Hi

I have a adult site that Google loved, I did a lot of off site SEO and stuff and was on first page for 90% of my keywords including some VERY competitive terms, all ha sbeen fine and dandy for 5 months when other day I notice everything has gone right down, and even when I search for my site name it doesnt even show up, it just isnt the side pages.

Google has gone from loving me and sending me 25k+ a day traffic to this all of a sudden after 5 months, I havent changed anything except I added few new link exchanges, thats it.

I know about this happening for new sites but as I say everything has been good for 5 months or so, anyone had this happen before? Im worried as this was my income and did very well for me.

Its been 3 days since I lost them all.

Site is adult so cant post url but was PR4 and Google loved it, should I wait it out?

Does anyone know how to contact Matt Cutts? I appreciate he must get loads of email but this is my livelyhood and I have no idea why it has happened.

Thanks

I would give it some time. Someone recently contacted me with a similar problem, and after a week or so everything was back to normal. Then after wating you can file a reinclusion request (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/reinclusion-request-howto/) *if* you're banned in some way, and it might also make sense to check if any of your SEO strategies is against the Google webmaster guidelines (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769) or you're linking into bad neigbhorhoods too much.

PS: If the problem persists, feel free to shoot me an email as well (for a potential case study here, not to speed up reinclusion)...

Thanks Phillip, I will give it a few days then.

I shouldnt be banned, as I said everything was fine for 5 months then bam it happened all off a sudden, but I will defo email you if nothing happens.

Thanks

BTW my pages are indexed, when I goto site:sitename.com they are all there, they have just fallen down the rankings for some reason, maybe penalization, even the index page doesnt show up when I search for site name.

> I shouldnt be banned, as I said everything was
> fine for 5 months then bam it happened all off a
> sudden

The fact you've been fine for 5 months doesn't mean you've not been banned now. In theory it's possible you did something that's against the webmaster guidelines but Google only now found out it about, or they adjusted their defense algorithms.

ok whats a "defense algorithm" ??

I normally take that term from a secon prespective and not a SE prespective. Can you explain a little more , pls ??

Well, I meant spam defense algorithm. Detecting white-on-white links, for instance... it could well be that something Ross did is against the guidelines, but the Google webspam team only recently rolled out an improvement to how they're detecting this.

True, but as I said I know bit about seo without being an expert and I am 100 per cent sure I havent done anything wrong.

Its a pain in the backside tho there isnt anyone to contact to try and find out why, this is/was my livelyhood with this site as I quit my job to go full time with it.

Ross what *did* you do, SEO-wise?

But again, I suggest you hang in there for a week or two and then consider it a problem, and hopefully your savings are enough for those 2 weeks. And I'm sure some of your visitors are recurring visitors, not just those from Google...

SEO wise? Nothing much, just concentrated on my anchor text and made sure keyword desnity was good...I know people say keyword density doesnt matter but I always like to do it, I also concentrated on getting non reporical links – Thats basically everything I did.

Well I would get about 40k a day uniques, 25k a day was form Google and lots were from other sites, way it works is I send traffic to other sites via the 'plugs' and they send back, but without the google traffic to the front page its hard to send much traffic.

I can send you the url if you wish and let me know ya email if you want to take a look.

Thanks

Whilst working at a web design / SEO company, here's my two pence...

Recently, I noticed a shift towards Google really preferring NEW content. When I research new web techniques, for example, I'm seeing plenty of results that are less than a month old, and often are from blogs. This is a really good thing. Google have explicitly stated in the past that you should not expect your site's content to do as well as it does forever. You've got to be ready to move onto the next thing. ANYTHING to help – a news archive, blogs, forums – can't hurt.

Also, you mentioned link exchanges. Although there seem to be exceptions, it is recommended to avoid them. There's links, and there's LINKS. These days, a link is only truly valuable to your PageRank if it's from a reputable source, and you don't link back as much as they link to you. In other words, "word of mouth" is the only way links can really work for you.

Try Google Analytics. Even though it's primary function is to aid businesses with PPC advertising, it can also benefit the average webmaster. It tells you the most popular keywords (I dread to think what they are to get to your site!). If you act upon the trends that appear, you'll get somewhere in the long run.

The best piece of advice I can give to you is to be *different*. Try new things and live on the edge with your site, instead of just waiting around.

My 2 main keywords were 'Porn' and 'Free Porn'

I was on first page of Google for both.

As I mentioned, Google loved my site and the pages on it then just all off a sudden..

Thanks for the advice and post.

What PageRank does the toolbar now show on your homepage?

Still PR4.

I just checked my rankings, seems ALL of my rankings I ranked for have gone down to page 4 or 5, 'porn' and 'free porn' are both around page 5 too, theyve all moved down to the same sorta spot.

Maybe your linking to too many spammy sites. Google didn't like that so your now on page 4 or page 5.

Or maybe you were using some bad SEO solutions (like links farms).

Anyway, as you said – those are a VERY competitive terms and Google algorithms works automatically. I'm sure many other sites are just as relevant for searches like "porn" as yours. You can't make the case that past results for "porn" was more fair than current.
This time 40 other people were more lucky than you. Being on 4 or 5 results page for one of the most completive terms in the world not only means that you haven't been baned, but also that your position is still pretty good. Certainly there's no ground for complaining at Google. People lost their good places in results (or suddenly gets one) all the time. Google won't explain every case (note that they would have to understand it first, as those changes are done automatically...).

There is a Polish saying "sometimes on the wagon, sometimes under it", if you now what I'm saying.

'Maybe your linking to too many spammy sites. Google didn't like that so your now on page 4 or page 5.'

Possibly, but how do I find that out? Punishing other sites for unknowingly linking to a site that might be spammy is harsh.

'Or maybe you were using some bad SEO solutions (like links farms).'

No.

Its weird that ALL my keywords have been moved down to the same spot, even every uncomeptitve keywords where it was really easy to rank #1, I really dont think its got anything to do with the terms but that I have been punished in some way, as I said even my index page doesnt show up for my site name, no other site has the same name as mine so it should

I second what Ludwik says. You can't base your sole business on being in the top 10 for a super-competitive term. Others belong there too, and you have to know that any day, you can be kicked to lower rankings, to make place for another lucky business.

By the way, are we talking SafeSearch enabled or disabled in this discussion?

As I said, I REALLY dont think it has anything to do with the terms, I understand what you are saying but thats another point entirely.

Whats safesearch?

Oh safesearch on Google? I always have it disabled.

This is kind of crazy without mentioning the URL. Go to http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/ – start a thread, include your URL and people can take a look. For what it's worth, I've run into a few adult sites that were hacked in a way that the average user could not spot (hackers installing cloaking based on certain parameters) – that will certainly lead to your exclusion. Post the URL there and we can stop guessing :-)

Yeah but I wasnt sure if adult urls are allowed on here.

Can I not just email it to you?

Thanks.

Well it's nearly been two weeks, the recent Google update seems to be over (?) and I was hoping it would go back to normal over that, now I am starting to really worry about this.

Can you drop me an email Ross?

Sure, whats your email?

infoouter-court.com

Sent – Thanks