Anyone ever demanded to be out of the Google index?

Happened few years back

[ann]

Back when Google first started out I heard the name and went GHAAAA
that name stinks!

I was into getting into the best search engines around and very afraid a link to a place like Google, GHHHA!, would only bring my site down.

So after very little thought I emailed Google to remove my sites from there search engine..Gee, what a dumb thing to do!

Thank God they either didn't get the email or just figured me for an idiot and ignored it. :)

I LOVE YOU GOOGLE.

Any really dumb things you may have done regarding search engines and/or web work.

Ann

[vincevincevince]

I once set up an extensive and expensive content-based site and spent an enormous amount of time on SEO, only to find nothing ever got indexed.

It was only weeks later than I ran it through a header checker and realised that the clause to output a 404 header was running on every single page. Duh!

[inbound]

My dumbest ever move (or series of moves) was to neglect to register LocalSearch.com & .co.uk in 1999 when I registered a whole host of Local? names (and not go back and register them in the following 5 years that they were available!). The reasoning was that I knew local would become important but Local Search didn't sound right, I thought it would end up being called something else.

Another annoying thing is that, due to a few bits of bad luck, I let some really good local names go before they started to show their worth.

The plus point is that I still own a load of very good .co.uk names in an industry that I'm now very much involved in, so the investment was worthwhile.

[BertieB]

Actually, it happens. I remember seeing an old thread on these boards about Google emailing sites that had 'demanded to be out of the index' by saying:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

Or something similar for Googlebot. Google wanted 'em back, extolling the virtues of being indexed and whatnot. Least they cared :)

Found a (the?) thread [webmasterworld.com] in question from February last year. So maybe not so old. Perhaps there was an earlier one in a similar vein.

Dunno if Brett got such an email when he said 'eat me' to the bots...

[ann]

very funny all, I know I pulled quite a few bloopers until I finally got the hang of it....probaly still doing it but just don't know...LOL

Ann

[trillianjedi]

I've had my fair share of bloopers - often it's the best way to learn.

You can guarantee you'll never make that mistake again ;)

[DamonHD]

Hi,

Or at least probably not *exactly* the same mistake again, unless it is deliberate so as to teach your most junior member of staff just how valuable your long experience is! B^>

Rgds

Damon