Google Dumps John Chow
So I'm hunting around for nothing in particular and decided to check to phrase "make money online" to see where Reality Wired ranked for the term (an unimpressive page 5). The interesting thing is what jumped out at me was the absence of one John Chow dot com from the front page anywhere. I don't know if this is a permanent thing on Google's part or if there is an update going on, I did a quick check of the major datacenters and he's dropped on a bunch of them. That's not good. I know he was sitting at number 2 earlier this afternoon and now he's on page 4 when I search. That's not good. I had that happen once for a very high traffic term, it didn't stop until I was in the low 900's. Here's a screen shot of the first page taken at 9:35pm this evening.
At any rate, I'm sure if there's something more than an update happening he's noticed by now and is investigating. It will be interesting to see if anything significant comes of this. Could it be, Google's taken offense to the linkbaiting strategy John's been using to great success? It shouldn't take too long to find out.
Comment by Brian Aldrich on 29 May 2007:
It’s a hard fall from the top I guess.
Comment by LGR on 30 May 2007:
Thanks for this. It made me laugh. I just did a search and he shows up on page 4. Perhaps Google has done something right for a change.
Comment by Chee Kui on 30 May 2007:
I noticed that too…. Is Google really dumping him? Yikes..
Comment by andy on 30 May 2007:
It’s scary to think that Google is penalizing his site. Maybe I should stop doing the link exchange.
Comment by James on 30 May 2007:
I wouldn’t be too hasty. I’ve seen first hand the results of a major ranking penalty from Google. From #2 to the high 900’s in just over two hours and at the time I was getting peak traffic. Talk about disenchanting. This seems to be something else, maybe an adjustment. If I had to guess I’d say it was maybe a duplicate content penalty because lots of the reviews use cut & paste off his site, which has always been a concern of mine with this whole thing.
At any rate, I know he’s seen this post so he’s obviously aware something is going on. Not heard anything but I’m sure we will. This can be hard to research and may be just a temporary thing. Patience for the moment I think is best.
Comment by Nirmal on 31 May 2007:
Oh! this is a great fall…. :D
Comment by Make Money With Funds on 1 June 2007:
Some of my blogs are not ranking high anymore for their keywords as well, it seems like Google is adding an AGE variable to PR to set the position of a site…
Comment by Linky Love on 2 June 2007:
I wanted to rank higher than John Chow for make money online: I was at rank 43 the 29th and now I am no where to be found.
Looks like overexposure on the same keywordphrase is not loved by the google guys anymore :-(
Comment by horisly on 3 June 2007:
o,my god, i think Jonh Chow is the top one in Online money making.
Comment by Money Maker Blog on 30 June 2007:
Well, that’s what happens with Google sometimes. Google is unpredictable…
Comment by Jehzeel Laurente on 1 July 2007:
i think google hates john chow now.. ahehehehe
Comment by BillyWarhol on 4 September 2007:
wow - i just searched John Chow + this was #1
i find all this Google AdSense stuff to be more figgering out how U can Beat the System!!
;))
Comment by JohnRog on 18 September 2007:
I just check today, September 18th and it looks like he is still not where he used to be. However, life is like that: “At The Top One Day… At The Bottom Tomorrow…”
In any case, I am impressed how he has been able to make a name for himself in such a short period of time…
If my sites did a third as well I would be happy…
Comment by Rookie on 4 October 2007:
I think John Chow is the victim of his own ego….In the beginning he boasted how he got on the top of the search engine higher than pro-blogger. Because of his ego and he blog too much about the success then Google kick his ass down to where found on the search engine lol. This is good thing for those who like to boast about tomorrow for you do not know what tomorrow bring forth. lol hahahhaa John Chow should read more proverbs to be a wise man….dont be like a fool spreading craps on the online without watching your back lol hahahahha..
Comment by Crashlab on 4 October 2007:
I think Jhon Chow is a guy that do sell himself :)
Comment by SERPtimized.com on 4 October 2007:
As Shaggy says … “…wuznt me!!”
Comment by retirerichblog on 7 October 2007:
Reading his monthly income post, he’s still making a boatload of money without adsense…..
Comment by Rob on 14 October 2007:
I can’t believe some of the comments I’m seeing here. I have no dog in this fight, but we all should worry about Google arbitrarily ranking one site over the other. The fact that Google tells its visitors that John Chow’s page is good enough to be on the first page one minute then suddenly drop it to oblivion hours later simply states that Google has no credibility itself to determine a pages “importance”.
Google will get caught at some point by Yahoo and MSN. I don’t think soon, but it will happen. If Google keeps playing a heavy handed role like they did to Chow, they will find a substantial backlash from their AdSense customers pulling the plug on THEM and using other services to monetize their blogs and web pages.
Comment by Contamination on 3 November 2007:
Looks like he had his bottom handed to him!
Comment by TopVideos on 6 November 2007:
No wonder Google has dropped John Chow. I was searching for “John Chow” on Google and surprisingly this page came at number 2 in Google’s ranking, so here I am writing about him. No doubt his site is not in the top ranks for the term ‘making money online’ but still that guy has amazing results everymonth, even without using AdSense. It simply shows his massive popularity and the wonderful results it produces for him.
Comment by baloot inc on 12 November 2007:
i hate john chow. and i love shoemoney….
i don’t know why i very hate him..damn it…
thanks google for dropping johnchow pagerank..LOL!!