Why was my site penalized by Google? Trying to identify a mistake to learn from it!

First, let me start off my saying this is in regards to an ADULT blog dedicated to a specific actress and the URL is (starsname)[dot]net. Furthermore, the site is only about 1 full month old... and I have only been a webmaster for 5 months but during that time I have learned A LOT (thanks in LARGE part to vets on forums like this one) and as I continue to learn, I have managed to recently acquire 3 PR 1's and 1 PR 2 site.

So before I provide history and describe the problem at hand, I want to clear a few things out of the way:

I am aware that Google treats adult sites COMPLETELY differently and fluctuation is much more common among such sites. And I am also aware that fluctuation among new sites is even more common as they struggle to earn Google's trust. Since both of those statements apply to my blog, I'm aware that it is in the realm of possibilities this blog fell victim to BOTH of these factors.

But here's the thing...

A. Evers (don't want to spell out the name) is a young and busty up-and-comer in the porn industry that made her debut just a few months ago, but in the last month she has worked with a couple major adult networks. She has potential to become a well known member of the adult film star community in the near future (at least that's what I think), but as of now, there isn't THAT much out there on the web for her (relatively speaking).

So I believed that I saw an opportunity here and registered HerRealName[dot]net, adding it to my little network of star-specific blogs and got to work on it immediately by creating a wordpress blog with 5 posts over the course of maybe 3.5 weeks because she has only been in 5 scenes so far. Each of the 5 posts has unique content written by myself and includes a preview gallery or video that ultimately directs the visitor to her pay site in the classic fashion "CLICK HERE TO WATCH FULL LENGTH" etc

To my surprise, this site IMMEDIATELY took off as soon as the first couple posts were published! The very next day, my blog was ranked at the bottom of the first page search results on Google for her name. By the 4th week or so, it was #2 on Google. Second to only Freeones. And it held its place there until today...

Now, I had been advised that it's CRITICAL to submit to Freeones as it is the best quality free backlink you can possibly get for your site. And this advice came from a webmaster whom always places similar blogs on the first page of Google's search results.

But in my first attempt submitting the page to freeones, it got REJECTED (~1 day later)... Why? It had pop-unders. I decided freeones was more important than pop-unders, so I took out the code for them and submitted my link to freeones again and ~1.5 days later...... Rejected! Why now? "Too many outgoing links". I do not have a lot of outgoing links, for the record, but relative to other galleries, I did.

Determined to get my site on freeones, but not have to wait another 1.5 days only to receive another rejection response letter back, I consulted with my expert friend and temporarily stripped down my site A LOT, but enough to feel confident that freeones would surely accept the site this time...

Here's what I temporarily took off my blog to get the listing on freeones:

- Changed the main page of the site from displaying the 5 most recent posts to displaying the 1 (single) most recent post.
- Reluctantly got rid of the tag cloud (but of course intended to put it back up upon approval from freeones)
- Switched the sitemap link to draft mode (so it no longer appeared)
- Switched the About page to draft mode (so it no longer appeared)
- Switched the Sites page to draft mode (so it no longer appeared)

Re-submitted the site to freeones and finally got it approved!

And practically simultaneously my site goes from being #2 overall on Google to... nowhere to be found in the search ranks (I clicked through FIFTEEN pages of search results and found nothing but one of my other sites). Was it worth temporarily changing my site like this just to get my link on freeones? Well, the good news is my traffic still TRIPLED today just because of this new link that was acquired, but in the long term, I'd rather be #2 on Google without the link on freeones than be on freeones (with 1000s of other sites) and not be on Google.

Also worth noting: despite my previous high ranking on Google for the model's name, I noticed that in the META description, I reference the wrong LAST NAME of the model. Of course, the correct last name still shows in the URL of the site, but I thought this was something worth correcting, so I did. And this change was made right around the time I re-submitted my site to freeones.

Some of you might be saying to yourselves now: So what the heck are you asking about? Obviously you got penalized for changing your site too much!

And I understand that it's true... but that still doesn't answer what part specifically caused Google to penalize the site? Was it the META change? Was it the shortening of the main page to include 1 post instead of 5, even though the other 5 pages still existed and were accessible through the sidebar? Was it removal of the Tag Cloud which was there for search visibility?

OR was it just... tough luck for this new porn site, no penalty at all, just in the process of being re-indexed and Google's tendency to throw new sites around like a rag doll?

I can understand how adding too much would make Google penalize a site, but "cleaning up" and simplification wouldn't do that too would it? The keywords didn't change, the title didn't change, the tags didn't change, and with the exception of the About, Sitemap, and Sites pages that went into draft mode, all of the pages were still there and once again everything could STILL be accessed by using the sidebar anyway. So what gives?

As it stands right now, the site is listed on freeones and back to its original state before I made changes with tag cloud, 5 posts, etc... how likely is it that once the "original" version of the site gets indexed again, I'll be back to where I was before the sunk ship?

Is there a way to speed up recovery time after a site has updated?

...I think that's all I got... even though I feel like I'm leaving something out.

Please offer your opinion, maybe it will help someone else in the future too =)

 

What makes you think that your site has been penalized? i would say its a ranking slip rather than saying penalization. if you are able to see even a single page of your site by typing "site:yoursitename.com" in Google than its still there. it might be the result of Google dance too.

i hope freeones is not some kind of blacklisted domains in Google because all this happens after linking back with freeones?.
also, that's quite drastic change from #2 position to nowhere.

Now, since your site is accepted in freeones, i would say try to restore all the things back to original position including the sitemap, 5 posts on main page, tags cloud etc.

 

Hello SSC,

Thanks for the reply... I guess my thread was too long because yeah I did mention in there that the site has been restored to its original form that got it ranked at #2

And I guess i'm a little confused, Google dance vs penalty is not the same thing? I thought that when a site doesn't show up for site:yoursitename.com that is referred to as being flat out "banned".

but that a slip from #2 down past at least page 15 would be considered as the outcome of a penalty, no?

As for Freeones, fortunately, it's not blacklisted. Not at all... freeones is a PR5 and the most respected adult gallery submission site on the Internet and often the ONLY site used by adult webmasters that want to link their galleries. Been around for years and have a strong reputation.

Still looking for ideas on what the specific cause may have been if someone can kindly chime on there

Thanks to everyone reading

 

Google dance & penalty are completely different things. Google dance is temporary while the later is permanent unless Google reconsider your site and drops the penalty off. Yes, you have got it right. when you won't find a site with "site:yoursitename.com" that simply shows that its either sand boxed or has been severely penalized, in both cases you are in trouble if you are not able to find any of your sites pages in Google's index/cache.

Possibilities are endless but i would rather suggest to wait & watch, if things were not going to change after a few days than you might have to look for a solution.

 

Hmm... so I did a little experiment with AWStats that comes with my hostgator account...

Logged my total # of hits from the search string "A Evers"

woke up the next morning and checked to see if it went up...and how much...

I now have 363 hits for that search phrase... whereas before it was 348... just 15 additional hits... sigh...

on the other hand, the benefit of freeones = going from 107 visitors to 638...so... maybe I should consider this a fair trade off . and in the meantime, hope that Google recognizes my site being back in its original form.

 

Without knowing the URL, its kinda hard to 'guess' what went wrong. But... In the past (and probably still), a lot of adult sites had a bit of a dodgy/spammy reputation, so I'd imagine Google keep a close eye on any new site that pops up in the adult industry. So it probably wasn't because of any one specific change, but rather the several changes you made over a short period of time (Or you stepped over some other unrelated line and triggered a red flag).

Her real name or her stage name? Either way, here are some things you should know

You were ranked #2... Why was it critical? I guess the traffics OK, but other than that, a reciprocal link is pretty much worthless.

I actually just found your site and have had a quick look...
Freeones pretty much hit the nail on the head. "Too many outgoing links". If a porn directory wouldn't accept your site, then your probably going to have a pretty hard time with Google.

There is obviously something wrong. I mean, shes new and isn't well known, and based on these searches, there is next to no competition. intitle:"Allison Evers" gives About 3,770 results (0.21 seconds) inurl:allisonevers gives 9 results (0.16 seconds) only your sitemap.xml file turns up in that search. So yeah, you may have a few problems.

Have you recently added a 301 from www to non www? The reason I ask is that Google shows both versions in its results, but the www version gets redirected to the non www version. Anyway...

Your tag cloud is keyword stuffed and looks spammy, I'd get rid of it.
Add rel="nofollow" to all outgoing affiliate links.
Add "noindex" to all tagged search archives
Delete most of the tags.
Add it to Google WMTs (www.google.com/webmasters/).
Check, then fix your robots.txt
Add more content and less affiliate links (Don't keyword stuff).
Learn from your mistakes.

If its not at #2 or #1 within a month, scrap it and start again on a new domain.

Cheers
James

 

Hi James,

Thank you for the advice... seriously... as a new webmaster, I am sure there are a lot of things I'm doing wrong

Here's the irony:

The version of the site you are looking at is what the site was BEFORE I gave it a COMPLETE makeover (which included only 1 post on the page, omitting the tag cloud, and several other things).

I got the site accepted to freeones... which is precisely when it fell off Google...

...and at that point, I restored the site to its old form (tag cloud, multiple posts per page, all widget menus, etc etc).

And that cluttered / full version of the site is the one that ranked #2 on Google (and still ranks #3 on yahoo actually).

Actually, as far as the Tag Cloud goes, I *try* to limit my # of tags per posts to no more than about 7, but since I only have 4 or 5 total posts on the site, right now some of these tags have only been used once. Furthermore, everything "Allison Evers" (alright there's no point in referring to her as A Evers anymore) has ever done in the adult industry to this point IS on that site already, so I can't add more content (yet)... but she is getting a lot of attention and has been featured in scenes from 2 of the industry's biggest names, and that's part of what adds value to the site. AS you said, there isn't much out there for her, and to have all of her previews in one central location is pretty convenient (the hard part will be staying up to date once she takes off)

Anyway here's the thing (and also an UPDATE to this thread): NOW that I have restored the site to its old "messy" form, I can already see some of the key-phrases creeping back up the ladder!

So at this point, as much as I understand certain advice, I'm reluctant to make changes to conform to standards since the only thing I can conclude from all of this, is my site went down the tubes precisely after I cleaned it up and got it approved. Then, I restore it, and things start looking good again (slowly)

To answer your question about the 301's, the only thing I can think of is the sitemap takes out the "www" and in Google WM tools, I had added the site as "www.sitename.com" so I got a sitemap error until I deleted it from there and added it again to correspond with the URL format on the sitemap (which by the way was generated using Google XML Sitemaps wordpress plugin) ... Furthermore, I tried your "inurl" test and got the same results, yet, when I search for variants of her name with "young" "busty" "tits" and so on, I see other URL's from the site showing up in the search results, so I don't really understand that... maybe everything is being re-indexed again? I apologize if that theory sounds stupid, but I have to remind you I'm just a newbie here.

One thing I have learned so far is that there just aren't many absolutes with Google and all I've got to pick from are a bunch of theories, so at the end of the day, maybe the best practice would be to use my own judgment and through trial and error, see what gets positive results and what does not... because it feels like that's the lesson I'm being taught in this particular experience.

I mean, just like how you asked me "why is it critical to submit to freeones if you're already #2 on google". The only reason I say that is because that's the advice I was given by somebody else who makes model-specific sites that almost always rank on the first page of Google... even for the very competitive names out there

That said, I'm inclined to take some of your suggestions since they are logical (at the very least I should add nofollow to affiliate links since they have no benefit to my site anyway), but I'm also a little paranoid about how changes are going to affect the site.

 

I see your sites homepage on page 3 for the term "Allison Evers" (with quotes). The strange thing is, Google shows www in the URL (which gets 301 redirected to the non www version) you can see the 301 header results here

Also, this search for your sitemap shows the www in the URL as well, but that page does not redirect and also has an error for some reason.
The non www version of your sitemap loads fine but is not returned in the above Google search.

Cheers
James

 

Yeah... I'm very confused now that you guys have revealed a new issue...

www.allisonevers.net redirects to allisonevers.net

a few of my other sites do the SAME thing... here is one of them: www.mobipornotube.com,
but then others are www.sitename and do not redirect

I'm a little curious how it happened, but I'm more interested to know how the heck I can fix this??? Because I would want my site to be accessible via www in the URL as well.

Or, does this not matter? I'm inclined to think that at some point the site was www.allisonevers.net and somewhere along the lines it became redirected.

How strange...

 

have mercy on you my websites was suspended to be penalized too.

 

Redirecting from one version to the other is a good thing. It helps avoid canonicalization issues. http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/canonicalization-update/

Cheers
James

 

Hey guys,

First things first, I'm back at #4 on Google!!!!

Now...

I determined the culprit of the redirecting issue and its Wordpress.

Since many of you use wordpress and many of you might be n00bs like myself that come to a forum trying to get their learn on, I thought it would be beneficial to this forum if I shared the problem and solution.

Problem: Almost all of my blogs including the subject blog allisonevers.net were redirecting from www.sitename.com to sitename.com

Reason: I have two hosts and both of them come with a Wordpress installation feature. By default, the installer defines the domain that Wordpress is installed on as "domain.com" instead of "www.domain.com", and apparently this determines how the Internet treats the URL... In my case, when I go to Settings > Wordpress URL and Site URL, both of them show allisonevers.net *without the www*

Solution: I simply changed these values to www.allisonevers.net and it was a done deal!

What that also tells me, however, is that this site was defined without the www all along, so that was not the reason it fell from the #2 spot on Google.

As far as where it ranks on Google:
- 3-4 days ago it was #2
- 2 days ago it was NOT on the first 15 pages
- Yesterday (after restoring site to its original form) someone mentioned they saw it on Page 3, and some of the major keyphrases were in the top 3 pages which is when I concluded that it was on its way back up
- TODAY: GUESS WHAT, I'M BACK TO #4 OVERALL (I just found this out, and I'm gonna add that to the very top of this thread)!!!!!!! And Still #3 on yahoo (good old consistent yahoo),


It's been an interesting ride for "a evers" and tomorrow I might fall down again, who knows!

Thanks to everyone for reading and making suggestions along the way

 

thanks for good information. but i always suggest you to write quality content......

 

Def the Google Dance. The domain is new..I wouldn't worry.

Glad you're back on #4

 

Update!

I know this isn't the most competitive porn star name in the world, but any time you're in front of freeones, that's noteworthy! (especially when I was freaking out a couple weeks ago)



Thanks Google!

 

The post looks OK to me and all the things you mentioned all measure up. The one thing lacking in the whole article was the name of the actress. Anyway if you do a Google check for the domain name then your site should show on the top. If not then you should check the indexed pages in Google Webmasters.

 

The fact that it had the person's name in it, might have triggered a complaint from their representative