I’m glad that my boss got a chance to take a look at the other day’s blog post because he did confirm that we’re not actively being listed on Google right now because we have been penalized for some reason. I wasn’t able to find out exactly what reason Google found to penalize us but he did mention that my posts up till now are still great and unique so they shouldn’t be a problem at all and should shoot back up to the top of Google’s PageRank as soon as the penalty is lifted. So there’s still hope on the horizon for this online wholesale shop‘s happy little blogger. Ah, that makes me feel a lot better, my work is secure and I know what I’ve done is being appreciated (doesn’t it just feel bad when no one seems to notice your work, ie. there are no comments or trackbacks)!

Of course, I did figure out that Google was penalizing us before my boss told me about it, but I just wanted to rant about it then to let the sour feelings out so we can move on to more informative content (and also because I had nothing else I felt like writing about that day. Hahaha!). My mood was so bad about the Google penalty that I failed to see the bigger picture.

So, now on to real news!

I failed to mention a while back that Bigboxstore is actually in the process of reviewing its entire catalog right now. I guess there’s no better way to spend down days from having the site penalized than by reacting positively and productively to refine the services and products that we offer.

To tell you the truth, I just missed out on the opportunity to write about it a month ago when I was informed by my boss about the product catalog review. I was so excited about seeing new items in the catalog that I just to write about them and forgot to highlight this fact. Of course, for those of you that still visit the site despite the Google penalty,  you probably have noticed this already. What really excites me about it now is what unique visitors will think about it when Google lifts the penalty in the near future. I can’t wait to see our Alexa ranking spike when that happens (I also can’t wait to see the comments on the blog start to come in). Users will be treated to fresh new releases across many of our categories. It’s easy enough to see that we’ve added more cellphones, more Android tablets, more car DVD players, etc. in the existing categories, but to top it all off, we’ve also added some new categories, as well. We’ve widened the product range and now offer products for pets and clothes and toys for children as well. Cosplay costumes, candles, silk flowers, and badminton and tennis equipment are few more categories that have been added, amongst several others. Outdated products have also been removed from the catalog and we’re trying to source newer products from the manufacturers that produced them.

Tough times such as the one’s we’re facing right now are enough to prove the resolve and determination of a company to survive a crisis. I’m sure Bigboxstore has survived several crises of its own before I arrived on the scene, and I really feel great that when the company is met with trials, it responds not by simply advertising and marketing itself more vigorously and aggressively, but by seeking to refine its image amongst consumers.

Other more obvious changes to the site include a Facebook social plugin, so that we can find out the actual number of people who like us. We’ve also added a Google +1 button to the site’s pages so we can keep track of how many people like the site, of course, as well as the individual products and pages, and of course, to increase our PageRank while we’re being penalized. Bigboxstore also believes in the power of social networking to respond to our customers’ wants and needs, so if you do use us, please like us on Facebook and +1 us on the homepage and the pages of the products you like so we can make sure that we will be able to keep them in stock as long as the products on those pages are still up-to-date.

On a lighter note, if you’re a Google user and have been invited to beta test Google’s new social networking experiment, Google+, your +1s will show up on your profile so you’ll have an easier way to get to those products you really like from Google+. Oh, by the way, if anyone’s interested in receiving a Google+ invite, just leave a comment below with your Gmail e-mail address (just customize it like address at gmail.com so that spammer’s crawlers don’t pick up your e-mail address) and I’ll send you an invite.