WidgetBucks denies ban in Google search results

Last week, we wrote about WidgetBucks not appearing in the Google search results and hinted that www.widgetbucks.com might be banned by Google because of hidden text links.

A representative from WidgetBucks, Greg Harrison, responded and posted a comment in our article WidgetBucks is banned in Google and they know why denying our “conspiracy theory.”

Mr. Harrison explains that the Widgetbucks site had “page content issues that were causing the page not to be indexed properly.”

He writes:

Amazing to see how theories abound. Let us clarify. The code change today implements the Akamai content delivery network (CDN) for the delivery of all static content (i.e. .swf, .js, and .css). This allows these elements to be loaded from Akamai’s massive “edge” presence rather than our Seattle-based colocation facilities – this offloads traffic from our web servers and greatly increases load speed for the ad content. You will notice that the old path (www.widgetbucks.com) was updated to reflect the new path (images.widgetbucks.com) which is a CNAME mapping to the Akamai network.

The removal of the back-link was simply based on publisher feedback about not being allowed to modify the HTML to place a “no-follow” for SEO purposes – rather than grant permission to modify the HTML we provide, we simply removed the backlink. That back-link, by the way, was never maliciously placed there – if you do not have the Flash Player installed, then we wanted to show a link to WidgetBucks, plain and simple – disabling javascript does nothing more than reproduce the No-Flash-Player case, since javascript is used to load the flash player.

The last part, which is the “big mystery” about why we are not showing in the Google SERPs: This was a simple SEO oversight on our part in our rush to launch the site. We had some page content issues that were causing the page not to be indexed properly. If there is any doubt, I am happy to share a screenshot of the Google Webmaster tools report. This has nothing to do with Google, would be happy to put my name on it. The home page corrections were made yesterday, and we would expect to see Widgetbucks properly in SERPs in the next week or so. Hope that helps clarify the misperception/misunderstanding here.

Mpire and WidgetBucks CEO Matt Hulett cites the same thing in the WidgetBucks blog.

We checked and, although www.widgetbucks.com still does not appear in Page 1 of the Google SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), it can now be seen on Page 5 (see screenshot).

Still a long way to go to Page 1 but at least the site has already landed on the Google SERP unlike last week. We still wonder, though, if Google has started indexing the site because WidgetBucks has rectified the “page content error” or because they have removed the hidden text link.

Anyway, we don’t think it matters anymore, especially since WidgetBucks members will start seeing their full October earnings this week.

If you want to learn more about WidgetBucks, read our article $25 free to try out WidgetBucks. To sign up for a WidgetBucks account, click here.