The_Contractor - 1:51 pm on Aug 2, 2005 (gmt 0)

Once again I suggest not to touch your sites as we know nothing yet.

You should know by now exactly why your site has been hit – if you don't, you are in denial.

There is absolutely nothing in their TOS against using ODP feeds, and ODP itself, and its well respected from Google, is happy to provide these feeds and also provides a link to whom using their contents!

The keywords in the above is its well respected. CNN's website is well respected also by many SE's along with 100's of other portals. That doesn't mean if I make a copy of their site I would think I will get the same recognition as the original site.

Google has made it quite clear of what it thinks:
Read [google.com...] starting at and continuing down from Quality Guidelines - Specific recommendations: including "Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content" and "These quality guidelines cover the most common forms of deceptive or manipulative behavior, but Google may respond negatively to other misleading practices not listed here" also "It's not safe to assume that just because a specific deceptive technique isn't included on this page, Google approves of it."

Then read [webmasterworld.com...] msg#4 " I have a strong hunch that we're going to be taking a closer look at sites that are just scraper sites, or throwing up a copy of the ODP with no value added."

I'm not sure what else you are waiting for? Ian is making the right decision in my opinion. If the majority of your content (count the pages) is from a feed or duplicate content you are probably suffering right now. If you are not…great!

I would not ask for reinclusion if the majority of your content is duplicate. Even if they manually unbanned you in all reality you will be hit by the algo again. How many times do you think they will manually reinclude your site that is duplicated content?

I'm not trying to come-off as you may think. It doesn't bother me what tactic, content, or method anyone uses to try to rank their site – it's their business. I am simply amazed at people that are blinded by their own tactics and then complain when they don't work out as planned.

brianbear no url dropping is allowed for individual sites anywhere in this forum(s).