Here's a really strange one?

[robertk53]

I use to rank #1 for my most important keyword "babysitter" and #3 for the my second most important keyword which was "babysitting jobs"

I use Clickbank as my financial transaction provider and my sales page which use to bring in alot of hits from google for the keyword "babysitting jobs" has been lost in the serp's and has gone from a PR4 to a PR0. Why I don't know - Does it have to do with Clickbank? Has anyone else had the same problem.

Next when clicking on the Google cached link for my homepage instead of showing me an older version of my homepage, it shows www.phoneababysitter.com/+phone++babysitter&hl=en&ie=UTF-8/babysitter]a Clickbank affiliate link page[/url] (link contains "http://hop.clickbank.net", etc.)

I don't get it but it sure looks like Google is trying to penalize any sites which have affiliate programs running.

If anyone has had similar problems or has any idea at all why my site has been so severely penalized and dropped in the search results, I sure would appreciate your comments.

Thanks in advance.

Robert

By the way! The top 40 google results which are showing up for my main keywords, has no value to anybody. It's incredible!

[greeneagle]

robertk53,
I just checked and the page still has a PR4. It could be that you accidently checked the abbreviated URL "phoneababysitter.com" instead of "www.phoneababysitter.com".

Also Google added 1 billion pages yesterday and it looks like several foreign sites may have suddenly come into play in your case.

Hope this helps,

Ken

[robertk53]

Hi Ken,

As mentioned my home page does still have a PR4 but it's my sales page that was dropped to a PR0.

I was hoping to hear some comments from members on the affiliate situation, and if they see any reason why I would be dropped from receiving the number 1 position for the keyword term babysitter, to be non existent in the results for that word.

Thanks to all in advance for any comments.

Robert

[Dave Hawley]

Hi Robert

I would say it's very unlikley that Google would "Penalize" a page for using an affiliate program.

Google is (again) undergoing some dramatic changes and it could be due to that.

When searching for unique text on your payments page
We have Babysitting jobs available in the US and Canada, note that the top link is an affiliate one which redirects to you homepage and *could* be the reason.

[robertk53]

Hi Dave,

Thanks a lot for your reply. I think you may be right. When I set up my affiliate program I incorporated a redirect script so that my affiliates would be able to send visitors to any part of my website and not just the sales page and still get credited for it.

This seems to have back fired on me now because obviously some unscrupulous affiliates are submitting my website url's with their affiliate links attached to the search engines.

Looks like I will need to remove the redirect script and advise my affiliates to change their links to the standard Clickbank hoplink.

Thanks again Dave