James made a boo boo, because he experiments
sometimes. Nothing wrong with that.
He fixed it, learned from it, and now he moved
on and is better from it.
Well, this issue goes all the way back to Oct last year, and the sad part is that Martell has never addressed it directly. To Momotan's original point on Google's response:
Quote:
1)Make pages for users, not for search engines.
2)Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter"
I think that hits the nail on the head for Martell too. Seriously now, how much helpful info can you find on his earlier 1st-in pages ?? Martell has more than once said that all you need is to write 250+ words, 'at the 9th grade writing level', and it should only take you 20 minutes or so.
So when he says to write good content for readers, who is he referring to ? 9th graders ? I know he means for us to write in an easy to read way, but unless you are an expert in your topic, you dont write 200-300 pages of 300 words in 20 minutes and still give useful content.
Quote:
I do think that a lot of the content on some of James' 1st-in sites was pretty superficial, without any real benefit.
I agree completely. Let's not pretend here. Martell's first series of sites were written primarily for the SEs - use keywords to rank, then just funnel the searcher to the affiliate program - there is little on his site that the reader takes with him. That is the basic defintiion of a doorway page, and thats why, IMO, he was banned.
Quote:
JM advertised so much that he knew how to get to the top of G,
Lots of people say this - so Google punishes people who teach others how to write relevant content that Google wants ? Huh ??
First, Google bans for manipulating, not for content that it thinks readers want. Spend some time in some of the good SEO forums and sites about SE ranking - they dont get banned for teaching how to rank in Google.
Secondly, I looked at a lot of his keywords, and I saw very few rank highly in Google. Most of his traffic came from other SEs. IMO, that's why he says his old sites still do well. He seems not to want to say that - it's ironic that in his first book, he mentions Google almost exclusively... hmmm.
Quote:
I've seen purely good content sites whacked... HMMMMMM sounds like a machine and an algo to me!
I think this misses the point completely. I'd like to know what great content sites were banned, but apart from that, you dont know why they were banned. Good content doesnt make you immune to being penalized if you've violated Google rules in some other way.
Yes I know, there are lots of sites with crappy content that makes Martell look like an encyclopedia. But reread Google's explanation to momotan. I think that makes it clear.
Interestingly, if you compare Martell's new and old sites, you'll see the differences - he knows why his sites were banned. It's disappointing that he hasn't come clean to his followers.
Why do you all think James has not
come clean, he has explained...
people copied large amounts of content
from his sites and put them on their sites,
so now this is a mirror site= google ban.
he explained that from advise in the forums
he tried crosslinking= google ban
I don't know what big secret you think
he is hiding, there isn't one.
James is a 5 star affiliate so he does sell
products, money is not just from adsense.
He made money before there was adsense.
His new sites have a good relative pr now.
After I research content it takes me 20 to 30
minutes to write an article, I already wrote 5
today.
Those of you who want to believe James's
methods don't work, that's fine, less competition
for me.
All due respect, your loyalty to Martell is fine. But this isnt about his "methods" per se - a lot of what he wrote is simple SEO. So there is no need to defend the ideas of writing good content. keywords etc.
Quote:
people copied large amounts of content from his sites and put them on their sites, so now this is a mirror site= google ban
Sorry Jeremy, but this just isn't true. These are not 'mirrored sites' according to Google. And Google isnt that stupid. They can easily determine who copied whom. I seriously doubt that anyone has ever been banned because someone else copied them - that makes no sense. Secondly, I've never seen Martell explicitly say he was banned because of being copied(he only implied that in this forum). Think about it. If that was the reason, he could easily prove his innocence to Google.
As for cross linking, that may be part of it too. Maybe he explained that in his 'Buzz', but I've never seen him explain in writing what he did and how it should be done. Lots of people who bought his book dont subscribe to Buzz, so if he has an answer, he should make it available to all his customers. If anyone has that in print, I'd love to see it.
James talks about crosslinking in the Buzz
and what he did wrong, this is also
related to his PAD technique.
In his manual he may not say that you should not crosslink,
but he does say what you should do when using
the PAD articles and linking.
I can only speculate, but I think his crosslinking
had a big part in his sites being banned in google,
he created a loop of some kind in his linking
of PAD articles to his sites. The RIGHT way is
explained clearly in the manual.
The way James teaches he focuses on the right
way to do something, not the wrong way.
He also mentioned sabotage, but did not get into it.
He also says not to reverse engineer his sites because
he may be testing something, which is different from
the manual. If you have James's manual, just follow
it, and you'll do fine.
I have nothing to gain from this, but YOU DO,
if you have the manual, I recommend listening
to the buzz, you'll gain some unique insights
and extra tips that will give you that winning
edge for your publishing business.
You also have the unique opportunity to get
inside the mind-set of James who is here
to win, through the ups and downs of this
business and how he reacts to them.
Well, then Im curious... just what exactly did James say in Buzz that he did wrong ? You said earlier that there was no big secret to this, so please enlighten us. Did he specifically say crosslinking, and crosslinking alone got him banned ? I doubt it, but Im open
And if it was crosslinking, I seriously doubt that had anything to do with PAD. As I undertsand it, PAD is simply putting articles out there for others to use. More likely, any penalty for crosslinking came from linking within and between his own sites - not PAD.
Yes, he did mention sabotage in his forum post. But without an explanation, that just tells me someone reported him to Google. How else might someone 'sabatage' my site and get it banned? Until I see something more definitive from Martell, I still think the 2 reasons quoted from Google are the most likely choices.
Joined: 09 Nov 2003 Posts: 86 Location: Langley, BC, Canada
Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 3:48 am Post subject:
Jeremy wrote:
I can only speculate, but I think his crosslinking
had a big part in his sites being banned in google,
he created a loop of some kind in his linking
of PAD articles to his sites. The RIGHT way is
explained clearly in the manual.
I think this is exactly the point - all of us can only speculate as to the reason for his sites being banned. I imagine that even James himself could only speculate to a certain degree.
My own speculation is that a number of things probably contributed to the problem, most likely a combination of the things mentioned in various posts (crosslinking, doorway pages, plagiarized sites, etc.)
I don't think that there is anything in the manual, either the original or the revised version, that will cause a site to be banned in Google. The reason I say this is that I have a site that has been up for almost a year that follows the original manual pretty much to the letter, but it has not been banned by Google.
I think that James was most likely either testing new ideas intentionally, or unintentionally brought together a combination of things that brought on the ban. I don't think that he is obligated to get into any details over the whole thing because I don't believe that the information as he presents it is flawed.
johncpu wrote:
And if it was crosslinking, I seriously doubt that had anything to do with PAD. As I undertsand it, PAD is simply putting articles out there for others to use. More likely, any penalty for crosslinking came from linking within and between his own sites - not PAD.
I don't think it had anything to do with PAD, as PAD is explained in the report James put together. I can't tell you what Buzz it was in, but I do recall him discussing the ban in relation to his PAD articles. As I understood it, he had posted some of the articles on his own sites with the links to other sites of his left intact. When they were all processed as a whole, it set up a crosslinking situation. I may have misunderstood the explanation, but that was my take on what he said.
I imagine that even James himself could only speculate to a certain degree.
John, surely you dont think he only speculates on this. I strongly suspect that not only has his SE consultant advised him on the error, but he no doubt has something in writing from Google. Did he really redo 90 sites without having a pretty good idea why he was banned in the first place ? He is smarter than that.
I suppose you can debate whether he has an 'obligation' to explain the Google violation - I happen to believe he does owe that to his customers. But even if we say he has no obligation, why wouldnt he want to explain ? We can only guess at that one. But wouldn't it give him more credibility and do a service to those who pay for his advice ?
What I find interesting is this: Jeremy and John subscribe to Buzz, and both recall James explaining the ban issue. Yet one says it was related to PAD, and the other says it wasnt. That tells me something about the clarity of what Martell said, if anything at all.
Joined: 09 Nov 2003 Posts: 86 Location: Langley, BC, Canada
Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 5:09 am Post subject:
johncpu wrote:
Quote:
I imagine that even James himself could only speculate to a certain degree.
John, surely you dont think he only speculates on this. I strongly suspect that not only has his SE consultant advised him on the error, but he no doubt has something in writing from Google. Did he really redo 90 sites without having a pretty good idea why he was banned in the first place ? He is smarter than that.
Looking back at my statement, I suppose I didn't really finish my thought. When I say that he can only speculate to a certain degree, I believe that would be the case because nobody outside of Google can say with absolute certainty what specifically caused the ban.
I'm sure he knows what caused the ban, but I don't think he or anyone else would know 100% for sure what combination, or specific event triggered it. To the best of my knowledge, I don't think Google provides so much detail as to say "You were banned because of a) this specific problem, b) this one here, and c) that one over there."
johncpu wrote:
I suppose you can debate whether he has an 'obligation' to explain the Google violation - I happen to believe he does owe that to his customers. But even if we say he has no obligation, why wouldnt he want to explain ? We can only guess at that one. But wouldn't it give him more credibility and do a service to those who pay for his advice ?
You're right, we can only guess at that one, and probably will continue to only guess at it. If he hasn't gone into more detail up until now, I doubt that he is going to.
Speaking for myself, it wouldn't give him any more credibility in my mind. Frankly, I don't really care why his sites were banned as long as it isn't related to anything he teaches which could affect my sites. So far, it doesn't appear to be because my sites have not been banned. Now, if my sites are suddenly banned by Google, I have no doubt my tune would change rather quickly
I am following his methods because they have been proven to work and I am in this to make a living. Replacing those banned sites with new sites that enjoy a similar success in the expected timeframe gives him, or more importantly to me his methods, all the credibility I need.
johncpu wrote:
What I find interesting is this: Jeremy and John subscribe to Buzz, and both recall James explaining the ban issue. Yet one says it was related to PAD, and the other says it wasnt. That tells me something about the clarity of what Martell said, if anything at all.
Reading back over my post and Jeremy's, it seems to me that we're saying the same thing, not different things. It was related to the PAD technique in as much as it was PAD articles that caused the problem. It wasn't an inherent problem in the PAD technique, however, it was the way he had used the articles on his own sites that caused the crosslinking.
Joined: 09 Aug 2003 Posts: 1838 Location: Columbus, OH
Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 5:40 am Post subject:
The whole PAD situation is something I actually understand. We've been around this block a couple times, no one seems to remember what I chime in.
It had nothing to do with James getting too many PAD articles posted online at once, this just doesn't make since.
Being picked up as doorway pages is highly likely, because his previous intrasite linking structure was completely un-natural and even seemed to resemble a doorway pages linking structure (ie. a few pages with TONS of links to articles of various topics, with this being the only links to these articles).
Before the banning, these sites all used to have live links to all of James 1st-in sites within the articles.
But what James said happened before, was he took one of his own PAD articles, which actually had links to multiple 1st-in sites. He then published this PAD article on a couple of 1st-in sites. What he accidentally did is link some of his sites together. These PAD articles also linked back to the sites I mentioned above that distribute his PAD articles. This is how I believe the banning propogated through all of his sites, through his article distribution sites.
Joined: 25 Nov 2004 Posts: 17 Location: Not far from the beach Australia
Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 2:48 pm Post subject:
Hi,
I'm a student of JM and also subscribe to the Buzz.
Without going back through all the recent Buzz editions to find the right one where this link problem was mentioned, I'll try to clarify this issue.
James produced a PAD article for a particular site, where the author credit linked to another one of his sites, which also linked back to the original site which the PAD article was based. I don't recall whether this was only one instance, or many PAD articles had this crosslinking. But apparently it was frowned upon by Google.
And this makes sense. From Google's eyes this triangular linking makes it look like the article backlink is either collusion between related parties, or artificial linking between sites all owned by the same person/company.
My guess is that Google would place more importance on backlinks that are unsolicited genuine "votes" of approval from a related site. Not a contrived strategy solely for the purpose of high search engine ranking.
It comes back to building sites of high quality useful content that related sites would naturally link to you. That's what I beleive Google is trying to achieve. However as internet or marketing savvy webmasters, we want to short cut the rise in rankings and improve traffic and revenue ASAP.
So James and us publishers will always be working on the edge of search engine guidelines, testing new strategies which sometimes may cross that line drawn in the sand by Google. Resulting in a banned site.
Oh BTW, another linking problem James discovered recently was where the anchor text used in distributed articles was the same. Apparently Google may not believe a large number of inbound links using eactly the same anchor text, are natural links. I mean, in their eyes these links have been possibly "manufactured" for high rankings. As the chances that several sites happened to use the same anchor text to link back to you wwould be highly unlikely.
The remedy - just use several different anchor texts and mix them up when distributing articles.
The problems that James had with PAD were discussed in Buzz No 30.
I have followed the techniques as given in James manual and had no problems with Google.
However,I am tired of Google continually altering the rulebook. I am all in favour of ridding the internet of poor quality sites, but Google seem to be abusing their power
and making life difficult for many reputable sites. I hope MSN,Yahoo and the other search engines increase their presence at the expense of Google.
James produced a PAD article for a particular site, where the author credit linked to another one of his sites, which also linked back to the original site which the PAD article was based.
Well, that clarifies it ... a little. An article pointing to two sites that link to each other in a triangle. Could be. That may bring a penalty from Google, but I dont see how that would get all his sites banned, even if everythig was tied to the one article database (unless of course, he committed the same violation on all his sites). I still suspect there is more to it.
Quote:
I am tired of Google continually altering the rulebook. I am all in favour of ridding the internet of poor quality sites, but Google seem to be abusing their power
Nick, I hear ya. But if you put yourself in Google's position, it really isnt abuse. Giving searchers good content is a constant effort that requires adjusting to new situations.
And unless you have a monopoly, you want the SEs to tweak their algos. Its a great opportunity to knock off the big sites. I love it when the SEs change - I may lose some pages, but overall, my rankings continue to creep up. In fact, I just had one case of losing most pages, yet keeping all my rankings. (This is weird enough that I may post it in another thread). So the bottom line: the changing algos is an opportunity for you if you keep doing the right things.
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