I spoke with the Googlers at the SES conference in San Jose last week and they recommended I post my issue here.
For years, Surprise.com ranked in the top 5 results for our main terms like "gifts", "gift ideas" and "birthday gifts". For the past 6 months we haven't shown up in the top 100 results for any of our key terms and our traffic from Google has dropped 90%. I've run Surprise.com since 1999 and have not intentionally done anything that violates the Google Webmaster guidelines. Surprise.com shows up in the the top 5 results for "gifts" on Yahoo and MSN. We have pretty good back links (not as good as they use to be) and we never do link exchanges.
The main thing that I can think of that could have caused our Google problems are:
1) We have many links on our site to shopping.com merchants (using the Shopping.com api). We were the first site to user their api but now they have tons of sites using it.
2) We use to do context-sensitive pop-under ads on our interior pages (only on their first viewing by a user).
3) Over the years, we've seen a handful of sites crawl our content and reproduce our site under other URLs. But, as far as we know, this hasn't happened for a couple years.
> I spoke with the Googlers at the SES conference in San Jose last week > and they recommended I post my issue here.
> For years, Surprise.com ranked in the top 5 results for our main terms > like "gifts", "gift ideas" and "birthday gifts". For the past 6 months > we haven't shown up in the top 100 results for any of our key terms > and our traffic from Google has dropped 90%. I've run Surprise.com > since 1999 and have not intentionally done anything that violates the > Google Webmaster guidelines. Surprise.com shows up in the the top 5 > results for "gifts" on Yahoo and MSN. We have pretty good back links > (not as good as they use to be) and we never do link exchanges.
> The main thing that I can think of that could have caused our Google > problems are:
> 1) We have many links on our site to shopping.com merchants (using the > Shopping.com api). We were the first site to user their api but now > they have tons of sites using it.
> 2) We use to do context-sensitive pop-under ads on our interior pages > (only on their first viewing by a user).
> 3) Over the years, we've seen a handful of sites crawl our content and > reproduce our site under other URLs. But, as far as we know, this > hasn't happened for a couple years.
It was nice to see you at SES! FYI we're looking into your site further on our end. However, since at first blush there's no one thing that jumps out and screams "fix me!", I'd like to reiterate what Michael said to you at SES--namely, that [gifts] is an increasingly competitive term and, regardless of your success in the past, it can only help you to keep improving your site's content so that you really stand out among the many gift vendors one can now find online.
Thanks Susan. We'll keep at it. We publish a Cool Gift of the Day that is available by email or RSS Feed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/ CoolGiftOfTheDay?format=xml) that we think is very helpful to people. Just a reminder that we are not a "gift vendor". We're a free service that scours the Web for the best gift ideas and organizes links to those gifts into helpful and creative categories like "Always Cold" and "Always Up for an Adventure". - Darrell
> It was nice to see you at SES! FYI we're looking into your site > further on our end. However, since at first blush there's no one thing > that jumps out and screams "fix me!", I'd like to reiterate what > Michael said to you at SES--namely, that [gifts] is an increasingly > competitive term and, regardless of your success in the past, it can > only help you to keep improving your site's content so that you really > stand out among the many gift vendors one can now find online.
> I spoke with the Googlers at the SES conference in San Jose last week > and they recommended I post my issue here.
> For years,Surprise.comranked in the top 5 results for our main terms > like "gifts", "gift ideas" and "birthday gifts". For the past 6 months > we haven't shown up in the top 100 results for any of our key terms > and our traffic from Google has dropped 90%. I've runSurprise.com > since 1999 and have not intentionally done anything that violates the > Google Webmaster guidelines.Surprise.comshows up in the the top 5 > results for "gifts" on Yahoo and MSN. We have pretty good back links > (not as good as they use to be) and we never do link exchanges.
> The main thing that I can think of that could have caused our Google > problems are:
> 1) We have many links on our site to shopping.com merchants (using the > Shopping.com api). We were the first site to user their api but now > they have tons of sites using it.
> 2) We use to do context-sensitive pop-under ads on our interior pages > (only on their first viewing by a user).
> 3) Over the years, we've seen a handful of sites crawl our content and > reproduce our site under other URLs. But, as far as we know, this > hasn't happened for a couple years.
Darrell-- I haven't seen anything to indicate that Google is incorrectly valuing your website. I would reiterate what Michael and I said previously: in order to rank well, you need compelling and original content. As you indicate in your first post, "tons of sites" are now using the same shopping.com API as you; what are you doing to distinguish yourself from the rest of them?
seo101 also rightly pointed out that you have lots of affiliate links without providing much original information about the products, beyond grouping them into categories. Our webmaster guidelines state: "If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason to visit your site first." http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66361 User reviews, wishlists, *original* product descriptions, or some sort of additional content/tools could all help to distinguish you from the pack. Other than that, I don't have much to add beyond what I said in my previous post. Good luck, -Susan
> Darrell-- > I haven't seen anything to indicate that Google is incorrectly valuing > your website. I would reiterate what Michael and I said previously: in > order to rank well, you need compelling and original content. As you > indicate in your first post, "tons of sites" are now using the same > shopping.com API as you; what are you doing to distinguish yourself > from the rest of them?
> seo101 also rightly pointed out that you have lots of affiliate links > without providing much original information about the products, beyond > grouping them into categories. Our webmaster guidelines state: "If > your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your > site adds value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users > a reason to visit your site first."http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66361 > User reviews, wishlists, *original* product descriptions, or some sort > of additional content/tools could all help to distinguish you from the > pack. Other than that, I don't have much to add beyond what I said in > my previous post. > Good luck, > -Susan
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