Build My Rank has been good to me. They’ve ranked my sites for years. It was easy, it was hands-off (I used an outsourcer), it worked. Until some time last night, my time. I woke to find this:
Unfortunately, this morning, our scripts and manual checks have determined that the overwhelming majority of our network has been de-indexed (by Google), as of March 19, 2012. Read more here
I wasn’t having a good day yesterday – seriously questioning what I was doing online and trying to figure out a new direction. Wizzley wasn’t living up to expectations, I was stuck in a funk of self-doubt and analysis paralysis.
When I read the post above I expected myself to freak out. Oddly I didn’t. I know this means I’ve probably lost two sites which I’ve aggressively used BMR on – the same two sites which I’d just received the dreaded “notice of detected unnatural links” message in Google Webmaster Tools.
Or maybe not.
The more I think about this the more I see the opportunities. I finally know what I’m going to be doing over the next few months.
First I’m not going to be doing anything Google would like me to do – so I will NOT be:
- I won’t be removing “unnatural links” to my two sites.
- I won’t be asking Google for reinclusion so they can run comparative stats and see which sites I removed.
- I won’t be removing content from BMR for the same reason.
I’m not a conspiracy theorist – but I firmly believe that Google is playing a really two-faced game these days. Google does what Google needs to do to make it, not your or me, money. Although I don’t like this guy’s taste in MMO products – he’s spot on in this post about Google’s hypocrisy.
Google Still Counts Links
The mass de-indexing of BMR PROOVES that links still matter. I mean why deindex something that makes no difference! In fact THANK YOU Google for de-indexing BMR – now I know those links weren’t working (which I was beginning to suspect).
So all Google’s huffing and puffing about social indicators and quality content – yeah may help – but links is still where its at! I can’t believe they actually de-indexed the network though. Crazy – they could have just quietly devalued the links – would have been far more effective!
Build My Rank Does The Right Thing
And thank you the people behind BMR – because you are nice people. You’re not the first network to be hit – but you are the first that I know of who is offering pro rata refunds for the current month, will pay out affiliates before shutting the doors, and, this is the biggie – are offering to return user’s posts! Hell, some networks who have been de-indexed have even kept on trading!
If you are a BMR member this is what you should do:
- cancel your subscription with Paypal for BMR (BMR can’t do for you AFAIK);
- keep an eye on their blog for when they release the tool to download your articles (unless of course you kept a copy of all your BMR posts on your hard-drive – yeah me to!);
- give in a few weeks and then quietly use that content either on other networks, or on your own network. (After all, its de-indexed now – not duplicate content!)
EDIT: JUST TO REPEAT IN BOLD – IF YOU GET A MESSAGE ABOUT UNNATURAL LINKS BUILDING WMT DON’T REPLY TO IT AND REMOVE ANY DOUBT! ITS AN AUTOMATED BOT MESSAGE IGNORE IT!