1KM1KT, one of my favorite projects has enjoyed excellent placement at the top of the search engines for some good phrases. Phrases like free rpg games and free online rpgs. Just recently, it was almost completely dropped by Google for almost all the big traffic search terms. Since over half of 1KM1KT’s traffic comes from Google, the results were devastating – It took a 75% loss in day to day earnings.

Sometimes it’s hard to have a high traffic site, especially if most of the traffic comes from one source. There’s always the fear in the back of your mind that making any change , even adding content, will change your traffic pattern – especially when it’s doing well.

What to do when the bubble bursts:

Take the opportunity to make all the changes your site has been needing and focus on diversifying your traffic sources. For 1KM1KT this meant a new newsletter feature, active promotion of the RSS feed, some grassroots marketing to bring in more submissions, and a navigation overhaul.

In a surprise move, Google reinstated 1KM1KT yesterday and its positioning now is even stronger than ever. There are no guarantees that’s it’s going to stay that way though. Ultimately, the time off my have cost a few dollars, but the site improvements and the marketing will help prepare it for the next big index update and solidify its standing as a one of my top earning and most enjoyable web properties.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 27th, 2006 at 11:31 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.