My website http://wordtutorial.net/ was appearing on first page of Yahoo and Bing search for term "Word 2010 tutorial". Recently paid for a its listing in Medrank Directory at http://medranks.com/education/online-degrees/ Just 2 days after Bing recorded that backlink (cached on 9th Feb 2010), The site went down from Rank 4th, all the way to 32nd. Have i placed the link on an unrelated page of Online Degrees? Its not actually a degree , but an online course or Tutorial. Just wondering if that could be a reason. Any other thoughts? Regards
It cant be a reason. If it were, the 2nd position webmaster will list the 1st position website and kill its ranking.
It might be dancing (same Google Dance). As siteurl said, if put a link on Medrank has negative effects, then anyone can drop sites in 1st position
Thanks. Intelligent point and explained very well too Any thoughts on what could have been the real reason for this sudden drop?
First off, I can't imagine why you would put your site under Online degrees. I'm even more surprised the directory owner didn't move it. Secondly, I'm not a fan of general directories that are built on domain names that were used for something else. It was once a directory of medical sites, hence the MedRanks name. That said, they do seem to have built a fairly decent resource with PR going down through to the categories. Too bad they didn't take the time to come up with some acronym or some longer word to explain the Med part of their name. And while it appears the domain has always been used as a directory, the 4 year claim is a bit misleading. Bing seems to be a fickle thing. From what I've seen if greatly favors new sites and quickly moves on to the next best thing to come along. Google on the other hand favors longevity and backlinks but does reward you when you post new content. By the way, I would strongly urge you to not put Adsense next to your images. Google really frowns on that and could ban you from the program for it.
Yes i think went a bit overboard with that listing. It was my first paid listing- The PR 6 link seemed quite attractive, and i since i was also going for keyword 'Online Ms Word Course', i thought the category won't be that bad. Asked the directory, they said would accept it then i paid. A competitor with a similar topic site shot to 2nd rank in google for a very important keyword just in 7 months since site was created. Checking out his backlinks, i found that he mainly listed in General directories including Medranks. So was basically following his strategy. Interesting point you mentioned about medranks. How do i check whether a directory is good or Not before posting links? Apart from PR. Thank you so much for reminding the Ads next to image thing. Had read that earlier but it somehow slipped and got ignored. Am rearranging them. Your thoughts on. the Google policy says "Place misleading images alongside individual ads. " Question- Is it illegal to place any ad with images (whatever kind it maybe) OR just the misleading ones like ones that have an arrow pointing etc ? My images are mostly screenshots On another google support page i found support.google.com/adsense/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=132575 "Keep your ads looking like ads: Choosing ad colors that complement your site is great, but avoid aligning images with your ads or making nearby content mimic their formatting. Displaying ads in these ways isn't permitted by our program policies."
Regarding the Google thing...I had some images near the ads that I used as placeholders to maintain the overall structure of the site. I think they were stars. Anyone looking at my site for more than 5 seconds would have realized they were part of my site. They were in no way drawing attention to the ads, they were there simply to keep the overall layout of the page. To me, if anything, they hid the ads. Emailed Google, they said take them down immediately. Since then, my strategy has been no pictures of any kind next to their ads. It's just not worth risking a ban for a few extra clicks that some folks claimed from ads next to images. I don't think Medlinks is a bad directory. After all, it does have PR within the categories and it has been several years since the switch. I would be hesitant though because of the origin of the name and the lack of branding being done around it. I would maybe ask them to switch your site to online learning, computer tutorials or something more topical. For the most part, it's not too hard to find directories that are built on domains that had a different purpose. Most often the name just doesn't match in an obvious way. I run them through archive.org and you'll usually find the history of the domain there. If your top competitor mainly has directory links, I would think that you would have a better chance of beating him with a more diverse link profile. Adding backlinks from blogs, forums and other reference sites might give you the advantage. You also might want to join a forum where you could become the resident Word Expert. That would help you as well. Good luck.
Your expert advice saved me a possible ban. Now that i reviewed my site, i think the ban would have been very near. Excellent tip on the resident Word expert thing. Will also go for checking directories in archive.org Thank you so much for your sincere and very effective help. Do you have a blog or something where you write technical articles ?
I believe, drop in ranking is mere a coincidence... Otherwise, getting listed into paid directory does not hurt ranking. Unless, its done with the intent of getting backlink only. The reason must be someting else, poor backlinks or duplicate content are few suspects.
you guys were right. it was a conicidence. back on top page again. content is unique, all self written. I have however noticed that even though the above mentioned listing was bit costly and has high PR, i do not receive any traffice from that listing. It is just a back link practically. C.Rebecca- what do you recommend i should do to get paid listings that actually give some traffic too. Go for niche directories? but mostly they are low PR and low traffic sites. please advise.
Man - its scary - just dn't open a thread like that without some research ........... read all the points here and you will know - paid directory listing is not just page rank of the page - --- but there are many other factors! http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=2406087
Saw the review and then was surprised to see a banner ad for them. Seems like you are sending a mixed message there.
Your right. A bunch of advertisers have threatened to cancel if I didn't change the reviews. I told them they were welcome to cancel their ads. So far few have cancelled.
Maybe it's just me, but if it was a site that I wouldn't recommend to my site's visitors, I wouldn't accept their advertising either.