Company hit with penalty last year; Google continues to deny requests to lift penalty.
Candy.com has a sweet (and expensive) domain name, one that helped it get instant credibility in the candy industry.
But apparently the site is lacking good search rankings due to a manual Google penalty — and that has led the company to lay off some employees.
Candy.com co-founder Greg Balestrieri posted in the Google product forum for Webmaster Central about the company’s struggles with Google for the past year:
I’m desperately looking for help with my reconsideration request with Google. A few years back we hired a SEO firm that did some bad link building for us. Last year in April our website was hit with a manual penalty and our search traffic dropped off almost entirely. Since that happened we have hired another company to help us remove the links and help with the reconsideration requests. We have removed almost 1000 links and kept well documented notes on Google docs of our attempt’s to remove other links, we also reported all this info in our attempts. We have made at least 1-2 reconsideration request each month since October with the exact same message coming back each time saying that we are are in violation (See Below), even though each month we did more and more work. Needless to say this is hurting our business so much we have had to lay off people. We want to get back on the right track with Google but not sure what we are doing wrong since the emails are the same each time with no clear direction. We even just recently was approved for Google Trusted Stores, we also spend quite a bit on AdWords each month. I just don’t understand how we could not be ranked for the keyword candy when our URL is candy.com (Candy Dot Com)!!! Any help or directions would be great. Thanks!
Balestrieri goes on to write about how the company was number one in Google for the term “candy” for over a year, but now isn’t ranked at all for the term.
I remember seeing the company ranked number one a while back, but I hadn’t paid attention again until seeing the post.
If any SEO experts out there want to weigh in, feel free to do so here or on the forum. Hopefully they can get the issue resolved with Google soon.
RaTHeaD says
BING says google sucks. they don’t even like candy. $125 dollars to the right PR firm and you wouldn’t even need search engine rankings. let me reiterate… google sucks..
Jay says
Here we go, domainers. Category killer domains versus brandable domains. I better go with the second one, so big G cannot hurt the value of my investment.
Nanda says
Few years back someone from India clicked on our adsense ads and the account is still banned. Though unrelated it is the same google’s policies like Candy.com, mine and 1000’s of others who lost their search engine rankings or banned adsense accounts.
No Matter what all our eggs should not be in one basket.
Google is becoming the new EVIL and engulfing many lives while serving many others.
We can now make an advanced gadget like google glass but not able to deal with this f*cking stupid everyday management issues. It is pathetic but I laugh looking at Google’s imbalance and imperfections while boasting to be the best search engine in the world.
As to me I am not dependent on google or any f*cking body.
Jay says
@Nanda – Let me guess – You do have some Andorid device, right? So you support big G every day, then…
Troy says
Another example of the statement “live by the Goog, die by the goog”. If you have a website and could not afford for all of your Google traffic to dry up and dissapear, then you are at the mercy of Google and eventually it WILL bite you in the ass.
Search engines are not the friends of domainers or online entrepreneurs. It is crucial, heading into the future, for online entrepreneures to be able to survive without search engine traffic. It is only when you can do that that you have truly become an online business man.
I don’t think most domainers realize how precarious their livelihood truly is right now.
Adapt or die. And adapting means learn how to get by without the big G.
Nanda says
@Jay You guessed it right, I am for change and like the openness of android os and all the perks that come with it. However I continue my fight against anything evil in belief that there will be better days ahead.
PS: @DomainNameWire thank you for moderating my other comment.
Lance says
do a search for all inbound links- use the disenvow tool if it truly is the link quality
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2648487
thank you goddnight!
Wayne says
It’s a shame, but not surprising. Stuff happens – even to the observably innocent. What was once golden, is now laid to waste. And many have been swept away by the creatures of the digital Armageddon – Pandas and Penguins. (Next will be Piranha)
Now, content that is Kipling-quality, rules the day. E-commerce is viewed as gaming the system and needs to be masked with ultra-high quality content, honest reviews and sometimes complementary premium content “samples.” Or, “specials” that are truly special. So-called Freemium content.
All of this being said, Google knows the online space requires diversity for the Internet Eco-system to remain vibrant and active enough to, ironically, sustain Google!
So, it will look the other way in some cases. And, in other cases, it will make an example out of a site as a not-so-subtle reminder to watch your P’s and Q’s. And to expect the unexpected.
On the other end of the spectrum, Candy.com needs a marketing department that can get the business up-to-speed in the Social realm – really! That’s where the money is for them – not organic or paid search – at least it shouldn’t be!
I’m also surprised they hadn’t developed a client list that could support them in the event something like this happened.
Oh, well… live and learn.
ala says
I think he should start using different domain. I recommend him to go and register a domain for a few usd – it will work better than candy.com.
steve says
My site don’t rank on google either, http://scrabblecheat.net
But candy.com should rank…
Candy is a highly competitive term too.
RAYY.co says
@Troy
“Search engines are not the friends of domainers or online entrepreneurs. It is crucial, heading into the future, for online entrepreneures to be able to survive without search engine traffic.”
How to make profit without relying on Google search engine?
It will be great if someone expert can write an article on this as how to succeed internet business without depending on SEO, Facebook, twitter , Linkedin etc…..?
Philip Corwin says
“You got to stop your EVIL ways” – Santana
craig says
Search manipulation..pure and simple.
Speak to the FTC…they let them go free.
Complain to the EUC…they still have them in their sights.
FAR too much riding on the whims of one search engine..JMHO…..
Jen says
This is pretty sad considering how strong the keyword based domain name is. I wonder if Rick Schwartz will share any info surrounding these unfortunate circumstances about his beloved Candy.com. This will certainly be an event worth observing.
David says
We have 2 category killer and niche dominating exact match keyword sites/domains in the health niche which had their Google referral traffic drop to almost nothing basically overnight more than a year ago for no obvious reason.
The 2 sites always ranked #1 or near the top of G’s search results for all relevant terms for many years but are now gone from the top-100 and G referrals are down over 95%. The sites themselves and content are the same or better as in the past. In fact the Page Rank is still the same as it was before the big declines.
It’s incredible Google does not give any reason for this making it impossible to fix if there really are issues. If these 2 sites had employees they would all be laid-off by now. Something needs to be done about Google doing this so often but what and who can do it? At this point we have thrown on the towel.
Tia Wood says
My question would be: what else are they doing besides SEO to get their brand out?
Anticareer.com says
What if a competitor creates 100,000 bad links to your site in order to get your site banned?
Google should not punish sites for bad links, they should just ignore the links and give them no weight.
Cataract says
I think G. do not punish for bad quality backlinks. As you said, a competitor can kill your business so easily. The truth is out there IMHO … 🙂
Bob Fontaine says
I had similar sitiation as David – “..had their Google referral traffic drop to almost nothing basically overnight more than a year ago for no obvious reason”.
Everything I had built up over years, growing and bettering, adding and selling. GONE, OVERNIGHT. because of Google.
And I am not Mad at Google per se, but the fact is they are picking winners and losers every time they do this.
And if the NEXT “Candy” has to layoff XXXX many employees because of a sudden and unexpected “CLEANSING named “Panda” or “PuppyDog” – that puts a thousand people out of work from ONE company from ONE search term, then someone has too much power.
In many states, perhaps federally, if a company knows they are going to be laying off masses of employees, they are obligating to make notice to the state. Google’s influence may ironically place them within the umbrella of those required to give such notice. If not now, then when the infants start growing (we are in the infancy of course, in the bigger picture)..
Google stifles creation of business if small businesses enter the market to utilize that traffic, when Google can take the majority of it away overnight.
The other side of the coin is, if Google is so Busy Altering it’s results, with wreckless disregard for tossing “GOOD” and established sites aside, and replacing it with something it’s computer came up with, then how good can Google’s results actually be? Or have been?
I remember thinking Microsoft would ruled the world, a monopoly. And now I use Bing whenever I can, to help Microsoft from allowing Google to abuse their monopoly position. Not to mention the money they make from selling results!
Nobody is untouchable. Someday the people, the market will create an “Independant Engine” – becasue the two thing they cant stop us from doing are communicating and creating!
Owen frager says
Buy some ads from them and watch how fast it changes
These are strong arm sales tactics
Talk to the attorney who helped shopcity google it
Andrew Allemann says
@ Owen Frager – on the contrary, candy.com says they spend a lot on Google ads and they’ve been trying to get their account management to help.
No Name Provided says
Never ever upset Google. The owner of the candy says one campamy linked his site with some bad links. He would have known what links his site has been linked with. They failed to do anything when they had a good ranking. Sometimes its to late to apologise. My mate who works for google says candy.com will never again reach top ranking.
Sean says
Once your burned, you will never get back. I’ve had a couple sites fry over the years and even after the reconsideration request is granted – you will NEVER go back to where you were. Google now knows you are trying to game the engine and will always try.
Sid Shady says
Boo Flippin’ Hoo…play with fire and you get burned. So they laid off a few people…big deal – that means the business and sales went to a competitor and that company had to hire extra people…it all evens out.
I, and most marketing executives with a brain, would rank ALL of the following domains as being of HIGHER BRANDABLE VALUE than candy.com:
GreatCandy.com
CheapCandy.com
DiscountCandy.com
CandyWolf.com
CandyShark.com
CandyTime.com
Candy.com is merely descriptable, but brandable? Not really.
Rick Schwartz says
Owen,
Candy.com spent multiple 6 figures with Google in 2012.
But I will tell you this. By the end of this year, those $$$ are gong to be earmarked for other advertising channels. We are going to show the world that Google is the LAST piece of the puzzle not the first.
Their agency is about to lose their #1 growing account. Google could care less about a few hundred grand. But when we show a more effective way to grow, others will figure it out too.
Nanda says
If everything Google does is algorithmic without it being half hazardously manual with its “my way or no way attitude”, less of us will have a problem dealing with it.
As always viable alternatives are needed otherwise it will be like monarchy returning in the new democratic way. A big slap on our own face!
Bob Sakayama says
We’ve been getting very large sites out of penalties for many years. Penguin has some additional challenges, but once you understand how to identify and remove the problem links, plus use the disavow tool appropriately, Google responds by releasing the site. Every legitimate commerce site we’ve worked on has eventually exited their penalties – just takes time and patience.