Having my small commercial sites essentially wiped out by changes Google, AOL and Yahoo last year, I started a directory to inform consumers and list and rate all the companies in my particular niche. Before Florida I had gotten to page 2 of my targeted key phrase results on Google. After Florida I disappeared, then de-optimized and am now on page 11 which is zero income land.
One of my competitors on the other hand has 4 sites on page one and another has 2 mirror sites on page one. While the mirror sites are quite good, have legitimate backlinks and great content, one should obviously (to the HUMAN eye) not be there. The company with 4 sites on page one has been cheating since day one via backlinks (600) that consist entirely of message board posts, blogs, guest books, and invisible key phrase text in those wherever the owner can put it in. The owner of these sites was also removed from an editorship at Dmoz for cheating antics that placed his sites on top.
I have written to Google many times regarding this and have never received a response.
I have created a clean, user friendly, informative site with clean backlinks from Yahoo, Dmoz, and numerous sites listed in the directory and are still not visible to the searching public.
I have used adwords and paid $1.20 for every dollar made. The primary reason for this is that Google allows deep pocket unrelated sites to advertise on my targeted results page.
Conclusion:
Google does not care about the quality of results as long as the bottom line goes up. "The public be damned"
After playing by the rules and losing 90% of my income with seemingly no possibility of regaining it by honest means in this decade I have concluded that cheating to get to the top of Google is acceptable business practice.
I am tired of being cheated by Google and intend to return the favor.
