I mean the colors, the theme, the layout, images, everything.
So from your comment here I’m thinking great! Now I have one READER admitting he’s copied me, and it’s not the same as the guy who’s site I’m even talking about – because the WhoIs data and web archive information of the site I AM talking about was created in May, you mentioned April rankings and whatever…
Lovely.
Oh come on, James, you’re being too tough on the guy.
He’s offering to sell you his domain for $9 and move his plagiarized content to a new domain to compete with you. Talk about generous.
Carrie recently posted..April 2011 Earnings
You’re right, Carrie. I’m being too tough. $9 is a steal…
Like my content. A steal. (drumroll, I’ll be here all week.)
I just want to clarify in case you missed it: competition is one thing, copying content and rewriting an entire site is plagiarism, even if it is soft. That’s not competing, BTW, it’s illegal and it’s called copyright infringement.
No offense, but you might want to look it up at Dictionary.com. There aren’t laws against competing fair and square and doing your own thing, selling the same products like Target vs. Wal-Mart. There ARE laws (look up DMCA) against copying content.
There’s all the difference in copying a website.
And for what it’s worth, YES I’m asking you to remove your site! Now I have a record of you admitting you copied one of my sites – are you kidding me? Is that even a question?
You’re completely right James. Plagiarism is plagiarism. Unfortunately in our online world many people don’t know what that really means. Plagiarism isn’t just word for word content theft. Argh these comments made me mad, can only imagine how you’re feeling! Someone did this to me with my PLR website – thankfully the threat of reporting them to their host worked and nothing more came of it. They weren’t bad people, just ignorant about rewriting (because so many damn courses and “gurus” teach it as legit! It is *only* if you have the license) Silver lining – people view you as a success here. This seems to happen to any make money online blogs that provide useful information when they’re doing well. They get copied :(
Ruth recently posted..My Process For Building Email Lists On Niche Sites
Glad that you got them to take it down, Ruth. Thanks for the encouragement, it does still surprise me (naive, maybe? I expect people to be honest for some whacky reason…) when stuff like this happens, I imagine people to do the right thing just because it’s the right thing.
But I’m glad that my copycats still didn’t manage to rank for all my terms – just 1 here and another there – so that tells me that my old method should still work (in my link building guide I mean). I don’t plan on varying from that, except to add a lot more whitehat to the mix up front.
So another silver lining is simply becoming a better marketer – and a bit more wise in what I detail here.
I am quickly becoming disillusioned. I had a site that was ranking top 5 for several keywords, then it tanked. Down to the mid 600′s. What ranks no.1 now for one of those terms? An Overstock.com page that has nothing whatever to do with the actual keywords. Google has become a despotic tyrant who won’t admit that their algorithm is broken. I think they’ve tweaked into becoming a tool of huge already established companies. But maybe I’m just bitter.
Raymond recently posted..Top Reasons To Buy Pressure Cookers
I think the consensus (from SEOBook, SELand and other places) is that Google is definitely favoring brand names. Matt Cutts mentioned as much when he talked about possible devaluing of Exact Match Domains, saying that brand building and earning trust is the way to go.
It’s common sense enough – but you can theoretically have a smaller brand…so don’t throw in the towel entirely.
But realize that Google’s not in favor of little niche sites – even if they do provide actual quality vs. what they replace it with (chaps my hide, too – definitely makes me a jaded SEO).
Hi Raymond!
Overstock.com has been hammered by google when this s*&t began with panda/manda update.
Recently (probably by negotiation or maybe google decided not to mess with huge company) Overstock.com was loosed of google filter and returned back to top rankings. That’s why it’s all over the place now.
It’s clear and obvious that google heads towards ranking huge companies and businesses where it’s possible. They do it in adwords since 03.12.2009 and looks like it’s time for organic search too.
Anton recently posted..Comment on Income Stats – April 2011 by Grand
True, it’s a brand-name-favoring search engine – it’s frustrating to see but it’s all over the place.
Take ‘em down by any means you can James, stuff like that is simply disgusting. There must be ways to get the content gone, dirty or clean tactics.
Man, this game really does make you ask why we run these kinds of blogs and open ourselves up to the buggers that can’t think for themselves and earn without hurting others.
I feel for you man, I really do.
Dave recently posted..New Beginnings
Yeah, agreed – there are definitely ways to do it. The sick thing is that when Google rewards such a site, what’s stopping an onslaught of likeminded, jaded individuals?
So in my case, I’ll admit right now I’m tempted to do the same – copy, rewrite, and copy/publish/complain it’s dupe content then get a site devalued…
I dunno. Just goes against my grain, but I’m tempted.
Oh stop. You answer to a higher authority. No temptation.
Carrie recently posted..April 2011 Earnings
Whenever you do something successfully, you’re going to have people ripping you off and copying you. I can’t tell you how many things I’ve had copied over the years.
The situation that took the cake was when I had just sent out a newsletter to my list with some marketing tips. The next day, I went to a Chamber meeting and listened to those EXACT tips in a presentation by someone who was on my list. And of course there was no credit.
It’s always a little odd to hear or see your work staring back at you and supposedly it is someone else’s.
For this particular situation, unless you designed the theme yourself, I don’t think Google is going to do anything about it. There are a ton of similar looking sites out there that are based on the same premium theme.
If you took the images yourself, you might be successful in a DCMA complaint. If they are vendor provided images, it’s not going to do you any good.
If they rewrote the content . . . well . . . a lot of people do that, and there are whole courses based on that strategy.
It sucks, but that’s the way life is sometimes.
You just have to decide if the site is worth it to you, and if it is, regroup and do it better.
It’s not just online, it happens all the time. Back when the situation with my newsletter and the Chamber happened, I wrote this post: http://legacymarketingservices.com/wk/focus-on-your-business/
If you have any sort of success, you just have to expect that it will happen to you.
Carla recently posted..Organization Strategies for Niche Marketing
Thanks, Carla – I’ve been talking to a few people about the situation and getting a sort of consensus on what to do. Anywhere from building up the site with new content in addition to what’s there, to rewriting it all myself and publishing on other websites with other IPs, etc.
The long and short of it is to move on and keep building – so much for all my talk of just one site – now it’s back to the build 10, 20, 50 sites.
The guy who copied me has 19 domains I can find, I just wonder how many he’s done this to.
No need to close the blog down, just make sure not to give anything away, in the slightest!
Was it most of your income or all of it taken? Perhaps you depended too much on just one site. Diversify it across many and begin to look into other methods of earning.
I see those who are successful who I’ve spoken do the following:
- Own huge passion sites
- Niche sites, monetized with adsense or affiliate offers
- Huge sites, lots of informative pages but not necessarily something they are interested in, monetized again with adsense or affiliate offers
- release WSO’s from time to time, either PLR stuff, re-written courses or new approaches
- Flipping
- Domain Flipping
- Building a list (CB products), then selling to it
It’s what I’m aiming for in the end. Also if you’d like to depend less on Google, I’d very much look into article syndication model.
Go to turnwordsintotraffic.com.
You either find a product, or create your own, then you basically approach hundreds to thousands of webmasters, ezine owners, and other publication outlets who already have the traffic you need.
Build the list, and then deliver a mix of info and sales pitches.
Why depend on Google when you can kick Google out of the equation and get more targeted buyers without consequences.
Better still, I wouldn’t buy from that actual site, but rather from amazon who sell the book for around 10-13 dollars I think it was?
It’s a must buy, they walk you through the whole process. I only say this so perhaps you can look into other ways of making money without depending too much on the big G. Play by your own rules!
Jay Perez recently posted..“Amazon Review” Method- Day 7 through to 9- Indexed and some keywords ranking! case study
Jay –
Definitely true that Google-proofing is something to do – but as to article syndication: I do that in spades already. Not just spun articles, but manual placements, iSnare, tons of Web 2.0 stuff – you name it. Guest posting is something I’ve done just a bit of but will be doing more of – and the rest of what you wrote is pretty sound.
Nothing new and common sense – but you mentioned “I wouldn’t buy from that actual site, but rather from Amazon…” Not sure why you brought that up? I don’t deal in books at all, unless you’re saying to publish a book on Amazon?
Oh…hold on…you mean “Turn Words Into Traffic” – gotcha. Going a little daft here.
I’ll have to check into that book but from your comment, it sounds like the tried and true methods of making money that I wanted to stay clear of only because SEO was / is pretty easy when it comes down to it. Depending on one site is a mistake, and on one source of traffic – as golden as SEO traffic is, when it’s gone, it’s gone.
List building and having multiple income streams – that’s where protection comes in. As it sits I can run a freelance SEO company – but again, not something I relish doing.
Anyway, Jay – thanks for the tip about the book, I think in the interim I’m still a link builder at heart. Will possibly keep you posted, still not sure about this blog.
Case in point, I found a comment in my spam filter I’m about to approve and dissect…it’s pretty comical.
I hope everything works out for you James. Actually, I know it will. You’re an action taker. It will just suck in the mean time because you’ve got family that depends on this income.
But I also know you will learn from this (as well as your readers). Diversity really is the best key here.
I once had a successful marketer tell me the difference between someone who makes it and someone who doesn’t is the volume of sites they can produce and that’s where automation comes in. I’m paraphrasing but I’ll never forget it.
Anyway like I said you’re an action taker and you’ll get this figured out.
And… people are scumbags. Plain and simple. No way around it and success only attracts more of them.
And I don’t think that you’ve revealed your hand here… Unless I’m not very perceptive or I just haven’t read enough posts.
But in any case, keep this blog open – don’t commit to shutting it down. Don’t worry about posting either – focus on what you need to right now. I guess I’m just saying is we will be here waiting for you when you are ready to update this blog again. Don’t think you need to post every day or something – I think we all know you need to focus on getting your income back.
thanks for being one of the real deals James – I wish you the best.
Dude, just made my day – thanks, Chris. I have to admit that I didn’t want to keep creating tons of sites, but I’ll start with adjusting this one by adding more non-affiliate-linked support posts, for general use for the reader.
I’ve already implemented some changes but I have a lot on my plate at the minute, more than I planned to have. Anyway, thanks for the good word.
Wow that’s a definitely a VERY surprising finding man.
But keep your head up James, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
I guess the lesson is to diversify, and you obviously have the skillset to do that already.
Kang recently posted..SENukeX Case Study Part 4
Thanks, Kang. I’m definitely diversifying and going to keep runnin’.
This horrible!
I can’t believe people would just do that, stealing is a stealing no matter if its done offline or online.
Jason Mitchev recently posted..VA Beach Dentist- Choosing Virginia Beach Dentist Guide
Totally agreed – theft is theft.
hey James,
sorry to hear that, time to get tough, come up with a master plan.
consider this:
http://lifetimecommissions.com/
Dude – that’s an awesome directory, Jeremy! Nice share, thanks for the tip. Definitely made it into the master plan, so thanks. (Disclaimer: I just skim read it – opinion subject to change depending on weather, mood and Google going through menopause.)
Yeah, the master plan is simple: use the content elsewhere, build up other sites, and put more content on this one while improving it in Google’s eyes.
I won’t spend too much time on it since I know penalties take months, but I will be using the content/research (rewritten altogether) on other sites.
The game’s not done, far from over – but it’s a black eye no less.
James, sorry to hear about your “copycat”. I have experienced something similar, found one of my sites copied almost exactly. The funny side? I’d made about $20 adsense on that site for AN ENTIRE YEAR!! I hope they thought it was worthwhile!!
Ha! Too funny – I have some similar type of sites I’ve let sit, but I found if I use affiliate products (even Amazon) I get more per page in terms of earnings.
But yeah: this time the copycat copied a good one, a $60k a year site. Although not all the rankings…so they don’t have all the rankings I did. Hopefully never will, either…
James,
Really sorry to hear about your site. But looking at the bigger picture many sites have been penalized for no reason. I have couple of decent earners going down the hole. I think from what I see personally the online world is now being ruled with big brand names. All this G’s- BS rules are only applied to small and medium websites. Big G does not have enough b..ls to derank or deindex sites like amazon, walmart or overstock. It is all about money. This may sound harsh but this is the way things are going to be for all of us in the future unless you are in an obscure nich and there are no big brands names in the game. It is time to come up with new strategies in this new and every changing areana.
yeah, I’m not ready to call it quits though. I think you’re right about Google’s direction, it’s clear from the SERPs that brand names dominate – but I’m going out swingin’. :)
Yes no point in quitting. Thinking about this it is in g best interest to keep changing the algo few months so everybody will be thrown off their seo efforts. Also it will discourage lot of people and ultimately go to PPC if you have a converting product. This is what ultimately they want. Their main revenue is through ppc.
Also in coming months we are going to see some major paradigm shifts in g search results. If Panda was big this change is going to make it look like a joke. A new wave is coming it is too early to say but once I confirm the direction I will let you know.
Good luck with your efforts and yes I believe in what goes around comes around. You have been a good help and also keeping us motivated.
I am sure you will do just fine in few months as you take ACTION.
Raj – I think you’re totally onto the real meat and potatoes….
When SEO is considered “unstable” then the next thing – or for me it is – to consider is getting into PPC and AdWords.
It’s still a viable traffic source (ads in general), but it’s “funny” how that works out…
James, what happened exactly, from the thread its seems
1. someone copied your money site
2. you blasted 500 links to the same money site
where does Google fit into this.
I say this because now people are speculating on many different things
instead of sticking to the facts of what happened.
Jeremy -
Hopefully I was clear enough that it’s all speculation, as it always is in SEO (one site doesn’t make a case study).
So MY speculation includes:
1) 500 links to a site where link velocity norms were really low – once I had ranked the site it held rankings so I slowed down considerably. I didn’t link monthly, but I did some manual links earlier this year, nothing to write home about.
Blasting 500 or so links out of the blue was unwise, but that’s all I can really say I personally did to make the site get flagged in any way. So I’m putting it out there as part of the possible problem – to draw any conclusions is really up to the reader to decide, as I don’t own the algorithm.
2) Google fits into all this because it’s Google rankings I’m talking about, and they had an algo tweak (verified by them) in late April, early May as well.
So were these Panda tweaks to blame?
Consensus from the advice I’ve been given off-line in personal emails says definitely, since many other webmasters noted a similar fluctuation in their rankings around the same time.
My paranoia comes in and colors the whole discussion because I also found:
A) About 10 pages of content that are cut and paste copies of my site, which is 100% original content…
B) A site that sits at #4 for one of my terms has copied my site entirely, from the colors, to the pictures, the layout, the theme, the content (rewritten, but my H2 tags are all there obviously)…
C) A reader that self-identifies as “the Scumbag” who admits he/she copied my site and called it “competition”…which I (with a friend’s help) identified as a second copy given the date of the creation of the website I found.
So it’s a hodge-podge list of funny events, my site’s taking up real estate around 500-900 in the SERPs, from a healthy #1-10 across over 30 keywords.
That’s a nice article.Can you tell me what’s the name of the plugin to stop others from stealing the content?I see a couple of sites use rss feed to copy content :(
TheShadow recently posted..Symbian Anna Png Icons by NovaG
If you look in the WordPress directory you can find a few. I won’t name the one I use since it’s a footprint and I really don’t want people finding all my sites. Using an RSS feed to copy your content though is sort of hard to avoid – unless you just disable the RSS feed feature altogether.
[@#$!], James, this totally sucks. I’ll agree that imitation is a form of flattery but good god, can’t these people get a life (and their own site content?)
I was directed to your post because I’ve recently gone through some bullshittery with a major name in internet marketing.
FWIW, I hope you don’t close down your site. That’s like giving them a medal for what they did to you…they win. Keep your site up, keep on being honest and working towards what you KNOW you can do, and let the rest of it slide off your back.
There ARE good, honest marketers out there…they’re us. We need to stick together if we’re going to make any difference in the IM world.
Good luck to you and again, I truly hope you don’t end up taking your site down.
Lisa Gergets recently posted..Don’t Let It Happen To You
True, Lisa, and thanks for the support. There’s a lot of cow manure to sift through, worse than a slaughter house (sorry for the visual, I do live in Idaho – beef aplenty here).
Just read your post that you linked to – wow. All I can say is “wow.” You’ve defined dirtbag.
And way to go on your Amazon plugin, WP Amaz-One. Looks good! Best of luck to you with your future plans with WP PayMe. Hope it all works out in your favor, really.
Holy crap I just read that article too. I always thought that guy was shady when I found that all the software that I bought didn’t work correctly. It would report “successful” submissions but it never even properly registered an account! You get what you pay for. What a dirtbag.
And Lisa, you just got a new RSS subscriber. From the tone of that article and the mindset you represent, you’re a marketer that I can respect :)
Ditto, Chris – Lisa seems like a pretty upstanding marketer from reading a few of her posts.
James… I found your post to be quite shocking. I didn’t think something like this could happen to me, but I’m starting to become paranoid! Lisa’s post above was also an eye-opener. So many con-men out there in cyberspace….
Best of luck to you.
Freddy K
fred recently posted..FinallyFast- Blogging Carnival! See who has been posted to Finally Fast http-owly-5135c
Thanks, Fred – it’s a good lesson to learn when you can afford it – at present it just put some fire underneath me to get cracking on other sites, so I’m more motivated now than I have been in a long, lazy while. :)
Hey James,
Hows it going? Long time no chat. I saw this post yesterday and I just had to comment. I think its absolutely disgraceful that someone can get away with passing off your blood and sweat as their own. I hope that they get what they deserve. Karma is a ***** baby. You just keep in doing on what you’re doing James, the good guys always win in the end.
Zaheer :-)
P.S Loving the blog, and congrats on your continued success (one of your biggest fans).
Nettech recently posted..May 2011 Update
Hey, Z! I just caught your Tweet a bit late, responded today, thanks for the comment. It’s a foul thing to do, really – but I know it’s going to happen. Really I should have not coasted so much on one success, but kept on hitting the index with more sites, at least 15, 20 or so – then I wouldn’t have to worry that much.
Unless, of course – Google decides to be stupid about it and bully out the small businesses like ours, in which case I think it goes without saying: don’t put all your eggs in Google traffic or SEO – it’s only one way to get paid. Lesson learned.
I think I’m learning from the whole 1 eggs in the basket scenario as well. AdSense is really beginning to get on my nerves so may go down the Amazon route to diversify.
I think what you’ve gone through sadly is a lesson we all need to learn. Lets just hope this is a blessing in disguise and allows you and all of us to protect ourselves from these problems moving forward!
Nettech recently posted..May 2011 Update
James,
I’m so sorry to hear what happened to your site. That is theft plain and simple. It sounds like you have a plan already. But can you talk to the company that is the affiliate sponsor and see if they’ll yank his affiliate status? Or talk to a lawyer. Or his ISP. I just hate stories where the thieves win.
I’ve sold some original products on Ebay and seen a few resold with little to no changes. I copyright everything and have a “Not for resale. If you resell it’s copyright infringement and you’ll hear from my lawyer. We have embedded coding to confirm ownership”. The actual wording is different but you get the idea. There are a lot of lowlifes out there.
As others have said it’s an argument for diversifying. it also made me think about gaps in copyright law as far as affiliate sites, original content and sales content.
Oh! and I really hope you don’t shut this site down. Just don;t give nitty gritty details on what you’re doing. I’ve read Dave’s stuff and he gives great info but never reveals anything about his own sites.
Finally Lisa you rock! I hope you can get a legal judgment there or compensation.
Take care,
Sandy
Thanks for the encouragement, and good points, Sandy. Shutting the blog down is a reward or caving into the whims of one or two shady marketers – something to consider anyhow.
I did contact the affiliate manager and informed him I had sold $100k+ worth of the products for the company, but like Google they won’t act as intermediary in these cases – less headache and legal battles for them I suppose.
No matter, though – I am contacting the ISP and hosting company of the offending webmaster, the internet archive is well on my side in the matter.
I just wish Google wouldn’t be so mum on the issue – there’s really no way to get them to help, although I did file a reconsideration with them (have nothing to lose at this point). It’s definitely not looking like it’s temporary – if it is, we’re talking 3-6 months at the soonest of anything improving.
So in the meanwhile I’m planning on improving the site with some content, linking it and then moving on to other projects. I can’t wait around for it to improve, and risk that it won’t – so I’ll just do better next time and play a bit smarter with Google.
And yep: diversifying a portfolio – no matter the industry – is definitely key (like I didn’t know already, but I never really acted on it).
Hey James,
Sorry to hear about the news. I enjoy reading your blog immensely. Before you ever consider ‘shutting it down’ I would almost beg that you even make it a paid site (as much as I wouldn’t like that but it’s better than not having you at all!) I have learned a lot from your posts and you keep me in the loop (along with a few others such as Michele) that help cut my time in learning what’s new in the world of internet marketing with SEO tips, tools, etc.
I have appreciate your honest and NOT holding your cards too closely to your chest approach (but I am sure you have not revealed EVERYTHING). But I would rather much pay a fee than to be limited anymore than what you are already giving us. That is just my opinion of course I know you have a lot at stake (more than I since I am doing this for just passive income, not full time.) But that is just my 2 cents and I hope we can continue to read your funny, informational and useful blog without any new restrictions from any unethical people out there.
Thanks,
John
Any progress?
Carrie recently posted..April 2011 Earnings
None, if by that you mean has my rankings shifted? Imagine the seismograph of any major earthquake. Up / down etc…
That’s the graph of my keywords, every which way. Market Samurai shows some progress – but then 48 hours later shows more chaos.
So I’m focusing on what I can change, which is making new content, new sites, new markets altogether and improving my marketing with various approaches.
I was telling my wife this morning that if I had just listened to Paula and Wanda, I mean with their backlinking / traffic strategy, I doubt I’d have this issue. But it’s more speculation and water underneath the bridge (although it’s striking how many people are telling me in emails, etc. that adding new content, increasing the non-affiliated posts and adding value on site is where it’s at – just an observation).
It’s also funny how many are telling me (without saying “I told you so”) that this is essentially Google post Panda, or slapping automated links is to be expected, etc. Yeah, I get it – but old habits die hard. I think. Still working on that one.
Wow. This is off-topic – you asked about progress: none to report. Thankfully I’ve made a handsome first quarter so I’m not eating beans and rice, rice and beans like Dave Ramsey says. It’s enough to make me rethink everything I’ve done to promote a site (is that progress?).
Yes, a progress in thoughts. At least you are trying.
I hope the site gets back to its ranking. :)
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I still have a hard time believing it was the backlinking that did you in, but who knows. It’s the unknown part that is so annoying.
No progress with the copy catter?
Carrie recently posted..April 2011 Earnings
@Carrie I’m not so sure on the back linking. I’m beginning to think sending new back links to an established site, that has been in “snooze mode”for a while, is something that needs some more analysis.
I have a 3 year old site that is a PR2, has 200 odd pages of content, both non unique articles, & more recently a dozen or so high quality, 800-1000 word unique ones, & was getting a very nice daily traffic count for probably 6 months, with 3-4 keywords on Page 1&2 of G. No linking had been done for probably a year.
About a month ago I hand placed 8-10 blog comments on PR0-PR5 blogs, all within a week, in an effort to boost it a bit.
My traffic is now ONLY from Yahoo & Bing. Those KW’s are no where to be found in G. I thought the site may have even been de-indexed, but at least that hasn’t happened.
And these were supposedly “quality links”!
I’m hearing more tales of people getting a shock when reviving back linking on an established domain.
~ Bruce
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>> that this is essentially Google post Panda, or slapping automated links is to be expected, etc. <<
Seriously? Is Google some psychic that knows *how* a link was created? That's B.S.
It's an algorithm . . . based on a numbers . . . 0's and 1's.
They tweaked the formula, that's it.
One thing I've noticed with one of my sites that has been fluctuating a lot is that Google's cache is screwed up for my pages. There are some that are listed twice when I do a search for site:mydomain.com as well as some REALLY old pages.
I think I'm actually getting hit with a duplicate content penalty on that page.
Google is just screwed up right now.
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Carrie –
No progress there at all. Meaning I haven’t done much besides supposedly communicate with the copycat, but it’s one-sided so far, no response.
I’m focused on other aspects of business, that particular venture nets me zero profit so I’m putting it on the back burner – but it’s something on my to-do list nonetheless.
Carla -
Yeah, I think it’s true that G is jacked at the moment, the SERPs make no sense to me as far as my sites go. Thin junk sites of mine are fine, but the one site that matters and with the most quality on it as far as my personal effort and writing is in the dirt.
The only thing I did (which is why I keep harping on it) is to link it in a way that could arguably have tripped a filter, if link velocity looks unreal or suspicious.
My theory on automated linking has more to do with velocity which would be easy enough to pick up with an algorithm easy enough, but yeah – it’s speculative.
I want to get a bit off the Google-only traffic, and more into links doing double duty (quality links for me would be those links that generate traffic in and of themselves, which doesn’t depend on rankings while at the same time they can help you gain ranking in Google).
So that’s where I’m headed at the moment, still a work in progress and more on that as it develops (i.e. it’s something I’m going to do but need to test the efficacy of it myself).
But no, I don’t think the algo is telepathic – but it shouldn’t be underestimated (the amount of research that goes into developing the algo I mean). This is where the frustration comes into play since I’m not sure exactly what “happened” to cause the penalty, or even if there is an official penalty I’ve incurred to begin with.
The site is dead in the water and I’m not reviving it at the moment.
What you said about dupe content is interesting, though – I’ve taken measures to nofollow/noindex my tag pages and anything else (like using canonical URLs, nofollow/noindex category pages, etc.) to ensure that doesn’t happen to my site a while back. Even that’s speculative as to how damaging it can be or helpful, with opinions every which way (like: do I noindex a category page? Should I do the same with tag pages? Isn’t Google smart enough to figure it out?)…but you may be right on the money.
James, I remember seeing Matt Cutts video recently where he claims that Google is advanced enough to recongnize blog structure with tags and categories and that nofollow/noindex should not be used on category and tag pages.
I believe that using canonical tag is the only thing that should be done. I have also seen my category and tag pages ranking, and I am experimenting with backlinking tag and category pages on couple of my sites.
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Thanks for the tip, JanisG.
Think of it from a logical point of view. Wouldn’t Google have realized that putting any importance in link velocity, number of links or where they come from would allow for all-out link spamming wars?
I’m sure they do, and unless they have a way of knowing who is doing the linking, then it’d be dumb to do so.
I think they can devalue the links depending on several factors, but they can’t penalize the site in question.
Now, again looking at it logically:
This has happened in tune with the several panda updates. Coincidence? I think not. I think you’ve just been one of those sites who did not deserve getting hit, but has.
I’ve heard from reliable sources in that past that google doesn’t manually control where sites end up, but rather its algorithm decides, and if you’re in the cross-fire, then there’s nothing you can do other than continue to improve the site.
If it hasn’t been de-indexed, then continue with it. Eventually this chaos will even-out and people will begin to regain rankings.
I know of other people who do affiliate marketing with amazon, who do reviews and then backlink them, and they’ve seen an increase in rankings.
I just think you’ve been unlucky. Despite what paula and wanda say, they do use guest posts, but they also do linkbuilding just like me and you.
I’ve manage to dig up 9 or so of their sites and their link profile is not only made up of guest posts :)
Remember, if it hasn’t been de-indexed, then there’s nothing that warrants your site useless, only that the algorithm has decide you aren’t up to par, and that you should improve upon what you have (even if what you had was good enough).
More of a logical slash motivational post, just to keep you motivated, and that not to completely give up on link building.
Though guest blogging is great, how easy is it to actually come by enough blog owners in a non-competitive niche that’ll let you guest blog?
And even-so, every page that is created is done so equally. So even if you are guest blogging, you’re essentially just getting a PR-0 backlink just like you would with any other link you can create through web 2.0 sites.
The only difference is that a site who allows guest blogging is usually more likely to achieve links back to its post from readers, and social likes from those who enjoy the post.
Obviously there’s the case of getting a link from places that others can’t, diversifying your links, and if the theme matches your site, then even more power to the link.
Google ranks pages, not websites. So with any created page, be it guest blogging, bookmarks, article directories, blogging platforms, videos and so forth, they all start from 0.
Obviously other factors can improve the status of the link, such as the theme of the site and so forth.. but other then that, it isn’t really much different.
The most powerful links that you can attain are usually just links from pages who already have a higher PR, and hopefully who carry the same theme as your website.
So blog comments are still great if you can find a blog post relating to your niche that has a slightly high PR.
Finding forum threads that are popular and have been linked to can be great too, as you can find some with good PR.
Definitely a good idea to branch out into other niches, but rather than make them small’ish, develop them into huge 50-100+ page sites filled with reviews and information related to those products.
I don’t know if you have seen wanda and paula’s best website, but it might be a good example for ya, and it’s doing so well I don’t think it’s going to hurt it by showing anyone:
only-cookware.com
You may have seen it I don’t know, but if you haven’t, it’s a good example.
End of my essay :D Hope it helps in any-way (?)
peace!
Jay Perez recently posted..“Amazon Review” Method- Day 7 through to 9- Indexed and some keywords ranking! case study
I think driving so many links so fast in a short time signaled Google, but the real damage was done because someone copied the content of your site. This is the main reason.
Again, I recommend for everyone lifetime customer commissions.
James,
So sorry this has happened to you. I love your blog and along with the others, I hope you continue it.
Not sure what is going on with G, but one of my crap sites is an autoblog and it is sitting on the first page after being tossed into never never land around last summer. The only links I’ve ever sent to this site are a handful of ezines/hubs and some profile links using Linking Loophole (I’m pretty sure most of those got deleted though).
Another site I have with a 10% bounce rate that I was becoming rather proud of has been knocked off below 100.
If G’s goal was to get the crap to the top then they’ve found the right algo. Ughh
I’m new to the whole IM world. First, I want to say I am VERY sorry this happened to you. I think I read that the site in jeopardy earns you 60k A YEAR. I’d be extremely pissed.
And secondly, I’d like to say having read all the comments in this blog, I now have absolutely no idea what the hell I am doing again. PR? SERP? Automation? Holy moses…. i think i quit before I start.
Jodie – great idea you gave me for a “post” of sorts…welcome to the blog, and don’t quit quite yet.
Yes, do it! I’m not sure if you started doing all this with a background in internet, computers or whatever ( not saying that you did), but just saying that usually when I go to sites, they are so “techy”. Everyone had to start from somewhere, but what I don’t see are: sites that explain all the techy stuff right up front. I mean even a common abbreviation and definition post would be awesome. I felt like an idiot when I looked up what “IM” meant last month. Haha. But the biggest thing missing from all this that you just can’t seem to find all in one place? A real A to Z on how to do it. You can find blogs, websites, etc geared towards one part of it- such as keyword research. You can then find another blog, site, etc geared toward “how to make your own domain”. And then another with “how to backlink”.
It would be nice to find a site that just has it all there ( or even a product, hint hint). Something along the lines of: You want to IM: You will need:
niche
product
keyword ( and learn to do it the right way)
Domains, hosting ( or maybe not if you “bum”)
and SEO. Lots of SEO- and how to do it and NOT do it.
Where to put articles
What is online seo, what is offline. All sorts of stuff like that.
Ive been at IM ( you can laugh now at me not knowing what that was) for just a wee month. In that time, I have literally CRIED just trying to find information that I needed. While looking for the information that I needed, I kept finding one common thing: EVERYONE that is “new” to this is looking for the same darn thing.
We don’t want to sit for 20 minutes and watch videos on how you just bought a new boat. ( not you in general, you know what I mean). We simply want the nitty gritty, real, no fluff, no bs, this is how you do it site.
Now go make one. I’d totally buy your ebook. LOL
There are a lot of good places to start out, the AdSense Masters course by John XFactor (John Robinson) was what really got me started, then Mike Iser’s blog (his “read me” section is pretty priceless)…http://mikeiser.com…
But the idea you gave me was a glossary page, I’ve been kicking it around for a while (and my ebook is going to be what you’re looking for, I hope). Another great place to read is http://www.inlineseo.com – Lisa Parmley’s mindmap for SEO was pretty telling, it’s free (though her ebook is $197)…
And another place if you want an all-in-one is Cary Bergman’s AdSense Guild, but again it’s pricey at $250. Hope that all helps some…
But when I first started out, it was all AdSense through the now-defunct AdSense Master’s course (it was good for its time, I wouldn’t say the method’s safe to use for building your niche empire now). I learned how to use FTP, how to set up WordPress for SEO purposes, what SEO was…it really was a good book for that and the videos were awesome to boot.
Oh! Ha – just thought of it – The Keyword Academy…it’s actually a monthly cost, first month’s free, something like $30 a month after that…but it’s got a great community around it, again for the newbie, probably the most affordable of the bunch – and they have some solid tools you can use, too. http://thekeywordacademy.com
Sorry for all the resources, these are just the places that I’d learn from, since you’re new I’d really recommend The Keyword Academy, and if you have any questions you can always email me (or check out my blogroll). I’ve never used TKA myself, but enough trusted friends of mine recommend and have used them, so I’m sure it’s worth the money for getting up and running.
James AT theaveragegenius DOT com is my email.
FWIW, I do plan on writing a solid ebook for this fall / winter, but I figure why wait when there’s a ton of resources already? (I wouldn’t wait if I was in your shoes, I have a lot on my plate I wasn’t planning for at the moment.)
I’m surely gonna stick around this place for a while. You actually comment back- which makes a huge difference too. I’ve ran into some very trustworthy people and they sit on their posts and don’t respond. Hence, I lose trust, unbook mark them and move on.
But I did realize when poking around your site that your sites can be stolen. ( thats the first post I read I think). My eyes about bugged out of my head, so I plan to stay here and make sure I know HOW to protect my sites. I never even thought of that one.
Plus, I like reading success stories, LOL.
Yeah, I comment back (learned it from the best online). :)
I’m so lame I forgot to mention to you that I have written a newbie’s ebook (free for download) for a former client (mostly a friend) named Matthew DC at http://seosage.org…
I have a series of posts there just for the newbie, the site was meant to be focused on newbies when it began, but Matt and I both got busy in other projects, then I quit freelancing. Anyway, the book’s valid – nothing’s changed so much that the terms or techniques don’t work, so (unashamedly) I recommend it to you.
Can’t beat the price. :)
You can find it at:
http://ebook.seosage.org
Actually, you can’t – but hopefully you will again be able to soon. I tried accessing his site a few days ago, but it’s down (hosting account suspended). Do you have his contact info, James? Maybe you could send Matthew a note, just in case he isn’t aware of this…
Michelle recently posted..May 2011 Earnings Report
Hmmm. I just tweeted him and DM’ed him. That’s not good – I know he’d put off SEOSage for a while but had no idea the site was down…ugh. Will try to get the ebook hosted here, but not sure if that’s an option.
It’s back up now – not sure what’s up with that. Been having similar issues here, though. :/
Sorry about what happened to you. I’ve worked for these ingrates before, now I’m truly disgusted. You’re not the first or the last.
My hats off to you for keepin’ it real and giving us this page.
Remember… what goes around comes around.
There are nothing worse than assholes copying text from other blogs.! But lucky here in Denmark we can sue the copycat´s, which helps to keep stolen text to a minimum.! :)
But one way to ensure you content is by using something like Copyscape, it check you text up against Google to see if your text´s has been copied.!
Jimmy recently posted..http://www.valutakurserne.dk – PR.3
I do have Copyscape after all that now – and also a membership to a DMCA takedown service, but being able to sue is simply too costly. Does Denmark make it easy on the budget to sue in these cases?
In 2009 we got a new law, that drastic reduces the cost as long as compensation you are asking for is less than 50000 Danish Kroner(about 10000$).
It only cost 500 Danish Kroner(about 100$), to sue.!
And you only have to fill out a form, where you state why you want in compensation, what you want it for.
For example I have sued a copycat, I just filled out the form with what, where and why and with screenshot of my website, his site, Google cache, mails an so on, then turned it in and payed the 500. And I don´t need to hire a lawyer, because of the new law it´s up to a judge.
And I know a couple of sites that has done this several time, and they haven´t lost yet.!!
It´s pretty simple.! :)
NB. The lawyers hate it.! :D
Jimmy recently posted..http://www.valutakurserne.dk – PR.3
I wish it was that way here, Jimmy. It’s too expensive to protect your own creative work – but a DMCA ‘takedown’ form usually works. I pay about the same for the DMCA service as I do for CopyScape, so it’s not bad.
Sorry to hear it James. I hope it’s just a temporary boost and Google get’s their act together. I see how it happened, but hopefully domain age and the amount of time indexed for your pages will eventually trump his copies. It wouldn’t be hard under a manual review to see that your indexed pages have been around a lot longer than his re-written copies probably have been….
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Oh it was, the site came back after Panda 2.2. Basically Google was in between Panda version and I got hit, but back on top. I need to add an update to this post so it’s clear.
As of Sept. 2011, I wish I could say the same for the dozens of aquarium/pond sites I maintain and write in depth unique articles for.
Spam, “cut & paste”, etc sites are coming up ahead even more now than a few months ago. Only a few articles have rebounded
Sorry to hear about that – so you never bounced back? My site took a hit in the same time frame but came back a month later, around Panda 2.2. There’s no telling why.
A few website (or more accurately web pages) did bounce back at least in part, but others and in fact my better articles have actually dropped further.
Since I admittedly have selling pages, these interestingly have not been hit as hard (except for one major exception), it has been the many articles that I spend 1000s of hours in research (along with help from others) that have up to date content found no where else that have been hit the hardest.
One example is “Aquarium Lighting” (http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Aquarium_Lighting.html). This article is constantly evolving and is not even close to the same web page it was 4 years ago since the technology is changing quickly. I along with others help have kept this very current, yet webpages with content that is about as current a a Commodore computer is to a new Apple have lept over it and stayed there.
Another is the search term “Aquarium Planaria” which brings up mostly sites that are totally false, thus providing those who read these articles dangerously inaccurate information for their aquarium.
I could go on, such as how the unique articles found at Aquarium Answers that used to be near the top on Google (such as Fish Osmoregulation; Do Fish Drink) have fallen completely (not so with Yahoo though).
Anyway, it is not my intention to spam your article with my websites, I appreciate your allowing me to vent here.
My biggest frustration is seeing all these misinformation spam or cut & paste sites suddenly jumping up in search during last 8 months and staying there.
Thanks again for your informative post and allowing my comments!!
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