Google sends me traffic again

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.


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.



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