11.27.07
Be Careful When You Use Promosoft!!!
If you don’t already know, promosoft is basically a tool that automatically submits your software to around 800 software directories like softpedia, freedownloadscenter and so on. You can create something really basic and then use promosoft to submit it to all the directories in its database, and typically get a decent number of downloads in the next few weeks. Plus, you get a lot of one way links from software directories linking back to your site once they list your application.
When I tried this on my existing sites, this has worked really well. So when I made a brand new site (it’s about 4 days old right now) as a side project — it’s a minisite in a certain non-IM niche – I decided to make a few basic applications related to that niche, host them on the new site, and submit them with promosoft.
Somehow (I have no idea why) this seems to have completely f-ed up my Google rankings. Here’s a screenshot (scaled down again)…
That’s how my rank for a certain keyword changed in only a couple of days. The brand new site was on the second page, and then almost overnight, it’s gone all the way down to the ninth page. The same thing has happened with other keywords the site was ranked for.
Here’s what’s wierd — the only thing I have really done to promote this site is through promosoft submissions. The only links pointing to the site are one way links from software directories ranging from PR1 up to around PR7. This is OFFPAGE optimization. There is no content on the new site that would get it penalised by google as it is all unique, and I don’t link to any dodgy sites.
I know google will discard your links if they see it as spammy or un-natural, but the general rule is anything a competitor can do to your site won’t screw you over with google. In this case, anyone could use promosoft to mass submit the pad file on my site to hundreds of software directories, and have them link back to my site. So there is obviously something I’m missing here.
I’m not too worried because I only put about 5 hours worth of work into building the site and doing the promosoft submissions, but this is still pretty annoying because I have no idea why this is going on. It has to be something to do with the fact that the links are being seen as spammy by Google. Still, since it’s offpage, I didn’t think that would have so much of an impact. Either that or I’m just completely missing something.
But anyway, if you’re ever scared about some brand new competitor in your market, maybe you should try doing a few promosoft submissions linking to their site. Just kidding.