I have been here a while. Reading and following your tips. I try hard to keep adding content to my site. Well lately my site first time visitors has dropped down to almost nothing! I was getting over 20 a day which was not good but better than what im getting now!

I get on average 7-9 between the homepage and the forums. It has dropped down to nothing. What can I do? Is there something wrong with my site? Its really stressful. I work hard with what time I have and then I get no results. Im not even breaking even with my site. Im loosing money luckily not much but any is to much!

Any help is appreciated. The site link is in my signature below.
Thanks!

Something that would help is to get some description and keyword meta tags in your header.

You could go for a higher page rank in search engines to boost more traffic to your site with some search engine optimiztion stuff and go for more backlinks....well more quality backlinks, I am showing you have about 18,037 backlinks but most are on low pr sites or forums.

Just content building is not enough. You should also go for some link building. Something like submitting to one directories daily.

I submitted to over 200 directories already! Some do not add you others do....I had only 32 links last time they updated the links at google now I have over 120...But my traffic has dropped.

What do you mean by Meta tags in the Header? I thought no search engine used them anymore? Where do they go? I dont see a header tag in my HTML....

I can see a few things almost immediately. First of all, get rid of the "250 free hits" thing. Those click generators are bad news. All they do is move your site stats. They do nothing for your search engine rankings. Infact, I would guess that it might be contributing to the decrease in traffic. Search engines probably see that as an attempt to trick the system.

Secondly, do you have your main keywords in the title tags? It seems like you could target some more specific keywords. For example, if your site is for spyware, perhaps a better phrase than "spyware beaters" would be "spyware removal" or "spyware help". Something like that.

Perhaps you should move the "computer support" content to a seperate page. It confuses the search engines. Even a human reader is left wondering, "What is the purpose of this site?".

In the forum, I don't see a link back to your main page in the header.

Whatever keywords you decide on, you need to get links to your main page. If you have inside pages that are important, get some links to those as well. Make sure that the anchor text of the incoming links has your keywords or specific phrase in them.

Keep in mind, new links are sandboxed by G for 3 to 6 months. You should ALWAYS be looking for more incoming links. Don't forget to put your keywords in your incoming links.

Link your site up a bit more just as everyone has said. Put the work into it and you'll get result's...

Time is a virtue!!.. and unfortunetly there is nothing we can do, unless u wanna spend hundreds or thousands of dollars advertising..

Yes that clickthru thing was going to go but I got busy lately and didnt have time until just now to even check here. Yes it will be going. Those traffic exchanges are junk!


There is a link on the forums back to the main site up at the very top. Thanks for the tips let me try all of that.

Originally Posted by neorunner

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Keep in mind, new links are sandboxed by G for 3 to 6 months. You should ALWAYS be looking for more incoming links. Don't forget to put your keywords in your incoming links.

You made some good points in your post, but I must disagree with the idea that
Google holds or delays the tally of new links. I mean, you say it as though it is
an undeniable fact, but it is not. Cowsgone said he went from 32 to over 120 in the last
Google update.

So why issue him an ominious warning about a mysterious "sandbox"?

Imo, the only delay is the time between updates.


Bompa

A similiarly erroneous warning is often given to newcomers who are asking
about their site's indexing in Google's SERPs, they are told it takes 3, 6,
12 months (different periods are mentioned each time), to get into the SERPs
due to the sandbox.

Yah? So, how did katrina.com get indexed in less than three weeks?


Hmmmm?



Bompa

new sites DO get indexed and often rank for very competitive terms for a few weeks, maybe a couple of months, then they can disappear for anything up to 12 months, and this period is to related to the perceived (by Google) competitiveness of the site subject.

So a new site about the Nuclear Capability of the Cyprinidae genus (carp) would rank pretty much straight away and may only "bounce" for a few weeks

And on individual links being credited after a delay this is also true. I tested this by adding links to some clients sites from my site and other sites I manage, setting up a Google Alert for the target then monitoring when G notified me that the link was credited. This is then compared to the dates the page with the link had been crawled (and the number of times)

ROS (Run of site) took longest to be credited (3 links tested ) at 10 to 12 weeks from the first crawl of any page.
single page links were between 15 to 28 days from the page being first crawled.

Not scientific or conclusive but does show that a delay does exist and ROS links appear to be treated differently.

Austin,
Don't worry about it, Day to day traffic fluctuates all the time. What is important is traffic trends and your site hasn't been around long enough to have that kind of data.

Liken it to the real world, it takes 2 to 3 years for a bricks and mortar business to be established why should it be that the expectations for an online business to succeed be 2 to 3 months.
Again it comes down to targeted phrases. limit yourself to a handful and expect visitor fluctuation to vary from none to a few dozen. more phrases means you cover more possibilities and traffic will stabilise a little, it will still fluctuate but not to such extremes.

Originally Posted by chrishirst

new sites DO get indexed and often rank for very competitive terms for a few weeks, maybe a couple of months, then they can disappear for anything up to 12 months, and this period is to related to the perceived (by Google) competitiveness of the site subject.

Then they disappear for 0 to 12 months?

In any case, many times a newcomer asks why their site is not listed in Google's
SERPs, and they are told that it takes 3, 6, 12, (or whatever), months to be listed
in Google's SERPs due to the "sandbox" effect.

What you said above confirms what I am trying to say. There is no initial, deliberate
delay other than normal update periods.

Originally Posted by chrishirst

And on individual links being credited after a delay ...
ROS (Run of site) took longest to be credited (3 links tested ) at 10 to 12 weeks from the first crawl of any page

single page links were between 15 to 28 days from the page being first crawled.

Not scientific or conclusive but does show that a delay does exist and ROS links appear to be treated differently.

Well, 15 to 28 days does not sound like a deliberate "sandbox" delay imposed on new
links, it sounds like Google's normal processing time.


Thanks for the info Chris


Bompa

The "sandbox" effect never did affect "natural" linking, it only appeared on sites that suddenly aquired a large number of links.
The 15 to 28 days is definitely longer than the "normal" processing was back in early 2003 (before the infamous November "Florida" update) when links where given credit within a few days of being crawled. Testing links back then would often give a sustained rankings boost within a week.

Lets try to keep it on topic please.

Now, cowsgonemad, please don't take this too harshly, believe me when I say that every great webmaster has been given this same type of advice, most likely more than once, and they all become succesful by having thick skin but not too thik that the advice won't penetrate.

Your site looks like it was made by a teenager sometime in the 90's. There are some good elements about it but here is not the place to go through the specifics. I would first create a more professional design and tie it together with your forum and every other page in your site. Second, as someone else here mentioned, I would get straight to the point with the purpose of your site avoid droning on about your reasoning for creating the website, no one really cares, all they care about is spyware information. Third, just as others have mentioned, pick more competitive keywords. Your domain is very good but beaters is not a keyword worth fighting for. You can still use the domain but use more competitive words throughout your pages.

That is really just the tip of the iceburg and I'm positive that if you keep coming here and asking for advice (barring the occasional jurk) you will get very good and soon enough will understand all the little things that can aid in bringing in and retaining visitors.