Comments on: Candy.com Stuck on P2 at Google

By: Sophia

Sophia — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:51:10 +0000

Age, content and candy related backlinks. It will all come in due time. I would clean up the very long title though to Candy | Candy Store | Bulk Candy

By: Shai Neubauer

Shai Neubauer — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 03:47:33 +0000

I think this article and the comments afterwards put too much emphasis on the rankings of just one keyword. I dont care what site you run and what domain or main keyword you have but one keyword will NEVER make or break your site. I dont think we can consider Candy.com to be a failure based on the fact that it comes up on page 2 of google for the term “candy”. I think its a great accomplishment to actually have done that. Imagine how many “candy” sites they are compting against who have been around for over 10 years. Thats where the power of the domain comes in. The overall success should be compared to the overall traffic, revenue, users, etc. the site is amassing and according to Compete.com it seems they are doing just fine.

By: Jamie Zoch

Jamie Zoch — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:23:20 +0000

@SL
It is an interesting point and I have heard discussion of the same situation, but reversed. A site already holding the #1 spot and still heavily advertising to help Keep the spot. I guess there is really no way to prove it either way but it makes you wonder sometimes.

By: SL

SL — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:18:34 +0000

This brings up an interesting point, though it’s pure conspiracy theory territory.

I’m showing candy.com as the only sponsored ad for the exact term. Right smack on top of page 1 with the yellow highlight in the searcher’s sweet spot, so to speak. And showing the absolute perfect domain for the search term.

As a search engine it would be so tempting to keep an advertiser’s organic position off page 1 if they’re spending a boatload for this type of PPC. After all, the ingredients in Google’s magic soup are unknown so there’s plausible deniability if the advertiser never makes it page 1 organically.

Again, just a thought experiment, absolutely not saying that’s what’s actually happening.

By: Singh

Singh — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 06:18:12 +0000

@ leonard

it will hurt the company for sure. May be Candies.com would been better.

but surely its not a good price tag there. someone made a mistake

By: Leonard Britt

Leonard Britt — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 05:27:04 +0000

Time will tell whether buying the category killer .COM domain vaults the company into the big leagues or whether the pricetag actually hurts the company.

By: Jack

Jack — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 05:09:39 +0000

IMHO, this poor ranking is partly due to the numerous articles about the sale of this domain on domaining blogs (nothing bad about these articles by itself, but the fact is here).

Candy.com is now also related to keywords like “domaining”, “domain investing”, “domain names”, and not with “Candy”.

I don’t see an easy solution to this. Maybe Rick shouldn’t have covered it on his own domain related blog to start with?

By: Anunt

Anunt — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 03:58:15 +0000

The domain candy.com is not worth $3 Million … not even close!
I bet there are more type-in visitors on candy.com looking for a live cam porn site than people looking for the actual candy.
I bet when Rick bought the domain candy.com, he was adding to his collection of porn domain names and ended up selling it to a candy company…LOL

By: I like eggs

I like eggs — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 03:20:42 +0000

Is the 2% royalty from Rick Schwartz getting typo traffic on wwwcandy.com?

By: Bill Kara

Bill Kara — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:54:12 +0000

Page rank is a tough thing, even with good SEO you’ll need in-bound links and you’ll need a steady stream of them over time and from quality related sources.

It’s a long climb to the top of any major search term. Having said that you have to sell ALOT of bubble gum to re-cap 3 MM.

I hope they are able to do this for the entire industry sake.

By: Singh

Singh — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:48:40 +0000

Totally waste of money.

Rick Schartz is too greedy I agree with that. Candy.com made a huge mistake bought this domain for 3 million.

May be 100,000 k should be enough and they should have had 2.9 on adwords then they wud have great traffic and great sales.

But 3 million for candy.com domain name is HUGE mistake.!!

By: JB

JB — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:39:03 +0000

Most of the backlinks to candy.com are not related to candy. They are heavy towards the domain name acquisition etc…

They need to focus on getting backlinks related to what their product is to gain serp. Doesn’t look like they done this yet.

By: Jamie Zoch

Jamie Zoch — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:21:16 +0000

@Leonard,
I think spending $3 Million should help PREVENT you from spending ad $$ but since they are just starting out, doing the ads are smart, but it should also help improve your SE rankings IMO. Which it appears not to be happening.

By: Leonard Britt

Leonard Britt — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:18:07 +0000

I’m sure the domain gets type-in traffic and probably ranks better for some long-tail phrases but would you be happy spending $3 million to be at the bottom of page two? Note they have an Adwords campaign at Google for “candy”…

By: Free Domain Newsletter

Free Domain Newsletter — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:09:13 +0000

Rick Schwartz was too greedy with this sale. I think that they are either going to get the debt reduced or go out of business with the payment on that name. If they paid cash for it then they shouldn’t go out of business but they would have still made a huge mistake.