When looking at the title of this post one may think that I was sleepless during the last 16 months just because my blog’s PageRank was 0. Frankly speaking I really don’t care about Google PageRank. Because I still made significant money despite my blog’s PR was 0 during that time. However, it is quite obvious that most of my readers and potential advertisers still care about PageRank more than I can ever dream of. Therefore I am happy that yesterday Google kissed my blog and blessed it with a PR3.

This post is written for the bloggers who are in a very similar situation. If I can recover back after 16 months of struggling, you can also make it. Here comes the secret formula.

No Retreat, No Surrender

Secret formula?? My formula is only four words long: “no retreat, no surrender”.

When my blog got penalized by Google, even some SEO masters told me to move to another domain. Check this one as a good example: Free SEO for my blog Searchforblogging dot com

But I did not lose my hope, and tried so many different techniques to get it back throughout this period. I summarized my efforts in this post before: How To Prepare Your Blog For The Next Google PageRank Update?

Also my blog’s Search Engine Optimization category is full of useful tips, and information on SEO for blogs and PageRank recovery. I strongly suggest you to read this section, and apply basic SEO techniques to your blog immediately.

If you are in a very simular situation, you can follow this step by step guide:

• Try to identify why your blog got penalized by Google: Have you subscribed to pay per post programs recently? Do you sell text links? Did you use any duplicate content? Is your blog’s HTML codes are valid? Even though Google may penalize your blog for other reasons, it is better to know the real problem.
• Take Action: Unsubscribe from any pay per post programs. Remove duplicate content from your blog. Use Markup Validation Service to scan your blog for possible HTML coding problems, and immediately correct them.
• Increase Backlinks: Increasing your blog’s backlinks is one of the best things you can do to recover your blog’s PageRank. Backlink Factory is a reliable source you can refer on building backlinks to your blog.
• Apply for a reconsideration: Read this post carefully, and learn How to get reconsidered for PageRank after Google penalization

You know we are in the middle of the last Google PageRank update. How about your blog’s PageRank? Are you satisfied with your blog’s current PageRank? Have your say.

• Add a Google Sitemap to your blog if you haven’t done before
• Do Offsite and Onsite SEO For your blog
• Join as many blog carnivals as possible
• If you have a custom blog design, learn How To Promote Your Custom Blog Design through CSS galleries. You will get some good quality backlinks.
• Learn The 5 Basic Steps Of SEO For Your Blog
• Download Google’s SEO Starter Guide
• Learn How To Track Your Keywords with HitTail
• Get Blog Buzz software and explore WordPress blogs with the ‘nofollow’ tag in the comments field. It will save your time and effort from searching for blogs manually to build backlinks by leaving comments on.
• Benefit from the free seo tools provided by the SEO Tools Shop.

Have your say, and tell me what else can be done to get the highest Google PageRank in the next round?

My blog’s PR was 0 for the last few updates. So early in December, I took some serious action. Even though I do believe that PageRank has nothing to do with good quality and reliable content, most of the first time readers and sponsors still take PR into consideration at first look.

So what did I try to get my PR back?

You might think that I requested reconsideration using Google Webmaster Tools. I knew that it was useless unless your blog or website was completely banned by Google.

Instead, I got partnered with a SEO expert, and the Seo Tools Shop was born. It is just another story, which I will mention later in a separate post. Lets focus on the things I did to get my PR back:

• I completely changed the permalink structure of my blog. See The 5 Basic Steps Of SEO For Your Blog – Part 1 for more details. In other words my blog became a brand new blog, or considered as brand new by Google. If you follow the same step, don’t forget to update your Sitemap too. This will ping major search engines about the permalink structure change.
• At that time I had around 300 posts. I spent one whole week to add convenient tags into each and every blog post.
• I started using Platinum SEO plugin. Take a look at this post for more details: The 5 Basic Steps Of SEO For Your Blog – Part 3
• My SEO expert partner did a very deep link analysis for my blog. We found out that the problem was not a big one. Majority of the links pointing to my blog were coming from PR0 blogs. On the other hand, my Alexa was around 64,000. Probably Google bot thought that I was using scripts to manipulate their system to increase Alexa ranking of my blog, with too little backlinks from the blogs with high pagerank.
• I removed my blog from sites like ReviewMe, TextLinkAds, Linkworth, etc. They are all PR killers!

So guess what happened during the last update? Nothing happened in terms of PR!

It was the last lesson I learned. When you do a permalink structure change in your blog, it takes more than one month to see the reflection on PR. But now I do know that if I keep on writing at this pace (ideally one post everyday!), and focus on SEO of my blog (both on-site and off-site), I will have a good PR on 2009 March update.

But the indexing rate of my blog tripled in 3 weeks. Type “site:www.searchforblogging.com” in Google, and see my blog’s indexing rate. As your blog’s indexing rate increases, your organic search engine traffic also increases.

I wanted to share this if you are in similar position. Don’t spend your time begging Google for reconsideration. No matter what others say, follow above mentioned steps. You will not see the positive reflection on PR immediately, but your search engine traffic will increase significantly.

• You don’t have backlinks from linkfarms. Linkfarms are cheap link directories where you get many  hundreds of poor quality links for 50$-100$. Even though you experience a quick increase in traffic, there is a possibility of losing all your search engine traffic due to Google ban.
• Quit from pay per post programs like ReviewMe, PayPerPost, Smorty, Sponsored Reviews, etc. Google robots don’t like them at all. Make sure that you remove your blog’s URL from these sites.
• Quit link brokering sites like TextLinkAds, LinkWorth, etc. These are born to be PageRank killers. You will lose more than you usually get from these sites.

Also if you are looking for a domain to buy, buy it before the new year. Google robots will accept it as an old domain. Old domains have more advantage compared to new ones in terms of SEO and Google PageRank.

Soon I will provide you some great tools to improve your blog’s SEO and PageRank. Stay tuned, and wait for the Christmas!