Apparently I found a new way to rise in the search engine rankings. And it’s probably the easiest method I’ve ever used.
Step away from your blog for 3-4 months and let Google do it’s thing.
For the term “Copywriting” I’ve gone from about 450 to about 90 since I’ve let the blog sit.
That’s a 360 spot jump. So is this the lesson? Should you stop posting to your blog for 3-4 months.
Of course not, but I think there is a good lesson here.
First of all, I’m guessing the reason I fell so far (to 450) in the first place is that Google had discovered duplicate content from this blog and stephensblog.com, where I used to post.
So I deleted all duplicate content… and I think that hurt me even more. Now content Google HADNT yet discovered was duplicate content was simply disappearing from my site.
So I think Google was dropping my domain in the rankings until I stopped making changes and the site was properly indexed again.
The lesson there is… be CAREFUL on editing your site content.
Google’s job is to lead visitors to good content. And if Google finds they’re sending visitors to deleted pages, my guess is they’re going to take that seriously and punish your domain for a while.
If you’re going to reorganize your site, you should edit established pages instead of deleting them off your server all together.
Couldn’t agree more. That has happened to me as well
.-= Alan´s last blog ..Latent Semantic Article Tool =-.
Thanks for the comment Alan.
It’s good to see my blog has recovered… and I hope to watch it continue to rise as I post more frequently and get more links.
CHEERS!
I don’t agree with the dupe-content thesis. I don’t think Google actively penalizes except based on lots of links from “bad neighborhood” sites.
I’m painting with a broad brush. I’ve done a lot of SEO over the years and I’ve observed some things. Sometimes Google just randomly drops a site from high rankings for awhile – no reason to it. The site often climbs back up again.
Sites do need to mature to rank. The spiders take awhile to find your links and they may assess link permanence for your inbound links. This may be why it takes awhile for most backlinking to have an affect (drives SEO clients crazy because they want fast results).
My guess is you started promoting this site, driving sig-line and email traffic to it, and Google eventually noticed the other site was languishing. Google rewards a good gardener – you take care of the garden and it will rank you well.
There’s a lot of tech and trickery to SEO of course, but a simple garden metaphor explains it pretty well so most people can understand. The more you promote your site you want traffic to, the more search engine traffic you’re likely to get.
.-= Loren Woirhaye´s last blog ..I Wish I Listened To My Mother More =-.
Thanks for the comment Loren. Got a question for you, how have you experienced the penalty from “bad neighborhoods?”
Can you share any stories? That’d be great.
.-= Stephen Dean´s last blog ..Affiliate Copywriting 101 =-.