I have been tracking the search engine rankings for the Candy.com website since the domain name sold ($3 Million + 2% royalties) and the launch of the website on July 1, 2009.
4 months have passed since the launch of the site and Candy.com has impressed me with climbing in the search engine rankings for the all important candy search term.
Before the launch of the website, Candy.com was hard to find on Google.com, the most popular search engine.
On Aug 12th 2009 I had reported that Candy.com ranked #2 on Page #4 for the search term candy. By September 14, 2009 Candy.com continued to climb in the natural search engine rankings for the search term candy. On Google.com, Candy.com then ranked on Page 2, in the 7th spot!
Today, November 14, 2009 it seems that Candy.com has hit a little bump in the road and dropped one spot on Google. Today I show a # 8 spot on page 2 for the search term candy. This is a small drop of one spot but I think the bigger thing is the stall on page 2. It is still Very Early in the sites life but is important to keep improving rankings.
Since only 4 months have passed, a page 2 ranking is pretty good based on the amount of sites fighting for the top spots for the keyword but it is vital to hit page 1 and they hold the BEST domain to do it. Secondly, it is important to be in the top listings on page 1 and I still think that will happen with the help of it’s exact match domain name.
Keep in mind that candy is only one search term and many more candy related terms are important to rank for as well.
I had also checked the other two popular search engines Bing.com and Yahoo.com using the same search term candy.
On Bing.com September 14, 2009 Candy.com held a page 2, number 5 spot for the candy search term. Today, November 14, 2009 it appears Candy.com has dropped off the map on Bing.com . The first ranking that I could find was on Page 8 in the number 5 spot with the sub-domain blog.candy.com .
Bing is not the most popular search engine but still offers important traffic IMO. It is likely that Bing changed somethings or Candy.com did that Bing didn’t like, which knocked them down after having a similar ranking on Google before.
Yahoo.com back in September, I didn’t see Candy.com ranking after looking through a good five pages. This is still the same results as I looked through 7 pages and didn’t see Candy.com in any rankings.
Overall, Google is the most important to focus on due to the high search volumes they hold. Yahoo and Bing are important because having a page 1 rank will provide a good deal of buyers as well, so they should be focused on and not forgotten.
The all important Direct Navigation Candy.com get’s is even more important, but that is a number that I can not see. Tools provided like Compete.com and Alexa.com are just tools and are not all that accurate, so providing those numbers is not something I will do.
Since it only has been 4 months since the launch of Candy.com’s website, I think they are ranking pretty well in a spot that I would focus on, Google. Candy.com’s social networking is important and is bringing in traffic from Facebook and Twitter. They also recently opened up an affiliate program using Commission Junction that brings in traffic. These extra efforts should help with SERP’s as well.
dnClips.com - More than just domain Feeds
“link:candy.com” on google. Most of the links are related to the domain sale and mainly from Ricks blog. It may take some more time for their campaign to have some effect.
@AndrewHazen
I too have been tracking their SEO success and have contacted the company several times about our search engine optimization services…..our client is on first page of google for ‘bulk candy’ and dozens of other candy search terms (like halloween candy, chocolate turkeys, etc. and does not have a category killer domain name (www.MetroCandy.com)….with the right SEO strategy and quality inbound links, Top 5 Google rankings for Candy.com is a no brainer…
@AndrewHazen
http://www.AndrewHazen.com
http://www.PrimeVisibility.com
Candy.com Search Position
I just posted the current Google search positions for Candy.com, CandyDirect.com and CandyWarehouse.com as of 11/14/09. The terms looked at were candy,lollipop(s), chocolate(s), hard candy, candy bar(s), candy store, Halloween candy, Christmas Candy and Valentine Candy.
It’s not a pretty picture. I suspect all the links from domain related sites to the Candy.com home page makes the site appear spammy to search engines.
Yes this is a shameless attempt to hopefully pick up a link from a themed source. Thanks.
Domain Development
@Jamie
Their SEO is horrible and they’re not doing much in the way of link building, articles or social media. They’ve already spent 7 figures on the domain, and now they need to spend a fraction of that on professional SEO.
With a category killer name like they have, they’ll get into the top 3 in google, no problem.
- Richard
Noo Yawka
The comment “Candy.com Search Position” suggests a technique which can be used to lower the rank of a competing site. The commenter suggests that “candy.com” might look spammy to search engines because the site is discussed on many domainer sites in addition to being used as a site to sell candy. OK, if that’s the case, then this suggests that one can lower the rank of a competitor’s site by discussing it for non-relevant reasons on sites not related to the primary business. Thus, for example, if you compete with “hotels.com” (to pick an example out of the air) all you have to do is initiate discussion of “hotels.com” on domaining and other sites that have nothing to do with hotels as places to stay for the night.
Nah, no one would ever do anything nasty like that, right?