Yesterday, I told you the story of how Google nuked me from their search engine and how I was able to survive it. In this blog post I want to share with you how I got back into Google’s good graces and the lessons learned from it.
Since the challenge of building a blog without Google was pretty much done and proven, the new challenge was trying to get back into Google. Would Google even talk to me after I’ve made them look bad for three years?
The normal way for getting a banned/slapped site back into Google is to correct whatever got you banned in the first place and then send a reconsideration request using Google Webmaster Tools.
There is no assurance or guarantee that Google will reconsider you and let you back in. You just basically have to hope and pray.
This was something I didn’t want to do.
Instead, I talked to my friend Neil Patel. Neil told me the best way to get back into Google was just to talk to Matt Cutts, head of Google’s webspam team at that time. Neil told me that Matt is an extremely fair guy and would be open to the idea of letting me back in even after all those violations I pulled.
Neil facilitated an introduction and Matt and I exchanged several emails. I got the feeling that Matt must work 24 hours a day because every time he emailed me, it was after 10PM.
Neil was correct in saying that Matt was extremely fair and after correcting one misunderstanding, Matt informed me that a member of his team had submitted a reconsideration request on my behalf. The next day, I was back in Google!
There are two take-away lessons you can learn from this.
The first one is… It’s not what you know, it’s who you know!
Without Neil Patel, I would have never got an audience with Matt Cutts. Instead, I’ll be hoping and praying like every webmaster who submitted a reconsideration request. Neil allowed me to go straight to The Man and get my blog back in Google almost instantly.
This is why networking is so important to me, and why I attend a lot of industry events. Your network is your net worth!
The second take away is… Have an email list!
If I didn’t have an email list when Google slapped hit, I wouldn’t be around today. The list allowed me to survived three years with no Google traffic.
My email list is the foundation of my entire online business. Without it, I would be just another broke blogger making peanuts, instead of of a millionaire blogger living the Dot Com Lifestyle.
If you truly want to make money online and live the Dot Com Lifestyle, you MUST have a list. And you MUST start it from day 1 (that’s today).
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