Every new update from Google bring the bad news to thousands of internet marketers. One of my internet marketing passion was searching for the exact domain name with good search volume, rank it by doing some SEOs & then make money by placing AdSense ads on this.
I was having more than 20 exact match domain (EMD) sites which were ranking better in Google & making me more than $1500 per month. Life was going cool until 28th September 2012 but suddenly I found many of my EMD sites (more than 15) were not ranking any more on the first page. Initially I was under impression that its a usual Google dance but when none of my domain returned to the previous rank then I thought there is really some problem.
So what went wrong?
And then I came to know about the latest Google update which was for exact match domain (EMD). I was never affected by any of the previous updates from Google (Panda or Penguin) but this time Google ruined my life. My earnings from these EMD sites dropped from $50+ per day to $10.
After Matt Cutts (so called Web spam chief of Google) tweeted
“Minor weather report: small upcoming Google algo change will reduce low-quality “exact-match” domains in search results.”
It was really not minor update for me & even for thousands of people like me. I was 100% sure that Google will bring some EMD update in future but I was not prepared for that. I never thought it will come this way & how much impact it can bring in my life.
But one thing I want to admit here. As per the Matt Cutts statement, many of my EMD sites were of low quality & they deserved to lose ranking. But even my quality EMD sites lost ranking after this update.
For instance, one of my blog PNRStatusCheck.org was receiving more than 500 pageviews a day before EMD update. I used to publish quality content on this blog. This blog was much better in quality as compared to other websites which were ranking in Google for many of the keywords like ‘PNR Status’, ‘Check PNR Status’ etc. But some of those low quality websites are still ranking just because they were more focused on SEO than content.
It’s not like I make money by creating EMD sites only. I have authority blogs as well to my credit & I never compromise to publish quality content on this blog. But big part of my earnings was coming through these EMD sites & I am sure it will be very hard to recover from this EMD update.
It was a big lesson for me! I knew only great content can make you authority in Google. Don’t try to take advantage with loopholes in Google’s search algo because Google knows everything & soon they will punch you straight to the nose.
Writing high quality content & doing quality SEO is the only thing that matters in your internet marketing success. Be prepared for the next big update from Google. Experts believe this would be more dangerous than all of the penguin & panda effects combined together. And that will be Author Ranking. Go & read more about that.
This article is written by Pritam Nagrale who blogs about how to earn money online. If you are looking for tips to make money, then you can visit his blog to find many tips & resources about online income opportunities.