Visitors halfed since implementing VBSEO

Originally Posted by gedsta

If not using a 300x250 Google ad, where the Navbar is, Google ads are pretty low income, normally.

What would you suggest as oppose Google Adsense? I'm not very up on the selling adspace thing, ZMTC approached me and I took 'em up on their offer... If $20 they provide can't be covered by adsense (or another provider) I may as well stick with them as $20 is a good chunk of my income from the site.

I also bidvertiser, but it doesn't seem to comprehend context of the page at all. Like it will put ads for "my little pony" (just example) on a page about Moon Landings. Competely unrelated and doesn't generate much at all.

We're on a "white hat" SEO site asking questions about black hat seo. Most likely the response we're going to get about questionable things like link sales will get negative replies by VBSEO admin and mods (and for good reason).

I don't follow the difference between white hat and black hat.

Originally Posted by karlm

I don't follow the difference between white hat and black hat.

Check out: Search engine optimization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by briansol

I think it's a KNOWN fact at this point that selling footer links kills your SERPs in google.


Your choice, $20 a month, or a sucessful forum with new members and traffic

Brian, is this just for text links or all links and banner ads?

Miguel

Originally Posted by Azonaco

We're on a "white hat" SEO site asking questions about black hat seo. Most likely the response we're going to get about questionable things like link sales will get negative replies by VBSEO admin and mods (and for good reason).

I have a PR5 site, which had plenty of traffic, I added ZMTC and within a week, my keywords were no longer on search results on page 1 of Google.

Traffic has disappeared, and reading the net, its because of ZMTC.

It isn't even a forum based website, and doesn't use vBSEO anyway. I have nothing (or vBSEO) to gain from this particular post. I am trying to help a guy out.

What would you suggest as oppose Google Adsense?

Remove the 728x90 adsense and put a 300x250 adsense banner in your navbar, it you can't make $20 a month from that, I would give up.

Originally Posted by gedsta

I have a PR5 site, which had plenty of traffic, I added ZMTC and within a week, my keywords were no longer on search results on page 1 of Google.

Traffic has disappeared, and reading the net, its because of ZMTC.

It isn't even a forum based website, and doesn't use vBSEO anyway. I have nothing (or vBSEO) to gain from this particular post. I am trying to help a guy out.



Remove the 728x90 adsense and put a 300x250 adsense banner in your navbar, it you can't make $20 a month from that, I would give up.

huh?
What is ZMTC? Is it some kind of link selling service? If it is, then I'm willing to bet that the odds increased for getting the google slap for SERP...but odds are, they'll never punnish a site for adding a couple of "Partner Site" links.

Not every forum can profit off of a 300x250 adsense block...Some sites don't have the niche for adsense. period.

Originally Posted by SIINSI

Brian, is this just for text links or all links and banner ads?

Miguel

paid text links.

basically, google can tell that you sold a link. they are pretty generic.
and since they are used to gain back links more than they are visitors/true advertising, google punishes for it.

Right, well I've wrote to ZMTC about this, letting them know I'm going to drop the links for a while to look at the stats without their links on my site.

Come January I'll see whether it's worth putting them back or not...

Make the changes with the adsense as well to trial and see if it improves.

Also, if you have been penalised by Google, you would need to do a re inclusion request. Once they sort that out, you should see your traffic, and hopefully your earnings go up.

Originally Posted by briansol

paid text links.

basically, google can tell that you sold a link. they are pretty generic.
and since they are used to gain back links more than they are visitors/true advertising, google punishes for it.

Gotcha, so vendor/sponsor banner ads are OK.

Thanks,
Miguel

An official Google policy page might help:

http://www.google.com/support/webmas...y?answer=66356
Why should I report paid links to Google? - Webmaster Help Center