One of my top-performing eBay sites (using my WordBay plugin) disappeared from the SERPS altogether a couple of weeks ago and it hasn't reappeared. It is on an established domain (domain two years old, listings pages about 3-4 months old), lots of unique content, not much in the way of backlinks admittedly but was doing fine, with tons of organic Google search traffic. Anyone else got any experience of this happening? Guess it shows you can't rely too much on a small number of sites when doing niche eBay marketing...
Yes I just had this happen to my eBay affiliate website on Tuesday but not SERP, instead in AdWords by increasing the minimum bid so I can't advertise. My minimum bid for 25 keywords I had been using went from 0.10 to $5.00. This site had been running smoothly for 4 months now getting decent CTR and very good conversions on eBay. I was doing an experiment with 6 of these websites using different niches and my own custom script. I spent time organizing the niche products into logical groupings to make the products easier to find and buy but there is no original content. What I've determined by this slap is it would be impossible for me to run a full time affiliate business using AdWords if Google can basically shut down websites by raising minimum bids. I've read enough posts on these forums about the min bid slap that I admit I could be doing something wrong but I'm not seeing a quick fix at this point.
I love my ranking for these 2: http://www.hannah-montana-store.com/ - #10 on first page http://miley-cyrus-store.com/ - #4 on first page
good point, but it's a .com. Rover links are masked too. Weird. Funnily enough, my .info sites are holding firm! Maybe they just haven't got to them yet
My BANS and phpBay word press blogs have been doing great in the past few months and seem to only be increasing in traffic from Google, MSN, and finally Yahoo. Perhaps it's just some competition creeping up and you not having very many backlinks as you mentioned.
Just the eBay listings pages! The domain as a whole seems OK, and some of the content on the domain is related, some is completely unrelated. Weird... cldnails - you could be right, except that I literally cannot find any of my pages in the SERPS. I look at the Google cache, copy a phrase at random from a given page and try a search in Google for that phrase - no trace. In fact I have trouble making any of my pages from that site turn up in the SERPS. That CAN'T be the competition, unless they are using black magic or something Maybe it's just one of those temporary Google glitches - though it's been two weeks now, so it's getting old...
So is there really any way to run an eBay affiliate business using AdWords? Maybe the real question is can you really run any business using AdWords if Google can easily change the rules at any time? I'm an eBay affiliate and AdWords rookie but had been making good progress with a handful of sites the last 4 months or so. It's really discouraging for sudden Google changes to completely destroying a good business I had going. Guess I'll ditch Google and try some other PPCs. Evidently they were trying to shed me anyway.
It may just pay to write some new relevant content, and copy the site to a new domain name. Your original site may come back eventually, and then you'll have an increased chance to rank well.