How to Exhume Your Buried Site and Get Recovery From Google

 

Is There Really a Recovery From Google Slaps?
If you head out on Google and search for 'recovery from Google' or 'recover from Google Penguin,' or Panda or algorithm updates, you're going to find a ton of people out there touting that they'll get you back on track for X amount of dollars.

You're told you have to contact site owners and have links removed coming in to your site. You're told you have to do this - do that - do something else, create new links this way, listen to "gurus" tell you this is the "new way" to build links post-Panda and post-Penguin.
And for a limited time, you can get our services for $997! What?

Seriously, why would you want to pay someone for something you can do - and should do - yourself?
My e-commerce site was not only slammed by Google's algorithm updates in September 2012, it was buried - cremated may sound even better. How, you might ask? To this day, I'm not really too sure if it was the Penguin or Panda update, but one of those bad-assed animals took me down - HARD.

My site went from about 150-175 unique visitors a day to TWO - overnight. Like many, many other site owners out there, I was devastated! In less than 24 hours, my site got buried back on page 15+ on Google.
And if that wasn't enough, Google started de-indexing my pages - one by one until I was left with nothing but the handful of solid backlinks I'd gotten over the last few years of being in business.

I didn't know what to do. I'd actually had the site and business up for sale for a couple of weeks before the take-down but after Google hammered me, I couldn't have given the site away.

So I left it sit for about another month or so while Google systematically de-indexed about 85% of the site's pages. Slow but sure death and cremation of a site I'd worked hours and hours and hours to build and rebuild. Gone.

Now, I have to say, this wasn't one of those "niche sites" just for making AdSense or Amazon cash. This was a full-fledged storefront for a product that I design and sell myself.

And I'd taken it from nothing to being on the front page of Google between #1 and #8 position for m
ost of the primary keywords I wanted. I was just gaining an edge on some of my top competitors when - BAM - Google decided my site just wasn't good enough.

I'd worked on this site for the better part of four years and had registered a brand new NON-exact match domain name about six months before the slam. So I was rather livid to say the least. I will say that hearing some mega major corporations being slammed as well did make me feel a little better. At least I knew I wasn't alone, for whatever that was worth.

So what did I do get back into Google's good graces? I didn't file a reconsideration petition. I didn't follow the "advice" from the "gurus" and buy a new domain name or contact the site owners from where my allegedly "spammy links" were coming from. In fact, when I did a backlink analysis, there really wasn't much there to be concerned with. So that left on-page issues like overusing certain keywords and/or lacking significant content.

Some "gurus" said my site was worthless now so I may as well 'put my big girl panties on' and accept it. Quit. Do something else. You're done. You did something wrong and now you can't undo it.

I am so glad I didn't listen to any of them!!

I knew I had a valuable website with something to say, a great product to offer and content that just needed some updating to be more valuable. So I decided to start on my path to recovery, exhume the ashes of my now more-than-dead site and get to work.

Step One - Remove the Site from Google Analytics
That's right. They de-indexed the site so why bother analyzing it anymore. They took it from me, I took it from them.

Step Two - Take It Down.
Yup. I removed every last file from the server and replaced it all with only two files - the index and the custom 404. Regardless of where people landed, they got the same message - and this is crucial in retaining visitors even during downtime.

I did not use any "under construction" images or anything like that. I did a video - me on camera - explaining that I had taken the site down temporarily while doing a complete renovation, to please bookmark the site and stop back around December 5.

Why did I give them a date? Because I didn't want to have to do another video, for one, and it gave me a deadline to work towards so I wouldn't get sidetracked doing anything else. The same video announcement went on both the temporary home page and on the custom 404 page.

Step Three - Get Educated.
This was something I learned while wandering around YouTube in a daze one day wondering what to do with my site. Sometimes a good redesign with some updated content can do the trick. But you have to know what is wrong and how to fix it. And that takes some research.

My site was built as an html/css static site, which now that I know more about WordPress, I know using an html site leaves a HUGE margin for error if you're not careful. And now I believe this was one of the main negatives for my site. The URL structure was not correct for the site and the way I was copy/pasting pages to use for other pages encouraged the dreaded "duplicate content" within the site.

The duplicate content actually came in the form of repeated meta tag keywords and meta descriptions showing up on more than one page. Google does not like that - at all. And they'll let you know by starting to de-index those alleged 'spammy' pages.

So I knew I had to rebuild the site using WordPress. And that meant learning a lot more about WordPress than just setting up a content blog. This was serious business here. My old html site had the lightbox effect for the product images and a custom order form. I had to replicate that in the new site.

Step Four - Go to YouTube
And watch a lot of instructional videos about WordPress. On YouTube I found out how to install the lightbox plug-in, includes plug-in for WordPress, and how to structure the URLs for a solid site that Google would love.

Step Five - Dig In and Start to Work!
I'd already started to get familiar with the Atahualpa theme since using it to rebuild another site, so I figured I'd start with that theme and go from there. Again, because I'm a self-admitted YouTube junkie, I go there first when I need help with stuff. So I spent a lot of time with two browser windows open - one with a YouTube instructional video, the other with the WordPress dashboard open following along.
I've also learned a lot about PhotoShop via YouTube so that helped me design an new header image for the site.

Once the framework was done, i.e., color scheme, layout, css adds, etc., it was time to start copy/pasting over 200 pages of html into Pages and Posts. I love using shortcodes and Include files so I went back to YouTube and found the video I needed to learn how to do that in WordPress. Piece of cake.

Step Six - Time for the New Sitemap!
After about 60 hours, yes, an entire week of "overtime," the site was ready for its new sitemap and re-add to Google Analytics.

Step Seven - Time, Patience, Education and WORK
Paid off! I added the site back to Google Analytics along with a brand new 267 page sitemap on December 1. December 2 I checked and they had already indexed 179 pages! And that was after they'd de-indexed all but 23 of 260 pages a couple of months earlier!
So what did I learn from this?

First, when it needs to be done right - Do It Yourself! There are just some things that can't and shouldn't be outsourced to anyone else. And when it comes to your business website, this is something that needs to be taken on by you alone.

Why? You know what you want and it's beneficial to actually get the education and learn new things along the way because they'll be easier to fix in the future if you have to edit something.
Also, as I moved along through the rebuilding, I recognized several areas where what I had created the first time probably was seen by the Google 'bots as spamming and duplicate content. If I'd outsourced the job to someone else to "copy/paste" their way through rebuilding, they may not have recognized it.
The 'Gurus' Aren't Always Right!

I'd been told by so many people over the last couple of months that my site was dead in the water. Forget it. Start over with something new. Let the domain name expire because it's worthless now.
And a lot of people probably would have. A lot of people have, especially if they were only small niche sites set up only for the purpose of making Google AdSense or Amazon Associate cash.

I also think there are a lot of people who may be afraid to start over because they may not have invested the 'blood, sweat & tears' into their businesses to begin with. They may feel they have nothing to lose so why bother, right?

I could have just ditched this business too, but I was like, I'm gonna beat you, Google! I am not going down without trying! LOL

And then there are the "stereotypical" online marketers who are pretty much just too lazy to put in the effort it will take to exhume their sites from the Google cemetery and they're perfectly content to start over. Whatever works for them!

But I had a feeling that if you can show Google you're 100% serious about your business by doing what it takes to survive out there, they'll work with you. And - I never filed any of those stupid "Reconsideration" things either. Not necessary. I would have felt like I was begging for mercy or something.

I didn't touch any of the already incoming links to the site either. I left those as they are, wherever they're coming from. I don't think I got hit over that to begin with. I still think it was on-page "over-optimization" - in Google's algorithms anyway - that nailed my site. And I think reconfiguring and rebuilding all of my 'old' content into some fresh stuff made the difference.
Going Forward from Recovery

Content - Content - Content. There are two main people I have to give a shout-out to during this entire process both for their encouragement, the way they keep their websites at the top and their 100% focus on building quality content.

Lisa Irby of 2createawebsite.com. Lisa absolutely refused to let me give up on my site. So I've been keeping her posted on my progress.

David Boozer of Online Mentor Now. I only just started following David recently after finding him on YouTube and immediately signed up for his email list and free mentoring.

Both David and Lisa will tell you what works - Content. Regularly building high quality content is the only way to go today and going forward. They'll tell you that the 'gurus' with their latest allegedly push-button, no-work schemes that promise you thousands of dollars overnight - those things don't work. I know they don't. I tried them and I got "punished" for using them - harshly.

So with the insight and education of these two awesome online marketers, I put everything else aside and dug my website out of the Google Cemetery. Will it rank high again on Google? I'm expecting it will, now that I have it all in place the way it should be.

So Can You Make a Recovery from Google Slaps?
Yes, but you have to WANT it bad enough and then put in the work to make it happen. If you only have a five or ten-page niche site only set up for ads and affiliate links, maybe not.
But if you redesign it - in WordPress - stay away from the shortcuts, do your due diligence and add quality content, you should be able to pull yourself back up.

Karen S Musselman blogs about a variety of topics including working at home and online marketing. She offers tips on a variety of home business topics and web design. Visit today for more information and stop by her YouTube channel too!

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