Google sends me traffic again

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Last month, I wrote about my intention to completely stop writing sponsored reviews. I started to slowly add the no-follow tag to all the sponsored reviews links (any way, these links will be of no use to the other party as my page rank went down to zero). I also started to remove all affiliate links to the sponsored reviews sites.

Response for my decision on Sponsored Reviews
In the meanwhile, I received mixed response for my decision to stop writing sponsored reviews. Some of you told that I made the right decision. Some of you still think that paid reviews will provide a good source of income. Even some of you suggested that I will write paid posts again after getting back the page rank.

Success of Sponsored Reviews depends on Google PR
Let me tell you, you will get the opportunities only until you have some page rank attached to your blog. Once Google finds that you are writing for sponsored reviews companies, they will penalize with a PR zero. That’s it. You will immediately see a drop in the number of opportunities available for you and a drastic cut in the offer amount per opportunity. The same guys, who wanted you before when you had a good Page Rank, start to dump you now. Why they cannot support you now? Nothing has changed in your blog. Your writing skills are the same. But, they don’t want you now just because you lost your page rank.

Sponsored Reviews Leads to Dip in Search Engine Traffic
The other side effect of Google’s penalty will show up when your search engine traffic slowly and steadily goes down to almost nothing. This is where you will start to feel the pinch (like me). The graph below shows what could happen to your blog. Look at the graph dipping down very fast.

Search Engine Traffic Falling
This started to happen to this blog since end September 2008. I didn’t really notice this until recently. Once I saw this, I wanted to make it clear that I am not writing any more paid reviews. That was the reason for my outright post explaining why I said no to sponsored reviews.

Google sending Traffic Again to my blog
Once I declared my intention clearly, removed some of the affiliate links to sponsored reviews sites and no-followed those paid reviews posts, I could see slowly the search traffic coming back. I could not definitely say that Google started to send me traffic due to the above actions. But, most likely, it is true that Google recognized my efforts. My Google Page Rank still stays at zero, but at least I am getting back on to the search engine results pages. That’s good. If you don’t believe me, look at the graph below.

Search Engine Traffic Rising

Contribution of Search Engine Traffic in 2008
The graph tells you the clear picture. I will breakdown how search engine traffic contributed to the overall traffic to my blog.

Jan 2008 – 36.80 %
Feb 2008 – 52.12 %
Mar 2008 – 33.84 %
Apr 2008 – 40.87 %
May 2008 – 45.65 %
Jun 2008 – 56.75 %
Jul 2008 – 56.28 %
Aug 2008 – 50.33 %
Sep 2008 – 33.24 %
Oct 2008 – 3.12 %
Nov 2008 – 1.08 %
Dec 2008 – 15.30 %

Look at how the search engine contribution dropped to single digits in the month of Oct 2008 and Nov 2008. In the first 9 months of the year, the search engines contributed about one-third to one-half of the overall traffic to the blog. The traffic went down dramatically in October and November. But, you could see a good recovery in December 2008.

Conclusion
I think I made myself clear here. But, if you still have any doubts about the impact of writing sponsored reviews, I am not going to push you further. Decide whether you want short term benefits or you want to establish a blog that brings in a steady income for a longer period. The ball is in your court. Please subscribe to my feed if you like this post

16 comments:

Anonymous January 5, 2009 at 5:56 AM  

congrats dude.....i can see your happiness in the post :)

Manick January 5, 2009 at 6:16 AM  

Hi "Blogger Templates",

You are absolutely right. It is a happy moment to see the traffic again from the biggest search engine. Thanks for your comments.

Anonymous January 6, 2009 at 7:34 PM  

I looked at writing paid posts at one point for one of my other blogs, but when I found out what it does to your page rank, I decided not to. Those graphs are priceless - a true lesson of what NOT to do (unless you intentionally want to shoot yourself in the foot).

Great post!

Hava
http://nonfictionlover.today.com

Manick January 7, 2009 at 11:38 PM  

Hi Hava,

You did the right thing. At least when people warned you not to play with fire, you stayed away. I didn't. That's why I am trying to alert others before things get out of hands.

Thanks for your comments.

Jena Isle January 8, 2009 at 9:54 AM  

That was a well written analysis. But I think as long as you follow the ration of 3 non paid to 1 paid posts, you'll be okay. But thanks for sharing.

Btw, I'm at mylot too, what's your user name? Mine is the same, hope to see you there. Cheers.

Manick January 8, 2009 at 5:06 PM  

Hi Jena Isle,

Thanks for your views. As far as Google is concerned, even a single paid post is not OK. Unless you use no-follow links in your sponsored reviews, Google is not going to accept it. So, think twice before you take up any paid posts.

My mylot id is a_manick. I will contact you there whenever possible (I am not a very active user though). Thanks.

Anonymous January 8, 2009 at 8:59 PM  

I can testify that even one small sponsored review affect badly. I did one review on one of my blog some time ago which was a PR 4 and after the recent update it has become PR 2 :-( I have to remove the do follow links now.

Manick January 8, 2009 at 9:24 PM  

Hi Kurt Avish,

You are right on target. A sponsored post is a sponsored post, irrespective of the quantity. Thanks for sharing your views.

Anonymous January 31, 2009 at 9:43 AM  

Thanks for sharing the stats and pics. Your overview gave me a great example to refer to regarding paid posts.

vhingF February 24, 2009 at 8:45 AM  

thanks I open this post....i noticed it few days ago my page comes to 0.Last 3 weeks I decided not to post reviews because seen one paid among my reviews but I saw mostly my friends making reviews so I went back again and review almost all that they are sending.

I have a qeustion to everybody here.excepting google ads....

WHAT ELSE and who among them are paying bloggers?Just wondering who and who ? I'm newbie.

thanks again.keep up the good works!

Free Money Maker April 14, 2009 at 7:37 PM  

Congratulations manick,you are getting your old status from google.

Admin May 5, 2009 at 9:56 PM  

can you check my blog and comment. do i have to delelte any post or any chance to be made. please help...

http://corporatetoday.blogspot.com

NIZHAMA June 7, 2009 at 8:34 AM  

i'm agree with you. Your PR will be better in the future. You're a good writer. Go on and who know you will became another John Chow

Manick June 18, 2009 at 5:43 PM  

I have not replied to the comments in this post for quite some time. Sorry for the delay if someone is expecting a reply from me earlier.

Social Mind: Thanks.

vHingF: Paid reviews are wasting time. They pay you well when you have a good PR. Once you lose your PR, they will dump you. There are lots of advertising networks out there like Google Adsense, AdBrite, Project Wonderful and so on.

Free Money Maker: Thanks. It seems you are very busy. I don't see your active participation in blogging any more. Hope things are fine.

blogger: I am not sure what you want. I visited your blog, but cannot figure out anything. If you have done any paid reviews, then remove the link or nofollow it at the least. You are the best person to know which post is against Google.

Nizhama: Thanks for your encouraging words. My approach to blogging is different from John Chow's. So, I may not become John Chow. But, who knows? I may become a famous blogger (Just kidding). I prefer to earn money silently rather than become a famous blogger.

Scorpio: Thanks. Even though I don't like you leaving so many links in the comments, I am just leaving the comment as it is. Please do not put more than one link in your comment. It looks like spam.

BrightEarn.com September 15, 2010 at 3:42 AM  

good you got some thing from google

Regards
Vicky
www.BlogsPassion.com

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