Hello. As I posted in another thread, I've seen a huge drop on one of my sites as of 7/1/2005. A few days earlier(about crawling/indexing time), I had changed just one thing(only thing changed in weeks). I changed an affiliate link anchor text from "100% free ebay account" to "100% free ebay registration". On 7/1, things started to drop off, and my traffic is now down to about 25% of what it was in June(and it had been steady for months). This is an established site(domain registered in 1999). I got to thinking about how Shawn had his Ebay page in the top 10 on Google for 'Ebay', and then it disappeared-- I couldn't find any posts on this message board as to why, and I was wondering if there was any speculation as to the possibility of a "100% free ebay registration" Google filter that I have incidentally fallen prey to? I changed the text back a few days ago, and haven't seen a recovery yet. Any thoughts/speculation? Thanks. -- Derek P.S. Mods, please don't move this to 'website reviews'-- I've taken care not to mention the website name or URL, as I'd like to have a speculative discussion of Google's possible filters and not a 'website review'. Thanks.
Sorry... it's more about "why does my site rank where it does" than Google. If it actually turns into a thread about Google algorithms in general, it will be moved back.
Except no one will see it here... Shawn-- do you have any input on this, being that you had the "100% free ebay registration" site that I think Google would have created this filter to stop? Thanks. -- Derek
Is your ebay page ANYWHERE in the results for "Ebay" anymore? Did you stop throwing coop weight at it? -- Derek
Do you really think he's going to want to discuss his eBay ranking with a competitor ? Especially since everyone tries to mimic eveything he does? I highly doubt that a Google filter kicked in from changing your anchor text on an affiliate link. It probably has more to do with the fact that it's an affiliate site.
Everyone who has Ebay links isn't a competitor. My site is not predominately an affiliate site-- it's a gaming site that benefits from having Ebay item listings for each game: http://www.nesfiles.com/ -- Derek