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Google and BANS. Once we thought this was a match made in Heaven. Nowadays, if you’re a BANS owner, you probably think you’ve been in affiliate marketing Hell. First there was the Ebay Partner Network canning hundreds of eBay affiliates, many who had Build A Niche Storesites up, and now Google has been either penalizing or out right deindexing BANS sites from the SERPS.
Yeah, for some of you BANS owners, it’s been a pretty tough last few months.
I’m knocking on wood here. If you remember right from my initial Build A Niche Store Review, my goal was to build 100 BANS sites. Now I’m thanking my lucky stars that I have AMADD (Affiliate Marketing Attention Deficit Disorder) and only made it to 30 sites before I lost focus and went off doing something else. So far none of my sites have been touched by either Google or eBay. I’ll give you my theories on why that is on down the page.
A Few Theories Why Google Is De-Indexing BANS sites.
I’ve been following a lot of the chatter on forums about this subject as well as receiving a lot of email. This is what I’ve figured out to this point. No one has 100% concrete proof why Google is de-indexing BANS sites. There are a few theories floating around.
- The BANS program was being used by a lot of spammers. Many of these guys/gals were throwing up huge numbers of BANS sites on .info domains. They never bothered to change anything with the programs, their only concern was to get as many BANS sites up as they could, as cheaply as they could. This left a huge footprint for Google to follow.
- Most of these same people never bothered to put any content on their sites. They were simply ebay sites with ebay auctions on them. This would be what Google calls a “thin affiliate” site. And we know what Google does with thin affiliate sites.
- In order for Google to get all the spammy BANS sites, it had to take some legitimate sites along with them. It’s the shotgun approach. Use a huge pattern to make sure you get all of them. Try and limit the casualties but go forward knowing some innocent victims will be in the pattern.
My Theory On Why Google Hasn’t De-Indexed All BANS Sites
Even as far back as when I bought the Build A Niche Store program, there was talk about Google finding the footprint of all the standard BANS templates and possibly penalizing them. It seems this bird has come home to roost. From the start, here is what I did to try and make my BANS sites unique from all the other cookie cutter BANS sites.
- I changed up the CSS a little bit on every site. I made sections like the header and content fields larger and smaller.
- I changed the colors on every site.
- I changed the size of the headers on every site and used graphic headers.
- I DID NOT go out and start sending hundreds of backlinks to my sites. I built them up over time using blog carnivals, article submissions, reciprocal linking and adding one way permanent links.
- I added content to nearly every page plus I used a lot of graphics.
- I never put eBay auctions on my main page. I put content on the index page to make it look as much like a informative content site as I could. Just look at how many BANS sites have nothing more than auctions on their front page.
- On many of the domains that hosted my BANS sites, I added blogs, article directories and forums to many. (mostly just blogs that supported the main domain)
- I never put more than 2 BANS sites on one hosting account plus I paid extra for all sites to have a dedicated IP’s. I’ve read stories of people hosting all their BANS sites with one hosting company. Wow, I can’t fathom that idea. I’m just too paranoid I suppose.
- I only used dot com domains. Of course, these last two items is what I do for nearly all of my affiliate sites, not just for BANS. I want to make it as hard as possible for Google or any other search engine to spy on my websites.
Now, I’m not saying if you do these things that Google will not index your site. These are the things I did to every BANS site I had. I did these things from day one and as I said above, knock on wood, my sites haven’t been touched. In fact, many are still climbing the SERPS.
Is the Build A Niche Store Still Worth Buying?
I’ve had a few emails asking that question. Honestly, I’d say yes it is. But only if you intend to build sites that have a lot of content and you make them unique. If you’re plan is to buy it and throw up a bunch of BANS sites without adding any value to them, I think you’d be wasting your money. Google is on to you.
Alternatives to The Build A Niche Store program
If you’ve been reading this blog for more than a week or so, you know I’m impressed with the PHPBay plugin for WordPress. As I stated in my post Advanced Build A Niche Store Strategies, I’ve been using PHPBayand WordPress to make blogs and stores with eBay auctions. It seems every week that my PHPBay/WordPress stores outproduce my Build A Niche Store sites. Hey, it’s no secret that Google is crazy in love with WordPress blogs. Why not take advantage of that? Plus, to be honest, a WordPress blog and PHPBay combination site just looks much better than 99% of the BANS sites out there, mine included. (hey, maybe Google hates ugly sites?)
Whatever the real reason that Google is de-indexing or penalizing BANS sites, owners using this program need to proceed with caution. If you continue to make sites with BANS, then do everything in your power to make them unique and stand away from the crowd.
11 responses so far ↓
1 Matt Robison // Sep 30, 2008 at 10:20 am
Honestly, my ebay affiliate sites don’t start taking off until yahoo indexes them. My traffic on one site shot from 30 visitors per day to 200 per day. It took 6 months, but yahoo finally started including me.
2 Wayne Liew // Sep 30, 2008 at 12:04 pm
My BANS have been penalized as well and I am on the road of recovery to get them back into Google’s index. By the way, just like Matt, my BANS are earning via Yahoo traffic. I am adding blogs and more contents to my BANS.
I have to disagree with you on your all BANS on one server point. Shared hosting has more than thousand of sites hosted on each server sharing the same IP so I doubt Google will simply penalize all the sites on one single server.
Also, on your point that Google dislikes thin affiliate sites. Search for “credit cards” on Google and you will find that most of the top 10 are thin affiliate sites.
Wayne
http://www.affboom.com
3 Jonathon // Sep 30, 2008 at 6:25 pm
A agree with the comment above. Google has been little help to my BANS sites, but Yahoo and MSN provide most of my traffic. I have not had any BANS sites de-indexed, but don’t get much traffic from G either…Maybe 10%.
I also believe that my BANS sites have survived delisting because of modifications that I made to take ANY BANS footprint out of the picture and I also added blogs.
I just wish EPN would fix some of their reporting issues as my sites sales are very inconsistent….some $100 days, and then I just had a 15 cent day, with no drop in clicks!
4 Affiliate Programs // Sep 30, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Yahoo and MSN brings in good numbers of traffic to my BANS sites, but nothing compared to what Google does!
@Wayne
Sure, to you and I, those Credit Card sites may seem like “thin affiliate” sites, with little content. But G figures they are offering just what consumers searching for “credit cards” are looking for.
Also, you have to take into account the age of those domains. Most of those domains are 7 to 10 years old.
Plus, those sites aren’t all made from the same template.
As for the servers, do you know how easy it is to find BANS sites with a search engine? A standard BANS template leaves a footprint that Stevie Wonder could follow. Since Google is also a Register, they have access to more behind the scense info than you and I.
I’m not saying that only hosting a few BANS sites on each account kept my sites from getting deindexed, I was simply stating that’s what I did to try and keep my footprint to a minimum. It would be interesting to see how many of those BANS sites that were deindexed, how many were on the same web host. I bet the numbers would surprise you.
Just a little food for thought.
Don
5 Wayne Liew // Sep 30, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Hey Don,
I guess what you said makes sense as well. My domains that uses a blog with a BANS store attached to it survived. Now, I am trying to attach a blog to the store.
Submitted my sites for reconsideration. Hopefully it will bring positive results.
Thanks for the information again, Don.
Wayne
6 5 Star Affiliate Marketing Blogs // Oct 1, 2008 at 10:40 am
BANS Affiliate Sites - eBay and Google Drop the Hammer…
For some Build a Niche Store owners, it’s been a pretty tough last few months. Back in August eBay expired hundreds of affiliates, many had BANS sites. Now many affiliates say Google has been either penalizing or out right deindexing BANS sites fro…
7 Paul // Oct 1, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Out of thirty BANS sites I only had two de-indexed and they were simple sites. The rest are all wordpress/bans and doing well. I also spent a lot of time SLOWLY building links for these sites.
8 5 Star Affiliate Marketing Forums // Oct 2, 2008 at 2:22 am
BANS (Build a Niche Store) Sites - Dropped by Google???…
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9 Auction Thumbs // Oct 9, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Content is king. If you blog and add affiliate links to great content, everyone will be happy (Ebay, Google). If you find yourself worrying about unique IP addresses and spreading domains across different servers and other ways to slide by you’re fighting a losing battle in the long run. Next, Google’s algorithms will be using the domain registration data to find all your sites and IP address/server spreading won’t matter. Then the algorithms will get smarter again… Never-ending battle. Create value for your visitors and then there is no concern.
10 Ivana - Wealthy Affiliate Member // Oct 13, 2008 at 4:17 am
Hi there, what I did, I bought the WP template for my bans site, than I bought the WP template that incorporates the Bans site and Blog, and than I realized that I should have gone with PHP bay instead! Uh…But sometimes we just have to learn on our mistakes.!
11 Build a Niche Store Tutorials // Nov 2, 2008 at 7:32 am
I use both phpbay and bans and they both have a place… phpbay pro is very good for added a shop to your existing blog and it does this very well.. but if you already have a bans store you just need to change your strategy to make sure you stay in the SERPS. You need to add content and not just leave the standard BANS foot print with zero content. Start by adding some targeted content to your pages base don your keywords at the top before your ebay streamed content. I’m currently carrying out an experiment using BANS on a new site using a lot of content related materials and a new authority link back structure. I will update you on the progress of this and write up a blog article on it once complete. Currently I am 2nd in the SERPS for my BANS store that was created on October the 12th and it is a double indented search item. I’m only being beaten to the number one position by one of the major brands but I’m still above wikipedia and amazon
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