If it wasn't for my blog, I wouldn't make any online sales at all.
It's true that I have a "regular" website, my so-called "main website," which I first set up to sell my goods, in this case, men's and women's health products. It's my workhorse,
source of most of my revenue. Most of my sales resulted from generic listings in search engines, particually Google.
That is, until Google sandboxed me.
Some of you may have heard of legendary Google sandbox, sometimes called, "The Goggle Sandbox Effect." What happens is that newly listed sites rank well for about two to three weeks, then suddenly drop off radar screen. These new sites are placed in a type of probational sandbox, away from "real" sites.
Why does this happen, you ask? There are almost as many theories as there are SEO (Search Engine Optimization) experts. Many believe that this probation period is not related to sites themselves, but to their links. It is believed that back link (pure link popularity) credit is placed in a reserve for a period of time (2-4 months) before it is applied to ranking and has an effect. The theory behind this is to combat PR (Page Rank) purchasers from dominating PR from beginning. It is meant to deter spam websites.
Others believe this alleged filter that is placed on new websites is an illusion. These skeptics argue that phenomenon merely echoes already existing Google algorithm calculations.
Whatever reason, I got sandboxed, rug pulled out from underneath me; shiskobobbed. The high-ranking and sales that I was receiving from my site suddenly plummented.
I was devastated. What's a poor boy to do now?
Desperate, I wrote to a number of online SEO forums, seeking advice from SEO gurus. Some thought it was amusing and laughed in my face. Others offered advice such as forgetting about Google for awhile and optimizing my site for other search engines (not a bad idea). Others thought that I should continue adding content, since content is king as far as search engines are concerned. Still others thought I should try to gain as many quality links as I should, and this would help pull me out of sandbox (it felt more like quicksand to me.)
I committed to doing all these things, but in meaintime, what about my website and products that I was trying to sell, money I was hoping to make?
I kept hearing about blogs, those personal websites that are published on Web. As you probably know, blogs contain philosophical reflections, talk about social issues, and opinions about everything under sun. They are usually presented in journal style with a new entry each day, or almost every day.
