Google dropping AWS sites?

[gsmith]

I saw in a recent entry in a popular Internet marketing blog the following statement regarding Amazon Web Services:

However, don't get all excited and think that anyone can do this because for one Google has stopped indexing many AWS sites so they lost their luster a long time ago ...

(emphasis as in the original)

I confirmed this claim at the Web Services forum at the Amazon site.

The question is as follows: Does anyone have any idea how Google might go about classifying a site as an "AWS" site? Remember that a site developed using the web services does not contain the standard "Direct Links", only a shopping cart which upon check-out takes the user to the Amazon site to close the transaction. If I develop a site with sections, say, on widget industry news, widget industry links, and shopping for widgets, with the shopping section containing an AWS cart, could that really cause the site to get removed from the Google index?

[jasonlambert]

I've always thought AWS sites stand a higher change of getting banned when they used the standard book/product description, especially when there are many competing sites serving the same products.

why? Duplicate content filter. If you have hundreds of sites with exactly the same product description paragraphs across multiple pages for multiple products, well, its duplicate content.

If your site actually offers unique content (excluding "fluff" pages - "contact us", "about us", "links" etc), you are less likely to get banned IMO.

[Lalo]

I added few pages with AWS and now all are in google index. Just not on index, but coming up in SERP with few Author name and started hitting. Its a good news for me.

[gsmith]

jasonlambert:

I find your explanation to be much more plausable than anything that I was able to think of. Thanks for answering!

gsmith