Google Update (or not)
It seems that Google is showing some major changes is its search results recently, with a lot of pages jumping up and down in the serps. Apparently plenty of other webmasters are noticing this as well. It’s hard to say whether what we’re seeing is a long-awaited “Google update” or not, but Acne-Vitamins seems to be benefiting in any case. Of course, the jumps I’ve seen with the site may simply be due to the new inbound links I’ve picked up by means of writing that B5 acne treatment article (I’ve got to write more of those! The article is now showing up on 150 different pages according to Google, and is outranking my main site for all similar vitamin b5 and acne search terms - at least it’s bringing some extra traffic.). Links are still the most important ranking factor for Google, and all those I’ve gained by writing that article are one-way incoming links, which always helps.
Acne-Vitamins is now showing up on page 2 of the results for both “acne vitamins” and “vitamins for acne”, and that’s a lot better than before (I was previously jumping between page 8 and 15). Am I out of the sandbox? It certainly looks that way with regards to some of my search terms. You usually don’t get to page 2 with a sandboxed website. However, the fact that I’m still not even in the first 100 search results for “vitamin b5 acne treatment” leads me to believe that I’ve still got a little longer to wait before my site is really listed naturally without the handicaps. There’s a chance I still have some kind of penalty dating back to when the site kept fluctuating between the www and non-www versions, but I’d imagine that filter should be lifting soon if this is the case. Oh well, any improvement is a good thing. Maybe in a few more months I’ll actually make the first page!
For anyone out there considering starting their own e-business, take my advice: Don’t expect traffic from Google in the first year! It sounds crazy, but this is a reality that you should be prepared for. Newer sites will not rank well for anything but the most obscure keywords. It’s taken this long for Acne Vitamins, and my keywords are not exactly very competitive. Focus on MSN and Yahoo when starting out, as you can usually get somewhere in these engines a lot faster. Just don’t cross that ethical line of trying to fool the search engines, or you may end up banned.
