From time to time I experiment with different plugins to enhance my blog’s functionality (functionality…such a tech writing word).  Anyway, I use a plugin that is supposed to help detect hack attacks.

After having a couple of my blogs hacked some time ago, I’m a bit sensitive to hacking.

The plugin I use is called WordPress Firewall 2.  Recently I had been receiving notification emails initiated by the plugin telling me a certain IP address was attempting to insert malicious code into my site by attacking a certain file.  After receiving 20 such notification emails in a short period of time, I decided to take action.

A Little Research

I looked up the IP address and it seemed to be a Google bot.  Not being 100% sure that it was, I did a little research.  My research left me on the fence.  It could in fact be a Google bot or it could be a hacker redirecting an IP address to make it look like a Google bot.

After being online for several years and never having this happen before, I decided to err on the side of caution and ban the particular IP address.  I did so by modifying my .htaccess file and inserting the following code:

order allow,deny
deny from XX.XXX.X.XX  (x represents actual IP address)
allow from all


Sit Back to See What Happens

The world didn’t come crashing down after inserting the code and the annoying emails stopped.  Whew, dodged a bullet.

Several days later (about 3), I noticed the traffic for that particular blog dropped significantly.  Hmmm, what’s going on?  So, I searched for my site in Google and found it. The site was there in a great position on page one of the search results but beneath the site’s URL were the words “You are banned.”

Yup, I dodged the bullet when I should have employed fancy footwork.  Instead of getting shot in the upper body, I shot myself in the foot.  The IP address was actually a Google bot.  So, I immediately removed the code from the .htaccess file and temporarily deactivated the plugin. Fortunately, the “banned” statement was removed within seconds and the traffic returned.

Better Safe than Sorry

When I originally received the email notifications, my first line of action was to contact Google to see if it was really their bot.  The problem with contacting Google is contacting Google.  It’s not easy finding the right department, email address or even forum thread in which to post a query.  Instead I took matters into my own hands.

Bottom line, I lost about half a day’s worth of income, but I’d rather that than have lost several weeks or months worth by fighting hackers.  Another online lesson learned.

If you’re an AdSense publisher, I’m sure you’re familiar with the warning atop of your AdSense account. The warning tells you that your ads are displaying on unauthorized sites. The warning looks like this:

After seeing this warning for years (It seemed like years), I decided to look into it a little further. After all, AdSense had emailed me a few earning increasing tips in the past, I might as well see what this warning is about.

Horse before the Cart

I’m going to back up just a bit for those AdSense publishers who are not aware of the authorized site feature.

To prevent unscrupulous scrapers, spammers or other villainous fiends (sorry, was watching an old cartoon this weekend) from stealing your AdSense code, placing on their sites and clicking the heck out of the links to get your account suspended, AdSense implemented the Authorized Account feature. You can find the feature by clicking on Account Settings  link located on the upper left-hand section of the Home page.

Once on the Account Settings page, scroll down until you see Access and authorization. There is where you set the authorization preferences. I learned the hard way that it really works.

One of my sites consistently received clicks, but I never received earnings. It took me months to realize I had not included it as one of my authorized sites. I lost quite a bit of income for that little oversight.

Unauthorized Sites

If your account is anything like mine, after your list of authorized sites, you’ll see a few sites and IP addresses that are not authorized. The sites look like this:

www.google.com.sg
webcache.googleusercontent.com
translate.googleusercontent.com
www.bing.com
74.6.238.254
74.6.117.48
www.google.ca

These sites are search engine cached pages. I researched the two IP addresses listed and they belong to Inktomi Corpation (aka Yahoo). In other words, they are legitimate cached pages of your blog/website. These are not spammer sites.

I always ignored the warning until I decided to get to the bottom of it all. I found this on the AdSense Known Issue site:

Message for Unauthorized Sites Persists on Homepage
Details: When using the authorized sites feature, any sites that you haven’t authorized will trigger an alert message on your home page. We currently consider any framed or cached pages to be unauthorized, including when a user searches using Google Images and your site is displayed via frame. We encourage you to add framed and cached URLs of sites you trust to your authorized sites list. We’re investigating ways to improve this feature.

After reading that, I decided to add the sites to my authorized list (always check the IP information before adding an IP address to the authorized list).

Results of Adding the Unauthorized Sites

I did this research around midday on Thursday of last week. That means half of my Thursday’s earnings are based on the old authorization list and half on the new. Not wanting to jump to conclusions, I waited a couple more days before performing an analysis.

Here’s the scoop. My AdSense earnings from Thursday to Sunday of this past week are 62% higher than they were for the same period of time the week before.

Milk, Spilling, Crying and Such

When I realized how much money I had consistently left on the table I thought about crying over spilt milk, but what good does that do? I’m happy that I made the changes and am encouraging you to do the same if you haven’t done so already.

I love it when small changes yield large results!

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Although Tidbits used to get a pretty decent amount of traffic, it didn’t make a lot of money. The most frequently visited pages on the site were the food pages. Food pages don’t make a lot of money. On occasion, visitors would read one of the higher ticket topics, but generally they were interested in how to cook steak.

Panda’s Second Punch

I have another site that didn’t seem to be affected too much by the Panda as far as traffic goes. As I looked at my weekend stats, last weekend , before Panda, this site received 1289 page views (according to StatCounter) while this weekend the same site received 1375 page views. With the miniscule increase in page views, you would think there would be either a miniscule increase in earnings or the earnings would remain pretty much the same, wouldn’t you?

Not the case. Here’s where the second punch comes in. Last weekend the site earned a little over $53 with AdSense. This weekend the site earned a bit over $41, an earnings drop of 22%. This less than positive anomaly also occurred after the first Panda algorithm change. Sites that were seemingly unaffected traffic-wise were affected financially.

A further comparison of my Infolinks earnings for the same site showed that last weekend the site earned $18.28 while this weekend the site earned $17.48. The 5% fluctuation is nothing for me to be alarmed about. The earnings were still within their normal range.

Back to the First Punch

Getting back to Tidbits and Stuff, the AdSense earnings do not mirror the 40% drop in traffic. The weekend before Panda, Tidbits’ AdSense earnings were $4.38. This past weekend it earned $4.06. My Infolinks earnings on the other hand, went from $4.67 to $1.82.

One set of figures makes sense to me while the other set does not. Who knows, maybe things will even out over time, but in the meanwhile all I can think of is Ricky Ricardo walking in the door and yelling, “Google! You got some splainin’ to do!”

Actually, Google doesn’t owe us an explanation.  They run their business as they see fit.  Similarly, we have to run our businesses as we see fit.  We can’t control Google, but we can sure control what we do to help neutralize Panda’s 1, 2 punch.

Well, when I clicked on my statistics page for my page views, one of my sites had “that look” while the other sites were playing nicely and didn’t even notice that I walked into the room. The site with the guiltiest look was my Tidbits and Stuff site. That’s the site that is prone to get into trouble.

Cause of the Look

I noticed in the past three days my Google earnings were off the chart. The last time they were that good, it was because Panda was about to strike. So I did a bit of snooping and found an October 5th tweet from Matt Cutts in which he advised of Panda changes over the next few weeks.

The Panda Update and Site Reaction

As I looked at my children, er, I mean sites, their response to Panda was expected. You see, Tidbits and Stuff is sometimes shunned by Google and then picked back up again. This is because I gave birth to Tidbits and Stuff before I knew anything about web parenting. I made the majority of my mistakes there.

Just like any good parent, you never give up on your kids. I kept Tidbits & Stuff but realized it would always be vulnerable to Google’s algorithm changes unless I did a total overhaul. Not wanting to do the overhaul, I use Tidbits as my online playground in which I continue to make mistakes.

Problematic Characteristics

As I analyze Tidbits and compare it to the rest of my sites, Tidbits has two characteristics that my other sites don’t:

1. The focus is not single subject. You’ll find information on cooking, health, finance, pets, writing and more when you visit Tidbits and Stuff. The rest of my sites are focused and single subject.
2. I used content from free article directories. I’d say about 50% of the content on Tidbits comes from free article directories while the rest is original. Some of the articles were from writers who requested to write a piece for the site and the rest I wrote myself.

What Am I Going to Do?

As far as Tidbits and Stuff goes, I’m not going to do a thing. I’ll write articles and place them there when the mood strikes. I’m sure Google’s algorithm will change again and Tidbits may find favor. If not, so be it. I’m used to the bumpy ride on Tidbits and Stuff. It taught and continues to teach me a lesson of what to do and what not to do.

Similarities with Other Sites

I see that Suite 101 and HubPages have also taken a hit with Panda this go around (again). The one thing I see that Tidbits, Suite and HubPages have in common is that they are not single-subject sites and they have a wide variety of authors. This is just my sitting at the kitchen counter observation.

Going Forward

Writing is an inside out sport. You learn a few rules (i.e., grammar, spelling and in the case of online writing SEO) and then do what your gut tells you. I’m going to keep on doing what I do and allow the Panda to do what it does.

After visiting Lis’ Passive Income Online blog and finding out about a free book writing tool called Scrivener, I’m motivated to get back to writing my books. Between ebooks, a few sites and Suite 101, I think I’ll be okay. Hopefully Panda was nice to you guys.

According to my numbers, somewhere around September 22nd, things changed. Actually, it could have been September 21st because I saw another record high day of Google earnings (in excess of $100), but the following day, my earnings dropped.

Following the high and the next day drop there was a balancing out of sorts. It’s hard for me to say exactly what was going on. What I did notice, however, was that my overall page views seemed to have dropped an average of  between 8 to 10%.

When I say overall page views dropped between  8-10%, I’m using the total page views across all my sites as shown in my StatCounter account. StatCounter isn’t the most accurate indicator but I’m able to view my numbers in one glance.

Taking a Closer Look

When I look at Google and my search results, I really only pay attention to my 2 highest earning sites. As I checked my Google ranking for one of them, it still bounces between #1 and #2 in the search results for the major search term. As far as my second highest earning site, it still remains in the same position as it was prior to the algorithm tweak (even though I’ve not added new content to the site for 2 months).

Could it be a Hiccup?

Although my overall monthly AdSense earnings were a hair higher than last month’s (that’s good considering there was a holiday early on in the month), I’m not complaining. Last month my daily average was $59.37 and this month it’s $59.67. Like I said, just a hair higher.

I did a little roaming around the Internet to see if anyone else has noticed a change in page views/earnings and came across this post  on Web Pro News. It seems that Google launched an iteration of the Panda update last week.

What this Means Going Forward

For me, this means business as usual. I’ll continue writing for my various sites and force myself to finish working on my ebooks (I’ve not been very motivated in the book writing department). Having a few products to sell helps to offset Google Panda fluctuations.

If I were a newbie and just starting out right now, I’d immerse myself in learning about one freelance writing wile writing for upfront pay. I’d squeeze out some time to write a few residual articles and play around with creating my own blog or two.

Google has been making algorithm changes since the beginning of time (Google time). Some changes are big and some not so big. It’s the way of the Internet. If you have a good strategy, and follow your plan, you should fare pretty well.