From page 3 to page 75 on Google. Is my site really so bad?

[tommythecat]

So, a couple of weeks ago I started my first CPA website, just as an experiment and to see how well I could do out of it. My rankings were getting better every day, and I’ve been producing constant unique content for the site to improve my rankings even more.

2 days ago my rankings went straight to the last page of Google for the keyword “acne scar treatment” but Google has not banned me or given my domain a minus penalty. I’m still ranking number 1 for my domain, and they have not dropped the PR as my keyword is still in the main index.

I’m not even sure what has happened? Am I not allowed to have a CPA website in the search results?

The best information I could find on this is: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=76465

But I’ve been adding new pages with unique content.

My site is www.acne-scar-treatment.co

Any advice would be appreciated.

[RyanPurkey]

With your site being so new, you were probably getting a fresh content boost and now that it is gone your site is ranking where it most likely stacks up against the competition.  Here are few problems right off the bat though:

1: A large % of pages' title tags are duplicated - | Get Your FREE Trial NOW!!! | Shiva23
2: The title tag itself is kind of spammy with 3 exclamation points
3: Your content is all highly similar to "acne scar removal" so as you add more content, you're getting too dense around that phrase.
4: Your text is almost the same color as your background.  Old school, but still a spam penalty to have "hidden text".  It's best to stay away from styles that could cause this.

Many websites rank well that are using a CPA model.  Use the tools here and else where to see how you really measure up to your competition and you'll have a lot more insight into what you need to change.

[SteveOllington]

Well, the on-page isn't that heavy on ads and it certainly doesn't come across as that spammy... maybe a little but only to others who know what affiliate sites look like. You said it was new, so my bet would be the same as what other have been posting on here with new sites lately... that you had a honeymoon period where G put you up as a fresh new site (maybe to see if you get a lot of usage, links, bookmarks, etc...) then chucked you back to where it deems is right in terms of trust and authority. I could be wrong there but... that's my best guess.

Also, most of your incoming links look a little spammy (though relevant spammy at least). I'd get some more, from a more diverse set of places, with diverse anchor text.

Maybe

[SteveOllington]

"The title tag itself is kind of spammy with 3 exclamation points"

Oh, didn't notice that... tabbed browser windows and laziness to look at source code lol.

[locutuz]

If this is a new site like you mention I've found it very common for the search ranking to bounce around.  As both the content and any inbound links stabilize it will probably settle into it's normal ranking location.  I've read and experienced that any changes made to a site don't really show up with the search engines for 1-3 months.  If your site is only a couple weeks old it will remain pretty volatile for at minimum another few weeks in search results.  Best of luck to you!

[RyanPurkey]

Ya, saw it in a brief search.  For Timur, this brings up a point about guessing what Google considers spam, their Adwords guidelines will give you a pretty good starting point: http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/static.py?hl=en&page=guide_toc.cs&path=policy

[tommythecat]

Thank you guys, that actually takes away a lot of worry as i thought google had put me there on purpose.

[SteveOllington]

I would have thought G wouldn't be keen on that sort of thing anyway, just based on what's acceptable in Ads for Adwords, they don't like stuff like !!! there so they're bound to see it as spammy in a title too.

The site is hardly what you'd expect for a professional corporation or anything but I've seen far, far worse in terms of spam with good rankings lol... mind you, that was before Panda, maybe it's more stringent on that front now.