A serious decline in Elsmar showing in Google search results started on the 25th July 2012 and since then it appears that Google has rapidly faded Elsmar out of Google search. I would like to think it's Penguin, but such a rapid drop is - Well, I don't know. Believe me, I've been on webmaster forums and I can't come up with a reason. I have never done any "black hat" SEO, no "link farm" stuff, or anything like that. Nothing has changed on the site, either, so I just don't know what the "cause" is. The drop in the Google search rankings is so serious it endangers the future of Elsmar.com.
At this point I am doing everything I can to identify the cause, however it is not an easy task. My current plan is to keep Elsmar online for another 3 months and if things don't change significantly for the better I may be closing Elsmar down completely. It costs me too much money to pay the fixed expenses, not to mention my time, so that's the bottom line. Without the traffic, Adsense advertising does not pay the bills and I will have to drop advertisements companies have immediately. I will keep the advertisements up for the time being, but obviously I can not charge the advertisers even though I don't take down their ads. It may be things will pick up so I don't want to take the ads down right away. Since *very* few people ever Donate, donations are an insignificant source of income. However, at a time like this if any of you want to, a donation would very much be appreciated.
On the one hand I'm sad about it, but then again Elsmar has been online for about 16 years now. It has had a very good run. Up until the end of July 2012 Elsmar has been in the top 100,000 sites online according to Alexa and Quantcast going back many years. In fact, Elsmar (at that time QS9000.com) was one of the first 100,000 websites on the internet. Although Alexa and Quantcast are relatively "new" so they don't have data going back to 1995-96, my bet is until two weeks ago Elsmar was in the top 100,000 for many years.
I figure within 3 months I will know if there is anything I can do about it or not. Two weeks (now going on 3) is too short of a time to know anything or predict anything.
As always, I will be posting stats at the end of the month online so you can follow what is happening there. If you look at July's stats, the last update to that thread as of the time that I am writing this, you can see the drop off starting.
The latest forum visitor stats as of this writing
You will probably notice some changes in the forums such as content on the forum home page. I apologise for changes you may not like, and appreciate feedback.
I will keep you informed of what is happening.
At this point I am doing everything I can to identify the cause, however it is not an easy task. My current plan is to keep Elsmar online for another 3 months and if things don't change significantly for the better I may be closing Elsmar down completely. It costs me too much money to pay the fixed expenses, not to mention my time, so that's the bottom line. Without the traffic, Adsense advertising does not pay the bills and I will have to drop advertisements companies have immediately. I will keep the advertisements up for the time being, but obviously I can not charge the advertisers even though I don't take down their ads. It may be things will pick up so I don't want to take the ads down right away. Since *very* few people ever Donate, donations are an insignificant source of income. However, at a time like this if any of you want to, a donation would very much be appreciated.
On the one hand I'm sad about it, but then again Elsmar has been online for about 16 years now. It has had a very good run. Up until the end of July 2012 Elsmar has been in the top 100,000 sites online according to Alexa and Quantcast going back many years. In fact, Elsmar (at that time QS9000.com) was one of the first 100,000 websites on the internet. Although Alexa and Quantcast are relatively "new" so they don't have data going back to 1995-96, my bet is until two weeks ago Elsmar was in the top 100,000 for many years.
I figure within 3 months I will know if there is anything I can do about it or not. Two weeks (now going on 3) is too short of a time to know anything or predict anything.
As always, I will be posting stats at the end of the month online so you can follow what is happening there. If you look at July's stats, the last update to that thread as of the time that I am writing this, you can see the drop off starting.
The latest forum visitor stats as of this writing
You will probably notice some changes in the forums such as content on the forum home page. I apologise for changes you may not like, and appreciate feedback.
I will keep you informed of what is happening.