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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