186 replies to this topic

[GregGates]

The Bad Guys are definitely wining on Google!!!!!!!!!!

Jill,

Just want to thank you for starting the other voting thread.

We like to think that our 100% e-commerce business www.ringdesigner.com is one of the “Good Guys”. We run a highly ethical and honest business. Our customer service, product quality and pricing is second to none. Our Testimonials are filled with volumes of extremely positive unsolicited feedback. We survey all our customers at one point with over 30% responding, and of those, 100% of the responders rated us either Excellent or Very Good in every question regarding quality, value and customer service. They 100% answered “YES” to the questions regarding referring us to friends and buying from us again. We have worked for almost 6 years 16/7/365 building this business from the ground up.

Please know that I realize that the readers of this Forum have forgotten more about web sites, SEO and Internet stuff, than I will ever know. I am in amazement at what you folks can do. in the late 90's, I personally built our site because we could not afford what the webmasters were charging during the dot-com-boom days. I maintain the site today as well. I built it in MS FrontPage.

In 2000, we used a “home page optimizing service” to help us get recognized on the search engines, and what ever they did worked great until August of 2002.

But, since August 1, 2002 (OVERNIGHT), our sales revenues became and continue today monthly 30% of what they were in the 12 months before, and our “unique hits” rate went to a trickle of what it was before (i.e. July 2002 and prior). We went from #2 (July 30, 2002) for the search term “engagement rings” on Yahoo! to #177 (August 1, 2002). I have ALL of this documented as I became a pain to the Yahoo! folks, who guess what, transparent to me a non SEO/rookie webmaster, had begun using Google instead of their own search.

Between August 2002 and January 2003, my concentration was providing the highest quality diamond engagement rings at the best value possible.

In about January, I somehow realized Google was doing Yahoo!’s search. I sent countless e-mails to Google e-mail addresses asking them why our site did not show up on Google or Yahoo!. Not one response from anybody at Google. I even FedEx’ed individual letters to the founders of Google begging them for help (knowing their assistants screen their stuff, but hoping one of them might take pity on our plight).

NOTHING

Then either July or August of this year I posted a detailed scenario, on a new webmasters forum, asking for assistance from experts (like all of you) as to what the heck is wrong to have us have, what I now know, is a PR of zero.

To make a long story shorter, we got some great advise from a bunch of people. But Mel, who posts in this forum, called and gave us his opinion as to why we most likely had a Google penalty. For instance, we had two lines of what I now know was “hidden text” on our index page. It was put there by the “home page optimizing service” that we used in 2000. I code our site in MS FrontPage, so never saw the “hidden text”. If I would have viewed it somehow, not being a professional web person, I would not have know that it was something bad anyway.

So since August, Mel and I have been on a campaign to find out why www.ringdesigner.com has a Google PR penalty and a ranking of Zero, despite having more products and loose diamonds than all but the 3 market leaders on Google’s first two pages for the relevant search terms “diamond engagement rings”, platinum engagement rings” and “engagement rings”.

along the way, we found sites listed in the top 2 of those terms that have 15 to 20 sites, owned by the same people, disguised in different graphics, having hidden text all over the place (but disguised to Google’s search), but every site of theirs is offering the EXACT same products. We figure this helps raise their PR. We used the Google feedback process to make them aware of this in August of 2003, but all their sites rank in the top 100 and remain there, including the one ranked in the top 3 (even tonight).

In the last three months we cleaned up all the hidden text and spent countless hours doing anything else Mel suggested. Additionally, both he and I have written professionally to just about every Google feedback process to get a hearing.

I even sent a new set of individual FedEx’ed letters to the Google founders, saying that we now realize we had badness on our index page. But, we fixed everything we could think of that might be causing our penalty. But could we please get fair Page Ranking for relevancy or at least tell us what the heck is wrong.

Responses to date, only one meaningless, cryptic e-mail from “help@google.com” that told us absolutely nothing.

Our page rank continues tonight at Zero, despite being one of the best in our business.

So Jill, are the Good Guys like www.ringdesigner.com loosing and the Bad Guys winning at Google (like the folks with 20 mirror type sites)?

Absolutely!

From our vantage point, the Bad Guys are winning big time and not one single person at Google cares one bit.

Thank you again Jill for providng the other thread and starting the topic!

With deep respect to what all of you folks do for a living,

Warmest Regards,

Greg Gates

[powerofeyes]

Hello Greg,
This is a nice posting you have made in this forum. We all share your feelings we know how much pain it would have been for you to loose a ranking when you were able to rank for about 2 years.
Yes you have a nice site and many of them have given the appreciation that your site is great and 100% feedback to you get all are positive. So what does it going to help you with search engines no. Search engines are automated robots they are given certain commands to operate with certain criteria that's all it cannot be a human any point of time. There are thousand differences between a robot and a human being.
I read Jill's article are the bad guys willing in google it is good but does it bear the pain of google according to me I would say NO. Google has become the heart of criticism just because they are no 1 in the world. Ok my question can you make the perfect robot in the world no one can say yes to this. Why because automated systems will always have errors. Next question how many robots have defeated the best human mind in chess none till this date. Some have defeated none of them have defeated unanimously even if they can search 3 billion combinations per second.
Ok let me talk about Microsoft they have billions of dollars of investment. They invest billions of dollars into research of their operating system (windows) did they ever make the perfect machine without any loop holes. Still hackers are able to penetrate a latest windows 2003 server HOW? There can never be an automated system that can work with all the holes closed. They can close 1 million holes but still there will be some exploit in the server. That is why Trojans, worms are designed and run to exploit this holes. What is a VIRUS. Vital Information Resource Under Siege. Why is the information under siege just because it is an automated program what ever we say it is ready to do it for us. If we program a computer to corrupt all the .exe files it does because it doesn’t have any brain of its own. Likewise an automated search engine can be made to dance in our way if we can exploit the loopholes in it.
We had a discussion in this forum sometime back is ALL SEO Spam it meant a lot. What are SEOs doing they want to make the site rank high in search engines. My question does humans really like lots of contents to read on an Ecommerce site my answer is a big no. A person who wants to buy a product on a site just wants to read the description of the product but what does a search engine need not just description of the product but the whole biography of the product only then they are happy since they are fed with lots of contents.
So there is a difference. There are so many people out there who are ready to manipulate the SERPs just to make their clients happy and get the results quickly. This is because many clients are so keen to rank quickly. That is why non ethical SEOs try to dominate the SERPs . Ok if you design a search engine will you ban a site just because they have many domains somewhat similar to others. How can you do that just thing everything on the technical point of view as a C++ programmer myself I always think about many algos that can be written to avoid spam but still I cannot just ban all the spam just like that. If at all you find an algo to ban all the Spam don’t you think it will affect many innocent Webmaster who will be having a nice site and just that their site looks like an other site their site is banned.
You say you wrote many many letters to google can you tell me if you were running google search engine what will you do with those letters coming from a person will you sit and reply them saying ok today we will bring your site on top it looks good we got nice feedback from customers. Noooooooo. It is not at all possible they never replied your letters because they can never do what you really want them to do. All they can do is convince you saying keep your site well optimized and read Webmaster guidelines.
There are so many sites which can get away with cloaking, doorway pages, mirror domains how can they do it all those are some of the loop holes in a search engine it can only be closed by a good research on the foundation programming of the search engine. I appreciate google because they keep researching on whatever they have come up with. I wont appreciate anyone saying google doesn’t care they do care but there is nothing they can do about that there will always be holes in the search engines and they will be closing it slowly and safely. I say safely because so many depend on google for their business if they suddenly come up with a high spam filter then it might affect innocent webmasters and this will lead to a big disaster and lot of bad mouth on google. So what ever they are doing it is just fine.

From our vantage point, the Bad Guys are winning big time and not one single person at Google cares one bit.

I know why this criticism it is just because you are frustrated after numourous mails and letters to google. See there is no permenant ban in google so just keep building some links you will get back your PR and possible some ranking. It wont happen in a day or 2 but will happen just be patient and everything will be fine.
thanks,
VIJAY.

[glengara]

I'd take a long hard look at your linking strategy, did you guys check how other Starlinker sites are doing?

[compar]

I think you are somewhat confusing good product and good service with SEO Good Guy, Bad Guy. The fact that you have a large inventory and all your customers are happy has absolutely nothing to do with your web site ranking. How is Google supposed to crawl for this information.

I also find a tendency by some people on this forum to call anybody higher in Google's index than them a Bad Guy.

But back to your problem.

1. I don't believe a few lines of hidden text was the cause for your fall from grace. We all agree it is better not to use it but there are all kinds of examples of pages that Google indexes very high that use hidden text.

2. On first glance your page seems to be well optimized for you prime keywords. However you include all your testimonials on the home page and while this adds content it may dilute your keyword density. I'm not at all sure how important that is. Others who are more expert than I am may wish to comment.

3. Your PR is 0 which of course means Google does not report any backlinks. However if you use the allinurl: search Google reports 1510 pages contain "www.ringdesigner.com". I did not go through all 1500 of these pages but my initial survey seems to to suggest that these are all internal links.

Do you have any substantial number of links from outside sites?

It strikes me that while Google evaluates internal links it might be possible that if the only thing a site has is internal links -- and 1510 is a lot of internal links for a relatively small site -- that Google will think there is something going on. Hell Google may even think you are one of the Bad Guys.

[fred]

Hi

2. On first glance your page seems to be well optimized for you prime keywords. However you include all your testimonials on the home page and while this adds content it may dilute your keyword density. I'm not at all sure how important that is. Others who are more expert than I am may wish to comment.

if this is part of the problem

what you could is : put your testimonials in an image. this will reduce the text of the page and increase word density.

[qwerty]

Greg, have a look at this thread. I found a perfectly valid link to your site by doing a link: search in AllTheWeb. It's an image link on the home page of a relevant site, and the page has a good PR (if one is to believe the toolbar). I'm wondering if the fact that the image has no alt text is causing the link to have less of a value to you than it could.

Regarding the customer testimonials, I'd recommend moving them to their own page instead of turning them into an image.

[GregGates]

To All,

First, I want to take the time to thank all of you for responding and recommending actions.

To clarify a point, let me expand on why I posted. I do not profess to have the credentials or expertise to be a member of this forum. I know that. so thank you for reading my post and treating it with respect.

You folks have more talent, expertise, knowledge, and skill in you little fingers than this old baby boomer has in his whole body. I am in awe at some of the things you can strategize and execute for your sites and clients.

After reading the other thread, per Mel’s head’s up, I wanted to humanize this process by showing how the Google PR process can devastate a family’s life.

The Past
Back 6 years ago we gave up everything (a steady 6 figure income, health insurance, security etc etc), to start a business from the ground up. I had been a senior marketing type for some Fortune 100 companies like Bank One, Nationwide Insurance and Fidelity Investments. And I had MS PowerPoint skills second to none LOL. So I figured I could learn MS FrontPage, and I did.

So when the idea came along (long story for another time), to start a business where we could provide certified diamonds, engagement, anniversary and wedding jewelry at about 50% of the price a consumer would pay retail (for the EXACT same thing), it seemed like a venture that I should dive into with my marketing expertise.

So we gave up all that security and started www.ringdesigner.com.

The big guys in our “engagement rings”, “anniversary rings” and “wedding bands” categories initially went out and borrowed hundred’s of millions in venture capital. We on the other hand, started from the other end, worked from the ground up, working our tails off trying to never take our eye of our core values.

We try to remember these three core values with each action we take daily.

We wanted to provide [1] extremely high quality [2] at a great value (made possible because of the Internet), while [3] maintaining second-to-none customer service. We actually try to adapt a philosophy of treating every Customer as if they are our only Customer. We realize that each customer’s purchase of one of our items is unique and extremely important to them. It is a significant purchase financially, as well as a highly emotional one. We actually price point our diamonds 30% below the market leader.

So, we do not “hard sell” or pressure. We let our high quality diamonds and jewelry products speak for themselves. Our past customers have become our best salespeople.

So, gone is the security, gone is the college funds, gone is the life savings for retirement, gone was the heath insurance etc etc.

So what’s this got to do with the Google Bad Guys and Good Guys topic.
Simply this, we were rolling towards the dream we had. Sales were increasing every month. We were being compared to the "big guys". Customers were pleased with value and quality.


Then boom Google Penalty August 1st, 2002.
Sales are still well below 30% of prior years. Unique hits do not even compare with pre August 2002 (remember this is not a business that gets consistent returning sales of engagement rings, so we need new hits) . Being a family business, we are now on our last legs, suffering greatly financially from the downturn (won’t bother you all with the detail of what it has done to us emotionally and financially, but it is staggering ).


In response to some of the points made here
I guess we are extremely upset that over a year’s worth of pleading with Google, has gotten us zero assistance. I personally have tried everything to get someone at Google’s attention short of camping in Google’s lobby and getting arrested.


To the points made in this thread, that we are looking for PR intervention placement, we are not.
We have been asking Google:
[1] to forgive us for the stupid hidden text we unknowingly had and to lift our Google penalty

OR is there anything else causing the penalty??

[2] to not put a “cap” on our PR after lifting the penalty, for once having a penalty (we heard they do that, kind of, once a crook always a crook in Google’s eyes)

[3] for a quick, fair and objective robotic search (not human intervention) to compare www.ringdesigner.com with the other sites in our category for its relevancy to consumers.



We just want a fair shot.



So AGAIN, what’s this got to do with the Google Bad Guys and Good Guys topic. AND

What I have learned in the last 15 months
{a} There is far more to this SEO stuff than a novice baby-boomer like me can execute. You folks are the professionals in this expertise, not me. You guys don’t do jewelry on weekends, so why should I try to dive into skills I don’t know.

But I have learned what ARELIS & Xenu are, how to use them, as well as other helpful software titles you folks use for getting a site recognized and keeping it functional for the consumer.

{b} A little guy like us, can not get any attention from Google. Google does not care about a small business or what a Google penalty does to a small business. They have their billions to worry about. They are not the least concerned about having a venue for the little guy to get a fair hearing.

{c} Google penalties can be assessed overnight, but even after a year and a quarter, they are almost impossible to get removed. OR EVEN KNOW WHAT CAUSED IT!

{d} There are other sites in our categories who have as many as 15 sites in the highest of Google PR rankings, who have obviously have gone to a great deal of trouble in attempting to disguise their real ownership. All these sites sell jewelry, all link to each other, and all use hidden text which is hidden by positioning it off the page with CSS. And despite many notifications that they are breaking the Google rules, they continue at the highest of PR rankings.

{e}Many of you have sent private messages telling us to just get another domain name and start again with our content rich and product rich site. (ie fooling Google’s processes and starting again)

I just don’t want to do that unless we absolutely have to. I feel there is something unethical doing that. It does not “feel” right. It seems no mater how big Google is, there has to be one Google human being, in a significant position, who still has the ethics and ideals upon which Google was founded (the rest are busy counting their shares). If anyone knows that a Google individual like that exists, feel free to let him or her know! LOL.

So no, we don’t want to just move it and start all over. Maybe pride comes before the fall, but it just does not seem right.

{f} Oh yeah, in the meantime from the sales we do have, they continue to be extremely pleased with value and quality. I must admit my personal effort to customer service is lacking as I am spending way too much time on the Google situation (there are only so many hours in each day for a family business).

The basic business idea is too good to abandon, if we can get folks to find us and not go finacially insolvent.



Thank You for listening!!!!!!!!


Thank you all again. We will continue with our hard work running the business and daily prayers for assistance.

Warmest Regards,

Greg and Patti Gates


PS: on the website side to your points noted in this thread:

[1] All the index page Testimonials ARE gif images, not text.

[2] We have close to 2,000 links from other sites to ours. Google says we have ZERO.

The links keep cropping up every day as our reputation for quality permeates in the shopping community. Any of you who want to add us to any relevant sites you have or administer, please feel free as the quality of your sites could only help us.

Edited by GregGates, 12 November 2003 - 01:54 PM.

[compar]

I have the greatest sympathy for your situation and I agree that Google has a great financial influence over companies who depend on web site traffic for their income.

At the same time I can see why they can't possibly deal one on one with any web site owner. And I further can see why, if you present the same personal justifications for why they should treat you well to them as you have presented to us, they will doubly ignore you. If they can consider anything it has got to be strictly related to your web site.

Now I have a couple of suggestions.

1. Have you thought of trying PPC advertising. I would recommend Google AdWord rather than Overture, but that may just be a personal preference. If you decide to go this route watch your RIO very carefully.

2. Swallow your pride and launch a new page. This is a matter of survival. There is no room for the luxury of pride if your livelihood is at stake.

[deborah2002]

I second your points, Bob. Just dump the site and start over. It isn't an "ethics" issue, but a sound business decision.

The PPC, I think, is right on, too. Watch your stats carefully, but for now it seems like the logical choice.

I wish you the best...Good luck


deb

[peter_d]

After reading the other thread, per Mel’s head’s up, I wanted to humanize this process by showing how the Google PR process can devastate a family’s life.

No. It is your failure to mitigate the risk of poor rankings on Google that is the problem. I believe the apt phrase is "don't put all your eggs in one basket". I find it surprising, given the background you describe, that you would choose to rely on one provider over whom you have no control.

That is your problem, not poor rankings.

In response to some of the points made here
I guess we are extremely upset that over a year’s worth of pleading with Google, has gotten us zero assistance. I personally have tried everything to get someone at Google’s attention short of camping in Google’s lobby and getting arrested.

Google does not serve webmasters. Google serves users. If you want to appear number #1 on Google today, buy AdWords.

If you rely on one domain, and one channel, then you're always going to risk having this problem. Your business case needs re-evaluation.

Sorry to hear of the problems you're facing, however these are the realities of the market you are in. Competition will not go away, nor get any less competitive. You can either complain about the fact or deal with it.

[Jill]

No. It is your failure to mitigate the risk of poor rankings on Google that is the problem. I believe the apt phrase is "don't put all your eggs in one basket". I find it surprising, given the background you describe, that you would choose to rely on one provider over whom you have no control.

Ditto...

Jill

[OldWelshGuy]

'There is no sentiment in business' a common saying in the UK, it means just what it says, sentimental feelings have no place when talking about money. It is taken to mean that you would sell your mother for £5, when in reality it means do not let the tears get in the way of decision making.

You have had a few good years right? so you must have had a lot of customers, these customers will have bought engagement and wedding rings from you, I assume you have their contact details, set up the new site, and mail them all separate them into anniversaries, engagement anniversaries etc and mail them with the news of your website.

The response from this should cover the cost of the new website, and then you can concentrate on link building, and getting your website back to where it should be.

You say you have 5,000 links, then go through them all and check they are not up to no good, get them to link to the new site and watch it slide UP the serps.

don't waste time regretting the past, it can't be altered, and no experience in life is wasted, provided we learn from it.

Google owes no one anything, it does not charge for its services, and it does what it must do for the greater good of itself, but without intentionally walking on people.

For the good of your family and your own sanity, take your product and build it a nice new home that has no history.

[GregGates]

No. It is your failure to mitigate the risk of poor rankings on Google that is the problem. I believe the apt phrase is "don't put all your eggs in one basket". I find it surprising, given the background you describe, that you would choose to rely on one provider over whom you have no control.

If you rely on one domain, and one channel, then you're always going to risk having this problem. Your business case needs re-evaluation.

Appreciate the candor. Our skin has gotten pretty thick in over a year.


Whether we like it or not, in our Internet categories, Google is the clear cut sales channel winner for consumer searches in the demos who look to purchase products like ours.

So yes, www.ringdesigner.com is on LookSmart, AltaVista, Lycos, MSN, DMOZ etc etc. We do use paid advertising from several minor search sites (almost a good ROI /PPC), newspaper advertising, and we are testing radio. We do some paid MSN banner advertising. We pay about $40k a year to place our site link prominently on a bunch of relevant sites that our demos frequent regarding the purchase of the type of products we sell. Through SEO type efforts we have gone from #200 to # 24 on MSN, up on Lycos, LookSmart, AltaVista etc etc.

We track ROI
We have a relatively lower number of sales compared to other e-commerce sites offering products that average $50 to $100 per sale. Our average sale is $2,500 with an unbelievably small profit margin. We have the luxury of tracking EVERY sale since day one as to how our customer initially found our site. Bottom-line, we know where EVERY sale came from. That is a luxury I never had at the companies I was previously at. Our actual average “per sale timeline” is 7 to 8 weeks from first site visit to purchase. We track that as well. This is a big investment for a consumer and it should be one where they consider all options.


Whether we like it or not, previous to the penalty, 8 out of 10 sales came from Google searches. Google Adwords and Overture PPC in our categories are not good ROI or affordable.

Overture wants a fortune funding every three days. Thanks for the suggestion, but been there, done that.
From overture 9/20/03:

We are sorry, but we require a deposit of at least $2,954.73 for this account in order to support approximately 3 days worth of anticipated Overture click traffic

.

Adwords
Some of our keyphrases can get as high as $1.50 to $3.00 per click as the big guys who borrowed hundreds of millions pay that to keep the little guy out of the competition. It will get them in the end, but they have money that has not even been folded yet.

Thank you for listening
Please folks, I am not whining as some seem to perceive. Just looking for help.

All we want is a fair objective Robotic search of our site from Google and have Google to live by the rules it publishes for spammers in our categories (currently taking up the high spots) . We want our penalty lifted if appropriate to do so. Mel could not believe the spammers in our categories once he got into it (in September) to help us.

So maybe, (per your many suggestions) we do go and set up another site. We just hate to do what the spammers are doing in our categories.

We thought a description of what a Google penalty is doing to our business, versus the spammers in our category, who are winning, might do some good. Since we now have the heavy hitters who seem to frequent this forum, weighing in negatively regarding our plight, we will stop posting. We do not have the credentials to post here. We did not mean to waste your time with our problems. But, we do appreciate your taking time to listen.


Warmest Regards,

Greg

[peter_d]

Adwords
Some of our keyphrases can get as high as $1.50 to $3.00 per click as the big guys who borrowed hundreds of millions pay that to keep the little guy out of the competition. It will get them in the end, but they have money that has not even been folded yet.

...and some keyphrases are a lot less. I recommend Andrew Goodman's report on AdWords. Also, a click is only expensive if your margin can't handle it. If your margins can't handle it, then yes, the big boys win. But that concept is nothing new to you, I'm sure.

All we want is a fair objective Robotic search

There has never been one. There never will be.

We thought a description of what a Google penalty is doing to our business, versus the spammers in our category, who are winning, might do some good. Since we now have the heavy hitters who seem to frequent this forum, weighing in negatively regarding our plight, we will stop posting. We do not have the credentials to post here. We did not mean to waste your time with our problems. But, we do appreciate your taking time to listen.

I'm not sure what you're expecting to hear. How will platitudes and sympathy actually help you? The bottom line is that if you rely on Google serps for business success, then you are playing a high risk game. You are experiencing the downside of engaging in that risk. You need to mitigate it. Either fight fire with fire or get out of the hot kitchen. It is only going to get hotter.

Sorry to sound harsh, but if you can't see how this may help you then I too will shut up

<added>Me shutting up didn't last long. <grin> How about approaching the affiliates who are dominating the serps and offering them a better deal that they get from their existing supplier. Then your competitors start working for you</added>

Edited by peter_d, 12 November 2003 - 04:26 PM.

[glengara]

Don't know why you keep banging on about not having the credentials to post here Greg, if they were needed there'd be VERY few posts to read.
On your plight, it's not we're unsympathetic, we just tend to look for the possible reasons for it.
My money is on your linking strategy, with G seeming to discount on page factors, it's reasonable to assume you've done something off-page to incur their displeasure.

However, having had a look on All the Web and Inktomi for "diamond engagement rings", you don't seem to feature there either.