Thread: Monetizing on a local niche.

Over the last 2 weeks or so, I have been working on the offline part of the site.

Today, I was just checking SERP from another geo location, but still using google.be. Over the past 1-2 months the site ranked at a steady #2 position and today suddenly finds itself at the 34th position. I first thought that it was because of the different geo location but that is probably not the case as google analytics confirmed. There was a significant drop in visitors that started a week ago.

Well, I think there's no reason to panic (yet). This had happened recently to another site that I was just developing. That site jumped from #9 position to ranking somewhere in the 80th position overnight.

I will just give it some time but it means that I have to wait until it is ranking well in order to approach potential affiliates, I don't have anything worth to sell at this time. In the mean time, I will continue with the plans and write about that soon.

That is very rough news man!

This seems to happen to maybe a fourth of my new sites. Sometimes it happens repetitively.

The mode time of these drops seems to be 30 days, but frequently they are much more brief.

I'm frustrated now by two small sites in the medical niche on eact match domains which dropped as soon as I built one decent link to each one. I am most interested in the fact that the sites were registered at the same time, put online at almost the same time, and penalized at exactly the same time.

Two other sites were in that set. One never ranked and the other doesn't appear to be penalized. I wish now that I had recorded the dates on which Googlebot first accessed these sites.

I think the most important thing is to do just exactly what you are doing, remaining calm.

Its part of the learning curve so no problem.

The other site i was talking about, betonboringen...com (concretedrillings) ranked somewhere on the first page shortly after it went online. Then the temporary setback took 1-2 weeks before it came back to an even better position.

Somehow, I have the impression that these things happen to websites with few links or no links at all.

Anyhow, I will see what happens and try to get more backlinks in the mean time.

ps just checked on the original geo location with the same results.

Since today the site is back on a #2 position on both google.be/.nl. Google.com shows #5, just how it was 3 weeks ago....I'm glad its back there I thought that the ranking perhaps would slowly progress its way back to the top but the #2 position appears to have jumped there overnight.

Yesterday I was just working to get some backlinks. I submitted to a few relevant sites as I did today. I haven't seen proof that it has to do with (a lack of) backlinks, perhaps that was just wishfull thinking in a day dream. Google's dashboard shows about 6 relevant sites linking by the way.

This is a long tail project so there will not be a whole lot of visitors but it can be a viable project. I do enjoy working on it every now and then whilst working on other sites.

I have already contacted a third party that can possibly add some functionality to the site, I will write about that soon. The remainder of this week, I will have only limited time and most of next week I will basically be offline.

Cheers

J.

Originally Posted by Loko

Since today the site is back on a #2 position on both google.be/.nl. Google.com shows #5, just how it was 3 weeks ago....I'm glad its back there I thought that the ranking perhaps would slowly progress its way back to the top but the #2 position appears to have jumped there overnight.

One of my two medical sites which dropped out of the SERPs is back now also.

This is a very odd behavior on the part of Google. It causes people a lot of unnecessary stress!

Interesting case study. Any luck with monetizing so far?

Originally Posted by Will.Spencer

The mode time of these drops seems to be 30 days, but frequently they are much more brief.

I'm frustrated now by two small sites in the medical niche on eact match domains which dropped as soon as I built one decent link to each one. I am most interested in the fact that the sites were registered at the same time, put online at almost the same time, and penalized at exactly the same time.

I don't think that it's a pena;ty. Google keeps tweaking the alogorithm and there's always unintended consequences. At some point an engineer uses a program that they call debug and the kind of fix it.

Here's an interesting article about the process:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/bu.../03google.html

Interesting case study. Any luck with monetizing so far?

Thanks. So far it only had some small adsense revenue which covered the costs for the domain and hosting. The real monetization will start hopefully soon. The aim is to involve 1 local company in this project if we go with the SMS system.

I don't think that it's a penalty. Google keeps tweaking the algorithm and there's always unintended consequences. At some point an engineer uses a program that they call debug and the kind of fix it.

The algorithm and backlink issue seems to be the general consensus. If only we could have some statistics of different webmasters/sites and see if these serp drops occur around the same time.

Perhaps worth opening a topic if that happens frequently to sites of Netbuilders.

Originally Posted by Loko

Thanks. So far it only had some small adsense revenue which covered the costs for the domain and hosting. The real monetization will start hopefully soon. The aim is to involve 1 local company in this project if we go with the SMS system.

That sounds interesting.

What about banner ads for nightclubs, bars, hotels?

Originally Posted by Loko

The algorithm and backlink issue seems to be the general consensus. If only we could have some statistics of different webmasters/sites and see if these serp drops occur around the same time.

Perhaps worth opening a topic if that happens frequently to sites of Netbuilders.

The trusted and authority sites do have the same ranking volatility.

I wouldn't worry about the fluctuations. Rather build links slowly and go for quality.

Originally Posted by bogart

What about banner ads for nightclubs, bars, hotels?

Not a bad idea, I might look into that too.

Originally Posted by Loko

Not a bad idea, I might look into that too.

It goes with the taxis. Resturants are also good ones.