I just found out that several sites of mine got out of Google sandbox - took me about four-five month. My sites are now ranked at #26, #43, #93 for keyword "blog directory." The rank is not super high, but you know the keyword is very competitive. Also, another site of mine ranks at #6, #35, #76, #84 for cheerleader keywords. Now I see 2x - 8x increase in traffic for those sites.. Yay! Well worth waiting for...
Thanks.. my blog directores have advanced even more now! They are now ranked at #15, #29 and #30. Can't feel better..
did Using Adwords/Stopping Adwords to your site, Installing Adsense/Removing Adsense help making this change?