Last week, many readers alerted me that my blog was no longer ranking number one on Google for the search term “make money online.” Not only was my number one ranking gone, but my home page had also gone missing from the Google index as well. It looked like Google was getting ready to ban me from their search index. I even received an email from someone who said that I was going to get banned and that he knew what may have happen and how to fix it because it had happen to him before. However, he wanted $4,000 for the information. And he offered no guarantee that he can fix the problem. Thanks, but no thanks!
The first thing I did was emailed Aaron Wall of the SEO Book for his opinion. He replied back saying my ranking for make money online had gone down but I wasn’t banned. He didn’t offer any explanation on why the ranking went down or how to fix it, but that didn’t matter. I just wanted to confirm I wasn’t banned.
Getting back the number one ranking required the combined efforts of two very close friends. The first helped me identify the problem and the second helped in optimizing the fix for it. The strategy worked. Within two days of making the changes, Google restored my number one ranking and put my home page back in the index – to the dismay of all the haters who wrote me off, I’m sure. You can’t keep the root of all evil down for long! 
I was going to use this post to explain exactly what I did to restore my number one ranking. However, after reading Kumiko’s comments in my Taipei 101 to number 1 post, I’ve decided against it. I think everyone will agree that this kind of information is extremely valuable – some “SEO Guru” tried to take me for $4,000 by saying he knew the answer (which I highly doubt since he made no guarantee).
While I won’t give the step by step I can offer this piece of advice if you lose a ranking for a desired keyword – Google webmaster tools is your friend! Get to know it really well.
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{ 117 comments }
Darn John … and I read to the end waiting for the big tip. I agree it’s good to know Google better.
Cheers,
Peter
Did you just submit a sitemap maybe?
Very impressive I must say! Very impressive…
Nah, probably just the regular algo shifting that goes on.
My mistake, it’s not an algo shift at all, I’m just not reading things properly.
I know the secret too, same thing happened to me. It’s sooooo simple but so hard to know until it really happens to you.
I can offer the tip to anyone, at the right price
I can too, any one can with the clause – ‘no gurantee’!
I give a guarantee, provided it’s the same scenario.
John next time you think you are banned you can use the on my site.
LOL I can’t believe someone tried to scam you out of $4000.. Was his name Michael by the way?
Lol! What a burn! Sounds like the right profile though
Sorry I don’t know what happened with the code it’s the
Google Banned Checker
And the point oh this post is ???
If you don’t know, then you haven’t been reading this blog long enough.
You have given the clue to everyone. You have to do your own “work” to learn. Can you imagine if we had to be victim to the $4000 opportunists out there?
Way to hang in there.
Well aside from that, John had been doing fine before he reached #1 for this phrase. It’s a growth exercise, not a survival exercise.
lol, agreed
Whats the point of reading a make money online blog when you keep secrets all the secrets to yourself? I really doubt google is that focused on your blog.
I am sorry to spoil the $4k worth secret. I ran a nice little spy tool on your URL and it told me your dirty secret: you mixed your incoming link anchor text. He, he, he.
More details here.
Outed! Nice post
I’ve subscribed to your RSS.
Outed? He didn’t provide a shred of evidence that even suggests his theory is right. If you want to learn SEO, read the established pro’s (Aaron Wall, Danny Sullivan, Andy Beal, Michael Gray etc).
You wouldn’t go to a banker for medical advice, why would you take SEO advice from someone who’s “bootstrapped” successfull site has a PageRank of 2 and ranks for nothing?
SEO Blog,
My blog is just 1 week old. I am impressed that I even have PageRank. He, he, he. How many of your articles have been featured in Search Engine Watch? Well … my little young blog just did. Check.
I’ve doing SEO for several years, but I chose to make money for myself, ranking my own sites, instead of selling SEO books or offering SEO advice. I do feel respect for those guys you mention.
I provide proof for everything I do. I even include source code. Do you?
Hey genius, I meant your nemedia site that you sell your services from. Your blog doesn’t have PR yet. Being a search marketer you really should know that.
I’m not going to get into a pissing match with you because frankly it’s not worth my time but if you want to look around to see where my blog’s been featured that’s fine.
My point is this: in your post where you supposedly expose what John did you “guess” that he emailed several of the people that linked to him. Wouldn’t those people be on here commenting as to what he did or posting on their own site as you’ve done?
Also, why would he leave the blog review offer up if he needed to change his anchor text? John’s site has over 200,000 links pointing to it, you think 780 of them having Make Money Online as the anchor text (which by the way also happens to be the title of his site) would cause him to suffer an over optimization penalty for 4 days?
SEO Blog,
Please read my comment below. The experts you mentioned recommend you mix your anchor text. I provide the links to their articles.
We do not make money offering SEO services or advice. I am sorry if giving away this information is taking food from your table.
We recently changed the design of Nemedia and we are still debating whether it makes sense to offer SEO/PPC services to outside clients.
This is one of our real money makers Chat247
You can complain all you want, but you will look better if you provided some evidence to back your claims.
First of all, you’re not taking food off my table. I don’t sell SEO services. What do you mean you don’t make money offering SEO services? Your site (nemedia.com)sure seems to be telling a different story. Oh, and a design change has nothing to do with the fact that you’ve got squat for links on that site. The money maker you link to also has a whopping 18 links to it.
Come on man, get a clue!
So, you imply that links = money? Ha, ha, ha, ha. This presumes that SEO is the only way to bring traffic to a site.
Based on the number and quality of the comments in your blog vs mine, I can tell must people are not buying your rant.
Your only comment is teaching you how to get Google to spider your site more often. He, he, he.
Links do = money. Just look at how much money john makes selling links on this site.
The fact that your sites have only 18 links tell me you’re not an SEM that I’d ever hire. You don’t rank for competitive phrases without links. You don’t get organic traffic without ranking. So no, SEO isn’t the only way to get traffic, but it’s one of the key ways and if you’re not doing that for your customers then you’re not doing all you could for them.
SEO Blog,
If you read my blog you will see that we just started considering outside clients.
You are impressed with how much money John makes on this blog? With that income I would only be able to pay my office rent.
I added proof to my blog that I make really good money.
Hamlet, I didn’t say you weren’t successful, I said your sites having only 18 links makes me wonder about your SEO knowledge. You might very well be great at marketing and make a boat load of money, but there’s just no reason your site should have only 18 links to it. If you haven’t focused on SEO, that’s fine but I DO know SEO.
SEO Blog,
I’ve enjoyed this battle of wits. I am sure everyone, including myself, has learned something.
You’ve been added to my contacts in MyBlogLog.
Hopefully, we can continue exchanging ideas and point of views on SEO and SEM related topics in the near future.
Same here… I probably get a bit too worked up at times, and say things I shouldn’t. You really should do some link building for your sites though.
Thanks
Oh lord… now every John Chow reader is an SEO expert.
John, by suggesting that your review offer was the problem, you’ve unintentionally sent thousands of readers down the wrong path.
Rather than commenting on all your readers’ sites as they talk about this, I guess I’ll have to write a post of my own to address this.
Here’s a hint people, if the anchor text from his reviews were the problem, why would he still have the offer page up as well as all the previous batches? He wouldn’t! If the anchor text were the problem, he’d have to email hundreds of reviewers and ask them to change the anchor text. Now that’s what Hamlet suggested happened but did any of you get an email?
John, please tell your readers what you did so they won’t continue to pass along inaccurate information.
SEO Blog,
As you are so smart, why did John remove the instructions for the link back in his latest batch? Why not keep asking people to link back with the same anchor text?
You recommend readers check Aaron, Andy Beal, etc. Guess what? They recommend the same: Mix your anchor text. I link to their articles here
It is good to change your anchor text. However, John has over 200,000 links pointing to this site so I’m willing to bet there’s plenty of variation. Also, John didn’t post the instructions but he did leave up the review offer page. It still instructs people to link to him with the words “make money online”. Not to mention the fact that you can offer no proof that he emailed anyway. Better yet, show me a review that you think changed their anchor text?
SEO Blog,
>It is good to change your anchor text.
I’m glad that we can agree to something.
>However, John has over 200,000 links pointing to this site so I’m willing to bet there’s plenty of variation.
Where are you getting that number from?
Home page links:
Google lists 3,360
Yahoo lists 5,973
>Also, John didn’t post the instructions but he did leave up the review offer page. It still instructs people to link to him with the words “make money online”
So you expect new reviewers to look through his archives to find it?
>Better yet, show me a review that you think changed their anchor text?
I don’t think. I know. I ran a tool and it listed his back links and anchor texts.
I will provide a partial list of reviewers that are using variations of “make money online”. Why are they using something else, instead of “make money online”?
The message here is: “mix your incoming anchor text”. Do not ask everybody to link to you with the same text. I am pretty sure every SEO expert will agree to this.
If your point is to mix up your anchor text occasionally that’s fine. I can agree with you on that. However, when you can’t even find the number of links a site has, I’m more than a bit skeptical in your SEO or SEM skills.
First of all, everyone knows Google’s link count is worthless unless you’re talking about the count from inside Webmaster Central.
Second of all, it would appear that I inverted the numbers. Yahoo’s only showing me about 123,000 links (not the 213,000 I thought). That’s still a far cry from the 6,000 you’re saying.
Want proof? Look at this search in Yahoo. That’s a much more accurate count and again, most any SEO or SEM worth anything would know how to do that.
I wasn’t looking for a fight with you but if you’re going to try and act like you’re god’s gift to the search industry, I feel compelled to take a little wind out of your sails. Unfortunately, I’ve got other things to do so I’m done arguing with you for one day. Enjoy!
SEO Blog,
You can cry all you want. I provided hard proof of my claims. Have you?
Let me educate readers as it seems you are trying to build smoke screens here.
There is a big difference between having +5k links to your home page and +100k links to your whole domain. Is John ranking for “make money online” for his home page or for all the pages inside his domain? He, he, he.
The reality here is that you use SEO in your name, yet you never advised John to mix his incoming link anchor text. I did. He, he, he. Where you waiting to see him fall so that he could use your services? Maybe for $4k? Evil, evil, evil.
Hamlet, I swore I was done with you but I’m afraid your stupidity is going to infect others. John has about 82,000 links to his home page, not 5,000.
Also, I hate to break it to you, but it had nothing to do with his anchor text. It was all about his robots.txt file which is exactly what I said in my post. I’ve published the proof on my post but I’ll come comment on your blog as well so your readers can be sure to see it.
If you’d like to learn a thing or two about SEO, feel free to join our SEO Forum. Its free and we might be able to teach you a thing or two if your pride doesn’t get in the way.
Ok, Hamlet, I’m sorry, but if you make your living as a consultant then honestly you probably should have at least asked someone more knowledgeable than you where the numbers might be coming from before spouting off. Now everyone knows that you are prone to kind of newbie-ish mistakes, such as being unaware that there is a difference in the link command with Yahoo when checking www vs. non-www:
[(link:http://www.johnchow.com OR link:http://johnchow.com) -site:johnchow.com]
Combined (since both styles are definitely pointing at the same page) currently you get a total of 88,200 links pointing at the homepage.
On your blog you make this statement:
I can tell you, it is much more likely that what he actually looked at was Webmaster Tools -> Diagnostic -> robots.txt analysis.
I am humble enough to learn from others if that is the case. I responded to your claim about the robots.txt in my blog again with hard evidence.
I am a professional and I can tell you that calling others stupid is not going to make you smarter. Please try something else.
Michael,
Thanks for the heads up. Firstable, please read all my comments and the about in my blog. I don’t make my living as a consultant and I am not pitching my SEO services here, like others.
I ran the command with as you instructed and the maximum number of results I get is 10,800.
Why don’t you answer the reasonable questions I raise in my blog instead of just quoting them?
If your theory is true please explain what I ask. Why is Google caching the ‘broken’ version of the robots.txt instead of the ‘fixed’ one?
Thanks, gota hear you John? Any comments?
John
Its always good to share knowledge. One of the reasons I visit your blog as you are completely open to your
evil tactics… keep up the good work and I am sure you will share your knowledge.
Knowledge valued at $4000 is something that you can easily share and not allow people like that to scam others.
Random blackmailer owned.
As they should be!
Evil Evil Evil
Pretty interesting. I usually also check my webmaster tools quite frequently. I pay attention to Google’s and also Yahoo’s.
ttgapers
I think it is fairly shitty of you to keep a “Make Money Online” blog and then start posting shit like this. Your blog is no longer very informative like it once was when it would hit Digg.
Every site I follow seems to be having Google related issues lately (including myself and the infamous Supplemental Index Hell).
I think that it is hard to stay on top 1 for most of the time, unless you work for Google
Yet Another popular blog is going for that first page at least http://www.bontb.com , thats how I found yours.
First of all, let me say for the record I was not the random “SEO Guru” that tried to take John for 4k. Lol
John, you may very well have figured out what the problem was and fixed it, however, it just as easily could have been a temporary glitch. You are obviously free to keep what you did to yourself, but there’s no secret to Google Webmaster tools. If the answer was found there, the problem was likely on your end (.htaccess problem, navigation issue, robots.txt error etc) and not some super valuable SEO secret.
Webmaster Central is definitely a valuable tool, but you certainly won’t find the “recipe” for Google’s “secret sauce” there.
Given that he just changed his robots.txt, that’s likely to be where the problem was. I have my own suspicions but can’t really check anything out since he’s fixed it
If it’s nothing huge, hopefully John will share later on. If not, that’s ok
I’ve linked to the cached version from my blog if you want to look at it.
Marc,
He did change the robots.txt, but shouldn’t Google’s cache show the new one? Why do we have to assume that Google is using the new one when they haven’t even indexed/cached it yet?
The Robots.txt file is a bit like a security gate or a toll booth. If you don’t allow Google to pass, they wont. Once you let them back in, they’ll enter and everything will be back to normal. As far as caching the new version, it will eventually switch over to the new version but their cache doesn’t update as often. That’s why I was able to see what John had done. However, just because they have not updated their cache, does not mean they don’t know the new version is there. They call the robots.txt file every time they come to the site.
I smell an upcomming E-Book in this post!
Come on people… what is it exactly that you think is some secret in Google Webmaster Central?
At least you’re keeping everyone guessing, John!
i personally think you did nothing. i had a problem like this on april 29th and i lasted 15 days. last thursday i had it again and it lasted until yesterday.
the website of my signature has some 10.000 unique visitors per day, and during the days i had the problem, it went down to 2.500.
but after some days it goes back. its google dance and that suplemental index, or something like that.
i did nothing and things went back to normal by themselves.
Not fair.
But this can be a good idea for some sort of a contest though.
The SEO Blog guy is the one who is really jumping around about this. Maybe because he this SEO is his “speciality”, he can’t just not know what it was…Understandable.
Yeah, it really did drive me nuts until I figured it out.
I am glad he decided to do some research. It would have looked better if he did that before questioning my own research. I think the language would have been more professional.
I definitely could have been more professional but I’m an in house SEO and don’t worry about my image all that much. Granted, I probably should have calmly explained things but I didn’t need to do my own research to know your explanation was way off. I know how search engines work for the most part and I’ve seen sites fall off like this time and time again. I’ve seen sites banned, I’ve seen them penalized, and I’ve seen them just drop in rankings. In John’s case, it’s going to take something major for him to drop out of the rankings that drastically and changing a few anchor texts is not going to cure anything drastic.
Glad to see your back at #1 John. That was the first thing I searched on my new Viewbar
Ok, rather than type this out across all the blogs that have been talking about this, I wrote a post about John Chow Creating SEO Experts.
Enjoy!
SEO blog,
From your post:
He, he, he. You use SEO on your name. You already agreed that mixing the anchor text is good and you still don’t know what happened?
I provide proof on my blog that I have sites ranking top 20 for highly competitive phrases (50 million competitors) and you ask if I am a search marketer? He, he, he.
I hate to say this, but you seem to be the first expert he created.:mrgreen:
Actually, number of results is the worst metric there is in judging keyword competition… I wouldn’t go boasting based solely on that.
Michael,
Again, just saying what you think doesn’t make it true. Please back your claims as I do.
Evil is so uncontrollable!
At least you’re back to number one! Smart not to reveal the secret, though I’m sure someone already has.
I don’t imagine it’s a big secret. It’s more likely to be some kind of mistake that John made that just got patched up. Until he dishes the dirt, there’s no way to know for sure.
Scary stuff. I just typed in make money online and found your site at #1, so you’re good. Nice site. I’m just about to take a look around.
Scary stuff. I just typed in the keyword and found your site for the first time. Taking a look around…
John, there’s a blog duplicating your posts, check it out: http://www.blogposure.com
The guy goes as far as signing the posts like he created them!
What a bird!
I still have yet to understand why the heck idiots would do that.
Knock it off people. Build your blog with persistence and patience. Ripping people off is no good.
You will get back what you send out.
I dont like spammers and that crap!
Maybe it would be best if no one checked the site out. Yeah, I think the way to go is to NOT go LOL. Some people think they can get away with carbon-copy content — it’s baffling to me.
I only noticed because I’m one of the sites in Batch 78 and this blog sent me a trackback.
John’s just to embarrassed to tell everyone that he messed up his robots.txt file
I wouldn’t disclose such valuable information.
This is just as simple as telling google to crawl your site more frequently.
I updated the post with the proof SEO Blog requested.
Not really but ok….
If you are like a lot of other people, it’s possible nothing really happened.
between May 25-Junee2 ( for me anyway) Google SERPS were swinging wildly and multiple datacentres were showing many different results ( I was #1 for a KW on some, # 35 for others, and not Top 100 for many others). The Night of May 31 I reached top 10 (though I could not view it on my end) in many places for very broad KWs. By June 3, this traffic was gone.
Many, Many SEOs reported SERP changes during this time period that went back to exactly the same spot they were before. This applies to both those that appeared to gain and those that appeared to lose rankings. Most just seemed to settle back where they were before. Some speculation was Google may have been testing different updates on different data centers,etc.
So ( to me anyway) it’s hard to say any recent changes are anything more than coincidental ( coinciding with google itself going through the swings it did).
Finally, another voice of reason.
There’s a possibility here that John’s actions actually had no effect on things at all. However, by revealing what he did, he might lose a bit of the mystery and this way he can look like an expert and no one can prove him wrong.
From a marketing standpoint it’s really a brilliant position to take. From an SEO perspective, I wish he’d explain what he did so all his readers didn’t get the wrong impression.
MyAvatars 0.2,
I agree this might be coincidental. This does not remove my evidence that several reviewers are using variations of the “make money online” anchor text. Again, I am not guessing this. I list the URLs and anchor texts in my blog.
I think this is far more responsible that just calling people irrational without any proof to back your claims.
John,
Why don’t you simply tell the truth to your readers?
You made some changes a few days ago in your robots.txt (guys, I let you figure out when and why) and you added something disastrous like “Disallow: *blabla” that just blocked access to all your URLs!!!
Then later on, you asked for help, and a smart nerd used the Robots.txt analyse function in Webmaster Central tools to check your updated Robots.txt…
That’s it! No big deal, and no Dot Com Mogul either
Now guys, buy me a beer!
John’s not lying by any means. He’s not said anything about how he got back to the top other than using Webmaster Central.
However, if I had to guess a robots.txt or a .htaccess problem would be my guess as well.
You guys really like the challenges that John Chow puts you up too to build up his traffic
It’s good to have friends who know their stuff, isn’t it, John — haha! Well, so good to see you back at the top spot. I’m not even going to ask how you did it, but I’m impressed nonetheless.
I will include myself in this boat. I think all the answers are already among us.
More application of the fundamentals in regards to search results is good for everyone. John has a lot on his blog you just have to dig them up and put them into action.
Found it!
Yeah, you found it, smart guy!
John,
With all do respect, I pointed out in a comment on your previous post about your index page dropping out of Google that it probably had something to do with the new robots.txt you had added (because a similar thing happened to one of my websites after using a modified version). My site index came back after removing the disallow .php part but the whole thing could have just been coincidental. A Google flux.
Now it appears you have significantly changed your robots.txt again (mostly just removed a bunch of stuff) and also added a link to your new Google SiteMap.
Maybe there is some other “secret” you are not sharing that I don’t know about but I’m not sure why you didn’t just share the changes you made.
Your still my buddy and all but I’m not sure why you didn’t just say what you did. I guess maybe the link the Google Webmaster Tools states the obvious though.
Look at the commotion it’s stirred up. It had me searching for an hour and I even got into some schmuck that think he’s an SEO. I’m not sure John could foresee my argument but the controversy etc was surely his goal.
He might be evil but he’s good at what he does.
If it is a robots.txt problem, search engines don’t index you, period. You don’t drop a few pages, you drop completely.
Please note that SEO Guru, I mean SEO Blog is not responding to why there are many linking with variations of the “make money online” anchor text. He doesn’t really care. He only wants to be right. He, he, he.
Now I understand why so many people don’t trust SEOs. They don’t try hard to look at facts. They want to find something else.
Why is John’s robot.tx file different? Facing a drop in rankings, who wouldn’t try to clean it up to find the problem?
I agree that using the same anchor text to many times without enough variations(Google Bombing) can get you into trouble. However, in John’s case that was not the issue in my opinion. It does not mean it could not have become an issue in the future and Aaron probably warned him about this.
And from what I saw, Google DID drop John’s “index” page completely. At least when I searched for http://www.johnchow.com or site:www.johnchow.com…
All the other pages were still there though.
Tim, there’s no use introducing the facts, Hamlet won’t let those get in the way of his point.
SEO Blog,
I am a technical guy, I need evidence. I don’t run around based on gut feelings.
You finally introduced some evidence (I respect that) and I analyzed it. I posted in my blog my conclusions.
There are still questions you need to answer. If you provide reasonable answers, I don’t have any problems giving my hat to you. I respect other people’s opinion and I try to refute things with reasoning and hard facts.
So let me get this straight, I’m giving you documented proof that John vastly changed his robots.txt (something that you can check in Webmaster Central) file since May 30th and you still can’t admit you’re wrong?
You’ve come up with this complex solution that depends on several other people and I’ve proven a simple solution that John could change on his own and yet, you still think you’re right.
Why are people linking to him with variations of his keyphrase? Maybe writing styles? Who cares? It doesn’t matter. That was not the problem with John’s site. Why can’t you get that?
And yes, his index did drop completely. Go back and read the comments from the first post about him dropping off…
Comment by Nathan
2007-06-01 17:15:36
MyAvatars 0.2
Ummm, John.
have you done “site:http://www.johnchow.com” yet?
Your home page isn’t indexed anymore
Reply to this comment
Comment by John Chow
2007-06-01 19:08:50
MyAvatars 0.2
Yes and I know what happen now. Expect to see me back at page 1 in a few days.
Can we all agree now?
Move along people, nothing to see here.
Google just glitched, “Mogul” guy paniced, asked a bunch of real experts for their opinions, got nothing from them because it was nothing, “Mogul” guy sees site go back up, declares victory but won’t reveal what he did, because.
…there’s nothing to see, he did nothing.
MOVE ALONG PEOPLE!
His index page is http://www.johnchow.com/index.php
He had in his robots.txt, the following:
Disallow: /*.php$
What is the mystery?
Glad you made it back to the good spot.
Here´s part of the problem of Johny Be Good Chow.
sitemap: http://www.johnchow.com/sitemap.xml
# This rule means it applies to all user-agents
User-agent: *
# Disallow all directories and files within
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
Disallow: /go/
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /wp-includes/
Disallow: /author/
Disallow: /page/
Disallow: /category/
Disallow: /wp-images/
Disallow: /images/
Disallow: /backup/
Disallow: /banners/
Disallow: /archives/
Disallow: /tag/
Disallow: /trackback/
Disallow: /feed/
# Disallow all monthly archive pages
Disallow: /2005/12
Disallow: /2006/01
Disallow: /2006/02
Disallow: /2006/03
Disallow: /2006/04
Disallow: /2006/05
Disallow: /2006/06
Disallow: /2006/07
Disallow: /2006/08
Disallow: /2006/09
Disallow: /2006/10
Disallow: /2006/11
Disallow: /2006/12
Disallow: /2007/01
Disallow: /2007/02
Disallow: /2007/03
Disallow: /2007/04
Disallow: /2007/05
# The Googlebot is the main search bot for google
User-agent: Googlebot
# Disallow all files ending with these extensions
Disallow: /*.php$
Disallow: /*.js$
Disallow: /*.inc$
Disallow: /*.css$
Disallow: /*.gz$
Disallow: /*.wmv$
Disallow: /*.tar$
Disallow: /*.tgz$
Disallow: /*.cgi$
Disallow: /*.xhtml$
# Disallow Google from parsing indididual post feeds and trackbacks..
Disallow: */feed/
Disallow: */trackback/
# Disallow all files with ? in url
Disallow: /*?*
Disallow: /*?
# Disallow all archived monthlies
Disallow: /2006/0*
Disallow: /2007/0*
Disallow: /2005/1*
Disallow: /2006/1*
Disallow: /2007/1*
# The Googlebot-Image is the image bot for google
User-agent: Googlebot-Image
# Allow Everything
Allow: /*
# This is the ad bot for google
User-agent: Mediapartners-Google*
# Allow Everything
Allow: /*
User-agent: scooter
Disallow: /
User-agent: grub-client
Disallow: /
User-agent: grub
Disallow: /
User-agent: WebZip
Disallow: /
User-agent: larbin
Disallow: /
User-agent: b2w/0.1
Disallow: /
User-agent: Copernic
Disallow: /
User-agent: psbot
Disallow: /
User-agent: Python-urllib
Disallow: /
User-agent: Googlebot-Image
Disallow: /
User-agent: URL_Spider_Pro
Disallow: /
User-agent: CherryPicker
Disallow: /
User-agent: EmailCollector
Disallow: /
User-agent: EmailSiphon
Disallow: /
User-agent: WebBandit
Disallow: /
User-agent: EmailWolf
Disallow: /
User-agent: ExtractorPro
Disallow: /
User-agent: CopyRightCheck
Disallow: /
User-agent: Crescent
Disallow: /
User-agent: SiteSnagger
Disallow: /
User-agent: ProWebWalker
Disallow: /
User-agent: CheeseBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: LNSpiderguy
Disallow: /
User-agent: ia_archiver
Disallow: /
User-agent: ia_archiver/1.6
Disallow: /
User-agent: Alexibot
Disallow: /
User-agent: Teleport
Disallow: /
User-agent: TeleportPro
Disallow: /
User-agent: MIIxpc
Disallow: /
User-agent: Telesoft
Disallow: /
User-agent: Website Quester
Disallow: /
User-agent: moget/2.1
Disallow: /
User-agent: WebZip/4.0
Disallow: /
User-agent: WebStripper
Disallow: /
User-agent: WebSauger
Disallow: /
User-agent: WebCopier
Disallow: /
User-agent: NetAnts
Disallow: /
User-agent: Mister PiX
Disallow: /
User-agent: WebAuto
Disallow: /
User-agent: TheNomad
Disallow: /
User-agent: WWW-Collector-E
Disallow: /
User-agent: RMA
Disallow: /
User-agent: libWeb/clsHTTP
Disallow: /
User-agent: asterias
Disallow: /
User-agent: httplib
Disallow: /
User-agent: turingos
Disallow: /
User-agent: spanner
Disallow: /
User-agent: InfoNaviRobot
Disallow: /
User-agent: Harvest/1.5
Disallow: /
User-agent: Bullseye/1.0
Disallow: /
User-agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; BullsEye; Windows 95)
Disallow: /
User-agent: Crescent Internet ToolPak HTTP OLE Control v.1.0
Disallow: /
User-agent: CherryPickerSE/1.0
Disallow: /
User-agent: CherryPickerElite/1.0
Disallow: /
User-agent: WebBandit/3.50
Disallow: /
User-agent: NICErsPRO
Disallow: /
User-agent: Microsoft URL Control – 5.01.4511
Disallow: /
User-agent: DittoSpyder
Disallow: /
User-agent: Foobot
Disallow: /
User-agent: SpankBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: BotALot
Disallow: /
User-agent: lwp-trivial/1.34
Disallow: /
User-agent: lwp-trivial
Disallow: /
User-agent: BunnySlippers
Disallow: /
User-agent: Microsoft URL Control – 6.00.8169
Disallow: /
User-agent: URLy Warning
Disallow: /
User-agent: Wget/1.6
Disallow: /
User-agent: Wget/1.5.3
Disallow: /
User-agent: Wget
Disallow: /
User-agent: LinkWalker
Disallow: /
User-agent: cosmos
Disallow: /
User-agent: moget
Disallow: /
User-agent: hloader
Disallow: /
User-agent: humanlinks
Disallow: /
User-agent: LinkextractorPro
Disallow: /
User-agent: Offline Explorer
Disallow: /
User-agent: Mata Hari
Disallow: /
User-agent: LexiBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: Web Image Collector
Disallow: /
User-agent: The Intraformant
Disallow: /
User-agent: True_Robot/1.0
Disallow: /
User-agent: True_Robot
Disallow: /
User-agent: BlowFish/1.0
Disallow: /
User-agent: JennyBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: MIIxpc/4.2
Disallow: /
User-agent: BuiltBotTough
Disallow: /
User-agent: ProPowerBot/2.14
Disallow: /
User-agent: BackDoorBot/1.0
Disallow: /
User-agent: toCrawl/UrlDispatcher
Disallow: /
User-agent: WebEnhancer
Disallow: /
User-agent: suzuran
Disallow: /
User-agent: VCI WebViewer VCI WebViewer Win32
Disallow: /
User-agent: VCI
Disallow: /
User-agent: Szukacz/1.4
Disallow: /
User-agent: QueryN Metasearch
Disallow: /
User-agent: Openfind data gathere
Disallow: /
User-agent: Openfind
Disallow: /
User-agent: Xenu’s Link Sleuth 1.1c
Disallow: /
User-agent: Xenu’s
Disallow: /
User-agent: Zeus
Disallow: /
User-agent: RepoMonkey Bait & Tackle/v1.01
Disallow: /
User-agent: RepoMonkey
Disallow: /
User-agent: Microsoft URL Control
Disallow: /
User-agent: Openbot
Disallow: /
User-agent: URL Control
Disallow: /
User-agent: Zeus Link Scout
Disallow: /
User-agent: Zeus 32297 Webster Pro V2.9 Win32
Disallow: /
User-agent: Webster Pro
Disallow: /
User-agent: EroCrawler
Disallow: /
User-agent: LinkScan/8.1a Unix
Disallow: /
User-agent: Keyword Density/0.9
Disallow: /
User-agent: Kenjin Spider
Disallow: /
User-agent: Iron33/1.0.2
Disallow: /
User-agent: Bookmark search tool
Disallow: /
User-agent: GetRight/4.2
Disallow: /
User-agent: FairAd Client
Disallow: /
User-agent: Gaisbot
Disallow: /
User-agent: Aqua_Products
Disallow: /
User-agent: Radiation Retriever 1.1
Disallow: /
User-agent: Flaming AttackBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: Oracle Ultra Search
Disallow: /
User-agent: PerMan
Disallow: /
User-agent: searchpreview
Disallow: /
User-agent: duggmirror
Disallow: /
He had that ugly robots.txt before, now you can look at his new robots.txt and you will see the diference.
http://www.johnchow.com/robots.txt
And I can imagine some .htacess tweaking and sitemap.xml tunning and voila!
Pay attention to the basic stuff guys, if you don´t do it, it will hurt a lot later.
Well John since your keep this secret i guess you are an internet guru
This comment came in a little late but welcome back and being at #1 John.
The comments are more interesting to read than the blog entry. More flaming please
Wow, you have generated some haterate in your blog.
Anyway google does this once a while with one of my homepage too. It take them off the search engine for some keyword. Then it will be back in a few days.
Welcome back to #1 spot
Well !!! since you have reached No.1 Again , you are the internet SEO guru as of now
May be you can also guide people..if not publically … but personally by some predefined mail template ??
Glad to see you’re back at #1. Interesting thoughts on why you tanked momentarily.
haha good job you deserve that spot!