Today, I have decided to become a Google Bitch. You’re probably thinking that I am already a bitch and really do not need to bring Google into it. Well, you guys remember my rant from a few years ago? I was beyond pissed when my little phone sex site, Cheap Phone Sex with Cheryl, was nowhere in Google’s index. I stopped eating, sleeping and most importantly fucking. That’s when you know it’s serious.
I wrote a little letter to Google and received a timely reply. All was right with the world. Well, this morning I woke from a dead sleep. Note the time on this post. My “spidey sense” was tingling. It nagged at me all day. I knew something was wrong. I called my family, checked my bank accounts, smelled under my arms …something was amiss.
I figured it out at “o’dark thirty”. My wonderful phone sex site that we all agree is awesome because of my fantastic rates and well …me. Cheap Phone Sex is on page 5. 5! Just as I was about to turn off the lights and head back to bed swearing to never again check my position in Google something told me to look at the situation one last time.
The Cheap Phone Sex cached page is not showing up. Cheap-Phone-Sex.NET is listed within the Google index as cheap-phone-sex.net as opposed to www.cheap-phone-sex.net. It’s a canonical issue that can easily be fixed in a matter of seconds.
The question is how did this become an issue overnight. My phone sex site, Cheap Phone Sex with Cheryl, has been online –uninterrupted – for more than a decade. I am extremely careful with Cheap Phone Sex. Only this week I added an AEBN ad, the only advertisement on the site. I do not trade and exchange links with anyone except Jane’s Guide, Greenguy’s Link-O-Rama and Persian Kitty all powerhouses within the adult entertainment industry. I chose my links like I chose my men – carefully.
So what happened?
About a month or so ago (around May Day or a little after) someone linked to me 1000+ times. I checked the root domain of the sites – there were two. It appeared to be some sort of a search engine pseudo categorized link thingy. I figured they were building their sites and Google picked up the new links and it would die down later. I still have something like 800 external links pointing to my site. Mind you I never looked at the individual links until today. I will give you one guess how the majority of those pages are linking or referring to my site. Did you say cheap-phone-sex.net without the “www”?
I always use “www”. Every link pointing to my site (that is legitimate) uses “www”.
This is an example of how another person/company/whatever can fuck with your site. Now the only reason I am sharing this here is that as webmasters we are told ad nauseum that no outsider can screw with your position within the Google search index. I want to believe the search engines, but I have witnessed first hand on two separate occasions now that is simply not the case. A few years ago it was intentional from a phone sex competitor. Today I don’t know who these foreigners are. If this is a test to make money or do something malicious, I have no clue.
What I do know is that I am learning about Google. I knew my Ivy League education would come in handy someday. I dusted off their white papers and am spending the weekend going over their intellectual property. Where’s that link to Google Guide? I am going to learn everything about Google. Become a freaking cheerleader or what I like to term a Google Bitch.
Ok, I have to get back to bed. I am more bitchy than usual when my sleep is interrupted, and I have phone sex callers to entertainment later this morning. Remember guys it is $12 for 15-minutes. Call my toll-free number, 1-888-669-6389. Yawn. I am not going to read over this rant so please forgive my dyslexia.
One more thing. I don’t know who these former Eastern Block webmasters are. If it’s an honest mistake, cool. If not, I imagine a lot of other people will be complaining.