WebFusion - 11:23 pm on Aug 30, 2005 (gmt 0)

No. For four years I developed (edited) content which was then indexed by Google and accessed by thousands of people. All of a sudden it is not. I will be doing other things with my time in the future, Google's decision to ban my site without warning was a betrayal that I won't soon forget or forgive.

Keeping in mind google is (for the most part) a completely automated, algo-driven system. making a statement like that is like saying "The car that get's me to work everyday broke down - I'll never forget that betrayal" A glitch is not a betrayal, nor is the fact that quite a few perfectly decent websites are getting caught in the net meant for spammers. With billions of websites in existence, expecting a perfect system is simply not realistic. IF your site is as high-quality as you say, then it will invariably be back. I've had 5+ year old, 100% original content sites go MIA in google for months at a time, yet they always returned.

I feel the derision pointed towards individuals because of their frustration with google due to their feeling of unfair treatment does not really have a place here.

Look...I'm NOT a google fan. I think Google's search has been "broken" for a long time. Having said that, the complaints that elude to "unfair treatment" simply illustrate a weakness in that person;s overal marketing plan. A site I own that lost 90% of google traffic on July 16th (due to a huge drop in serps) STILL receives thousands of visitors per day. Why? Because I realized early on that to weather the organic traffic "storm", the traffic sources themselves need to be diversified AWAY from the engines. Make a sticky site, and the free traffic is just icing on the cake. Make a one trick, have-to-have-google-traffic-to-survive type of site, and you've built a site on quicksand.

Google should be aware of peoples feelings and complaints and the forums provide a healthy place to release that pressure.

As a business owner, my only concern is the experience of my end users. While I agree Google needs webmaster's content to survive, their business was built on the searcher's experience. The day they start to cater to webmasters is the day they lose their stranglehold on search.