Who's Using Fresh Store Builder?

[shane8960]

Posting this here so that it might help others. This is the response I've had from Carey.

How long had your sites been live before the rankings dropped?

The most important thing is patience - everyone who has had problems from Acorn did not give it enough time. Do the right things and it the rankings will come back.

The site does seem to load a bit slow - did you check this via the links I posted in the thread?

Any messages in Google Webmaster tools?

I just noticed your site also only has unique content on the homepage. I always recommend *at least* 5 pages of good, unique content. To make sure with your site and as your rankings dropped, add a couple more also. I recommend:

- 200 words minimum on the two categories
- 3 articles about ##SITE KEYWORDS##
- homepage (this is good already)
- 200 words on at least a couple of popular products (as many as possible)

No problems with speed at my end (TSOHost, Google downloads it in 550ms average). Not sure which links he posted to, but I'm happy its not the speed.

No messages in Webmaster Tools.

The site doesnt only have unique content on the homepage, every page is unique right down to the privacy policy. All product names have been tidied up and all product descriptions are unique.

I dont think that adding the extra content would make any difference considering a single HTML page (this is one of the ones I had a holding page on rather than a wordpress install) was ranking on the first page for this prior to FSB.

I appreciate Carey taking the time to respond etc, although Im not going to put any more time into it at the minute. I'll continue building links to this domain which is now the only one that has FSB on, but I dont think I'll be using it for any more sites - at least not at the minute anyway.

 

[max99x]

my 2 cents.

Installed it on a domain that had before had a wordpress site on it that didnt rank very well , it didnt have much unique content on it.

2 Weeks gone, rankings seem to be doing pretty well, quite impressed with it. Made first sale and will be interesting see how it does in next few months!

 

[melat0nin]

Have just read all 51 pages of this thread (phew).

I'm about to get up my first FSB store (based on a static site which is currently #1 in Google and has an Amazon Store on it already)- am hoping that with the same unique content and additional relevant products with unique content it'll stay there and earn more.

I'll be interested to see whether the change to FSB results in a hit - although I won't assume anything until I've left it for a little while to see. Google is fickle, and some people on this thread seem to have unrealistic expectations.

Fingers crossed.

 

[philiporchard]

new site up thanks to Wait.co.uk...

Matt has done a good job of trying to get under the skin of the topic

Fingers crossed for some decent traffic soon...

 

[shane8960]

Have just read all 51 pages of this thread (phew).

I'm about to get up my first FSB store (based on a static site which is currently #1 in Google and has an Amazon Store on it already)- am hoping that with the same unique content and additional relevant products with unique content it'll stay there and earn more.

I'll be interested to see whether the change to FSB results in a hit - although I won't assume anything until I've left it for a little while to see. Google is fickle, and some people on this thread seem to have unrealistic expectations.

Fingers crossed.

I (and several other members) have been in the same position. If your site follows pattern, it will tank completely (I have 1 inner page ranking around 200th).

A site change might cause a drop of a few places, maybe even a few pages, but for the front page to be dropped to the middle of nowhere is never a problem I have had before (I've switched between custom PHP scripts/plain HTML pages/wordpress before without any major issues).

The one site I currently have live was live for around 4 weeks and just dropped further every day until not in the top 200. I put it back to the original HTML site for 2 weeks and the rankings came back (went back to 12th, was 8th originally). I put FSB back on a week or so ago - its not ranking anywhere again.

Another problem I've noticed that I need to look at sorting out - the sitemap /sitemap_pages.xml has a link to /basket/ which is blocked by robots.txt - doubt it would cause any problems, but it does throw up errors in Webmaster tools.

 

[Alien]

Shane - did/have you change(d) all the default (stock text/meta data etc) FSB pages or just leave them as per standard installation?

 

[shane8960]

Shane - did/have you change(d) all the default (stock text/meta data etc) FSB pages or just leave them as per standard installation?

Every page was changed (all products, privacy policy etc). Site was 100% unique - even the filter pages etc were changed.

One of my other sites which was a wordpress site which is EMD.co.uk was ranking for:

EMD - EMD.co.uk was 1st
Brand Name EMD - EMD.co.uk/Brand-Name there was around 5 of these, all ranking front page

I copied all the content from that site to FSB and 301'd the products. The brand name urls didnt change, not did the content. As with all the other sites - it totally dropped and only came back when I switched back to wordpress (I wasnt willing to leave it for any longer as its a decent site that was making money with the wordpress site).

I think the script is great and works well for creating the sites etc - Im willing to put the time in writing unique descriptions/articles etc as I do with all my sites - but for some reason the sites just disappear as soon as I put FSB on them - obviously defeating the point.

Also forgot to mention I changed the product titles, meta descriptions etc - for example if the product was "Mains lead for Kubik Edge II / Roca MP3 & Video Player - COMPATIBLE WITH ALL Kubik Edge II / Roca MODELS (4GB -8GB) - NO PC REQUIRED - AC / Wall CHARGER - Power Plug - AAA Products - 12 Month Warranty" I edited it to "Kubik Edge II Mains Lead"

 

[Alien]

Shane, sounds like you worked hard on it, shame it didn't work out for you.

Did you customise your template too out of interest?

I can understand why you were concerned to leave it for too long because of the earnings, but as Carey has said in this thread hopefully in time rankings do return (as has been the case with some Acorners I believe).

 

[shane8960]

Shane, sounds like you worked hard on it, shame it didn't work out for you.

Did you customise your template too out of interest?

I can understand why you were concerned to leave it for too long because of the earnings, but as Carey has said in this thread hopefully in time rankings do return (as has been the case with some Acorners I believe).

Indeed, I wasnt expecting to just install it and leave it. I customised it a bit on one of them (the one I've left live - slight layout changes, w3 fixes etc). I put it back live a week or so ago and will leave it for a few months.

As it happens, the site made a sale yesterday with a click from Yahoo - was a bit of reminder that people do use other search engines.

 

[optiweb]

Phew this thread is some read!

I think I'm going to give FSB a go on a few undeveloped domains - I have a few Q's for those currently using:

When amending product pages is it possible to also change the image and amend the affiliate link? Eg would it be possible to change some products to non amazon affiliate links and also upgrade some pictures without having to mess with the database?

Thanks in advance

 

[shane8960]

Phew this thread is some read!

I think I'm going to give FSB a go on a few undeveloped domains - I have a few Q's for those currently using:

When amending product pages is it possible to also change the image and amend the affiliate link? Eg would is it possible to change some products to non amazon affiliate links and also upgrade some pictures without having to mess with the database?

Thanks in advance

Dont think you can chane the images.

The default setup is to use the fsb basket so cant see how you would not use affiliate links.

 

[Alien]

You can always use other affiliates from standard FSB Pages (e.g. example).

 

[optiweb]

You can always use other affiliates from standard FSB Pages (e.g. example).

Ah Ha, always a work around - nice site

Thanks Guys