Looks like site owners are selling out!

I've been watching the site auctions here and I've noticed that there are a lot of $1K - $30K sites/networks for sale.
It looks like everyone is selling out because of the penguin maybe?

My advice to you is if you believe that penguin will only get worse than sell QUICK and if you think things will get better, buy now while the prices are low.

 

How are your sites going Lacey, have you noticed an significant drop in your earnings?

Tbh, I bet the majority of those with big money making websites that have been affected by the Penguin update thought that this would never happen but as they say, never depend on something you've depended on for a long time, you never know when the good ends and in the case of google search/adsense, never always depend on it, because they have the power to just rip it away from anyone they want. It's sad that a lot of webmasters have lost out, many have kids and college fees to pay, but I think it's naive if people have been depending on google/adsense for a long time without thinking of the possible consequences. If I was making x,xxx or w/e per month, most of that would be saved up for a rainy day/future.

 

Can anyone enlighten me about the "Penguin update"? I have noticed that my earnings have been dropping significantly too but didn't know why.

 

You've noticed correctly. I had to sell one of my monthly cash cows due to the change, but I got five figures for it so I'm happy

 

After working online for umm....7yrs and building more revenue year by year I got a 30% - 60% revenue drop overnight from the damn penguin. I believe its near the end of the road for me. I knew that there was ways I could bring up my CTR and click value but I was not in a rush to. Now that I've lost the revenue I'm jumping on doing all of the changes. By the end of this year I will be possibly selling everything and putting down my mouse in shame forever. I don't feel like wasting another 7 yrs.

 

From what I can tell, this update was more about penalizing sites that fail to follow Google's quality guidelines than anything else. The goal is to make search results more relevant. Things like doorway pages, duplicate content, keyword stuffing and invisible text are big no-no's.

And sites that broke those guidelines were hit the hardest. Some of my favorite sites were hit hard. And I was surprised. Even though it looked like they were doing everything right with On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO, there was still something Google didn't like about them.

 

Ouch! I know that hurt - a 30-60% drop in revenue overnight is scary. It makes you think about the power SERPs have over our income.

 

SEO white hat is the only way to go guys and gals! Reap long term benefits and don't feel the pain....
regards
G

 

Surely it stands to reason, that if some sites are falling down the SERPs, others are moving up to take their place. There must be winners also.

Take this site, it is one of my smaller sites and it looked at the start of the month that it was going to be hit ... then all of a sudden (over night) my traffic doubled, and most of my pages moved up in the SERPs.

 

They say penguin is targeting bad linked sites, but I believe they are just doing it to jump corporation and world known companies to the top. I know that content doesn't help anymore considering that sites like IMDB are ranking good in searches based on stupid TV shows that have not been aired in 10 years, etc....

 

One thing I still find quite interesting is how Google managed to grow itself to basically 'own' the Internet.

Strange how one decision by the company affects millions and millions of websites.

But then again, no one in this world managed to launch a service that would counter Google, so until something like that ever happens, I suppose Google will keep running the Internet.

 

Hi Lacey,
What types of sites do you run?
My company is a direct Yahoo syndicator and we are looking for monetization partners that can benefit from a Yahoo search feed in their downladable apps, toolbars, search sites, etc.

 

You can't help me. Google was paying the best and now the destroyed my traffic. From 70K a month straight to 40K and going down quick. My site isn't spammy either. Its like 50 times more resourceful than at least..........60 results ahead of me for the keyword I've been competing against. This is all total bullcrap. Google selling damn keywords to corporations, all of the big shots thrown in first and the little ones destroyed. Forgive me if I'm not stupid enough to publish the stupidest more retarded brain dead discoveries just because cbs and fox comes out with it.

You don't even know what the heck you are talking about. The topic is a conversation to determine why there is a huge increase of webmasters and network owners throwing in the towel and selling everything they have due to the penguin update.

 

I have mixed feelings about this update. One of my site has gone down in traffic, but another has actually gotten significantly better. Win some, lose some.

 

We actually did pretty well in this update, most terms showing good increases. On the flip side though, our income stream is selling SEO services, something which isn't exactly thriving right now- simply because people don't have a clear idea of what they should be doing to please the big G.

WebDev

 

I just learned recently. Become a big huge thing like disney and google will automatically put me in first for everything.

 

My sites were not affected by Penguin or Panda at all. Actually I think they may have improved traffic by a little.

 

After looking across highly searched keywords everyone bumped aside for cellphone backgrounds, google news, and stores. If you are talking about backlinks then DP would be blasted to nowhere because its gotten to the point where you cannot control who links you. I'm sure there some bad backlinks scattered everywhere. It may not be Disney around these waters but I'm sure google knows that good profit is coming from DP with all of us mutants doing the adsense thing.
Obviously I did do a little bit of backlink building but this really sucks regardless.

 

Google doesn't run the Internet. Everyone thinks it does...but it doesn't.

PEOPLE run the internet. Google would be nothing without people who use their search, use their tools, and it's people that they can advertise to. Don't you get it? - the power is in all of us to completely change everything. I stopped using Google search. I now use Bing...in protest of what Google has done to my Internet friends, many of you here!

Remember: It's PEOPLE who can change the rules and one of them is don't just rely on Google traffic...you don't even need to --- not with social media, eg Facebook and Twitter , and with YouTube.

Google is just a freaking search engine. They are not "God". They are a monopoly and sooner or later all monopolies end up getting competitors who grow more powerful.

So stop drinking the Google kool-aid. Don't even think about optimizing your sites for Google anymore, and find other ways to draw traffic to your sites.

Real entrepreneurs don't give up because they've lost some business due to some other company's games. Real entrepreneurs come up with solutions to problems, and emerge stronger than ever.

So to all of you who have lost business because of the latest Google shenanigans - are you really just going to give up? Are you going to let some rogue company destroy you, just like that? Grow a pair!