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I created LinkAdage Auctions which became a success in 2003 and kicked off the whole text link broker gold rush. In 2006, I started LinkXL.com which is now experiencing great success with a revolutionary brokerage model. My goal on the internet is to create web sites that are both evolutionary and revolutionary because there is just too much warmed over crap on the Internet for my liking.

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Google Hates Me

May 14th, 2008 • Related • Filed Under

I have owned this domain (my last name.com) for eight years. I have not done much with it other than use it for email forwarding, but always in the back of my mind I planned on starting a website with this domain. About 6 months ago I moved this site over to a dedicate server and there it sat doing nothing. However, I noticed that when I searched on the domain name “Lessnau”, my server login page came up second or third in the rankings with a cache of the server default page.

Early Google cache of this site

This seemed odd, but hey, at least I seemed to be getting some Google love with a nothing page and no links to my domain.

So last month, I figured it was time to build out this site and start adding content and switched the DNS. I received a few natural links and I noticed the site was cached right away and still maintained it’s ranking for the domain name. Great I thought – heck, if I can rank for my domain name, a five word long tail keyword search should be right around the corner.

I continued to add new posts and gain a few links here and there and things were looking up. Maybe I soon would rank number 1 for my last name Family bragging rights would be mine!! So last week I searched on ‘Lessnau’ and my site was nowhere to be found. Well, one of my posts is at 500+ in Google SERPs.

I realize this is a new site and I am only doing natural linking, but I find it a bit odd that the site while in a holding mode on my server was ranking for ‘lessnau’, and now that I am writing content and getting a few natural links, the domain gets deep sixed.

As I build natural links and content I would expect the site to start ranking for at least my last name again if I did get sandboxed for a complete content and DNS change. However, if I stay buried at 500+, I can only conclude one thing – Google Hates Me.

Update 6/19/2008: Google Love. Natural Links from the the Twitterdoodle plugin buzz has popped the Lessnau Lounge out of the Sandbox and into the top five for the word “lessnau’.  For a short time I even ranked #1.  I sign of good things to come?  Maybe, but ranking for my domain name is not a lot to ask…

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There Are 6 Responses So Far. »

  1. Comment by no imageJosh Spaulding (Check me out!) on 14 May 2008:

    Well, Google hates alot of people, so don’t feel bad.

    Although this domain isn’t new, it sounds like it’s new to the WWW, so maybe it’s just sitting in an sandbox purgatory until it proves to be a stable site?

    I have a feeling it will start ranking again in the near future.

    Rate this:
    		3.6 (2 people)

  2. Comment by no imageDave King (Check me out!) on 17 May 2008:

    Hehe. Completely posts to the one you commented on my blog. Unlucky for you!

    What do you mean by TBPR?

    Rate this:
    		2.5

  3. Comment by no imageJohn Lessnau (Check me out!) on 17 May 2008:

    Dave - TBPR = Toolbar Pagerank

    It’s fun to watch but it tends to cause naive link buyers to overpay for bad text link ads.

    See my take at:
    http://www.lessnau.com/2008/04/how-to-identify-fake-pagerank/

    Rate this:
    		3.8 (1 person)

  4. Comment by no imagerefinch (Check me out!) on 5 June 2008:

    Go to Google Webmaster Tools and set up an account. Install the Google XML site maps Wordpress plugin and generate a site map, then have your site verfied back in the webmaster tools control panel. Also, put “disallow” statements in your root directory robots.txt file for the directories you don’t want the search engines to spider (you currently don’t have any statements in yours) - like the directory for your Wordpress login page.

    You have to work a little at getting Google to love you.

    Rate this:
    		2.8 (1 person)

  5. Comment by no imageJosh Spaulding (Check me out!) on 5 June 2008:

    “Go to Google Webmaster Tools and set up an account. Install the Google XML site maps Wordpress plugin and generate a site map, then have your site verfied back in the webmaster tools control panel. Also, put “disallow” statements in your root directory robots.txt file for the directories you don’t want the search engines to spider (you currently don’t have any statements in yours) - like the directory for your Wordpress login page.

    You have to work a little at getting Google to love you.”

    Yeah, John…what are you doing lol All you have to do it submit a sitemap disallow some stuff in your robots.txt Didn’t you know that? :)

    Rate this:
    		3.5 (1 person)

  6. Comment by no imageJohn Lessnau (Check me out!) on 5 June 2008:

    Golly geewiz Josh, I never knew SEO was that easy. Now I know how to get all my sites to rank top ten. ;-)

    Rate this:
    		3.5

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