BANS and Google Deindexing | Recover Your ePN Affiliate Marketing Quest
I am sure that fellow affiliate marketers will know what Build A Niche Store (BANS) is all about. In short, it is a script that pulls out eBay listings and will help affiliate marketers promoting eBay earn commissions.
Affiliate marketers have been building BANS sites across hundreds and if not, thousands of domains. Apparently, Google did not like this practice and starts to deindex .INFO domains that are using these scripts.
Affiliate marketers using the scripts then speculate that Google bans such scripts on .INFO domains as .INFO are supposed to be informational and value adding, not trying to make money off visitors. Well, they are proven wrong when Google starts to deindex .COM domains using BANS as well.
As an eBay Partner Network affiliate, I use BANS for a few sites as well. 90% of my BANS sites were deindexed by Google. Those that are safe is because they are acting as a supplementary store for my content sites.
Plans to Recover from BANS and Google Deindexing
I can see a trend is what Google likes and dislikes. They have even changed their webmaster guidelines by adding the following:
Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines, or other “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.
Thin affiliate sites do thrive with Google but since a lot of affiliates are using BANS to create their money making sites, it is just about them a flag is raised within Google.
The widespread of deindexing suggests that Google somehow manage to spot traits within the BANS script. Most people are trying to remove the traits but it would be hard for a coding phobic like me. Google want contents so I will present them with contents.
Live Case Study to Recover from Google BANS Deindexing
First of all, let me show you guys the characteristics of my BANS sites that got deindexed.
- 100% BANS on domain (no blog, no extra content pages).
- More than 50% have a PR (PR0 to PR3), suggesting that Google loves my link building activities.
- Store pages are manually created.
- Getting traffic from Yahoo and other article directories even though they are deindexed.
- Keyword stuffed
- Privacy Policy and Terms of Use page is up
Actions to Take to Get BANS Sites Back Into Google Index
The things that I am going to do are the following. Do keep in mind that my actions are based on the saying, “Content is King” and “Google loves content”.
Contents for Store Pages
I have thought of this simple way of creating contents on store pages. Well, I would write a 400 words unique shopping tips for each store page. For example, I would write a “remote control car shopping tips” under a “remote control car” eBay listing.
Cut Down Number of Listed Items on Store Pages
I am currently displaying 30 items on every store pages. Apart from adding shopping tips, I will reduce the number of displayed items to either 18 or 21. Why? Because I am using the three items a row display style.
No eBay Listings for Homepage
I am going to introduce what my BANS affiliate site is about and why customers should buy from me instead of other stores.
Wordpress Blog
I am sure you have seen some shopping blogs out there. I will update the blog from time to time with product recommendations and release of new products in my niche. Where am I going to get descriptions and affiliate links for a particular product? Well, Amazon.
Content Pages
I am going to add some content pages with 400 articles that are relevant to my niche. This is just to make sure that my contents are more than doorway pages (store pages).
Your Thoughts on Getting BANS Back Into Google?
To be honest, I am not an expert with all these deindex and reindex stuffs. I do understand that affiliate sites do rank high in search engines and the key to get high search engine rankings is via link building.
However, as I have mentioned earlier, Google might be manually reviewing every BANS because to them, BANS sites rarely have valuable contents. Thus, Google took the drastic approach of deindexing all BANS. They want content to show up if you are building affiliate sites using BANS so I will give them what they want.
What do you think? Do you think my steps above will work? Are there some other ways that you think can get your BANS site back into Google index?
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Comments
4 Responses to “BANS and Google Deindexing | Recover Your ePN Affiliate Marketing Quest”
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Hey, Great Blog Wayne. I’d fallen out of the habit of perusing the blogosphere to further my knowledge and now I realize that I have been missing out and doing myself a disservice…your blog just proved that!
For example I never knew about this issue of Google de-indexing BANS.
Hey Ba,
If you are passionate about the industry and want to set up yourself as a community, there are a few blogs (not mine
) that you should follow and interact with the community there.
THanks for this tips. Apparently Google doesn’t just deindex BANS site. A few of my sites not using BANS scripts but got banned. So I’m going to find out why and … base on this article I must reorganize those sites with valuable content then request re-inclusion.
Do you think it’s good idea to buy new domain and build fresh sites instead of trying to email Google for re-inclusion?
It’s then proven to me that “thin affiliate” sites got deindexed, not just BANS.
Hey Binh,
Thanks for helping me to reaffirm that Google does look out for thin affiliate sites to penalize.
I would say try to ask for a reinclusion after you have added a significant amount of content to your affiliate sites. Buying a new domain, put a Wordpress blog and start from scratch may be a way just to make some money while your site is being evaluated (might take up to one year or more).
I see this “penalty” as a good one because affiliates will now have lesser competition as most will run away from the industry just because they are lazy when it comes to adding content.
Also, innovative marketers can always move from pure affiliate marketing to niche marketing which involves product creation. See this as an opportunity rather than a penalty and you might make even more down the road.