I know this answer is probably in the FAQ and all, but oh well this is a forum, so who cares if a independant user gives some personal feedback eh? I always assumed that quitting the coop would make my websites lose rankings quick, and probably even below my original rankings. The reason? Well, if a website loses links fast, Search Engines could assume the content isnt interesting enough anymore to link to, so its probably not as good as it has been. That some websites still link to it, probably means that those just update less frequently, but the site should be ranked bad. That was my expectation. It appears to me that it isnt true. I dropped a website from the coop because I had to add another website, and this was just a hobby website so not that important. But the thing is, it has been so long high in Google (months), that it got quite a few natural links from people that found it in Google, that the backlinks amount is quite higher than before I started with the coop. I didnt promote it much, these are just links from people that know the website by Google. Also the amount of pages increased a lot (forum). The amount of backlinks went from: 300 (originally) 5000-6000 (in the coop) 1200 (3 months after zero coop) My rankings were: Not in top200 (originally) #1-5 (using coop) #6-20 (3 months after zero coop) My experiences? Even if you can only do coop for a few months, a few months of good visitor amounts, might give your website some more power, pages, info and fame. This might result in way higher rankings even after the coop. Of course you go down after losing links (quiting coop) but it doesnt have to be that way that you go lower than before coop. My expectations are even that search engines have no emotions and just rank you on numbers and dont realy track history too much. No matter what you were yesterday, having 1200 today means place #16. Lol I tried to keep it short, but turned out that its quite a message
Nice post Dirkjan, thanks for sharing your experiences, high serps do tend to then grow natural linking so it makes sense.
I pointed a small amount of weight at my employers home page for a non competitive keyphrase. Within a week their stable #3 position on Google went up to #1. I moved the weight away (after a week) and 6 months later it is at #2 (it was #1 for at least a month). No other link building or content changes have been done.
that's interesting to know! curious though, why you dropped the site just because you had to add another, you can have more then one URL in the co op
I dropped my weight from the site as it was my employers and they never gave me a much deserved pay rise. Losers
I always add a few keywords and split the weight. I always want to be found by more keywords. The coop only allows me to add a limited amount of keywords.
ya but afaik I cannot split weight over accounts. anyway, guys, I just wanted to inform you about an aspect of the coop. not needing much feedback as things work out fine for me