Server Wide Penalty

8 domains penalized this update

[RoosterTail]

I'm running a cohosted server from which I have finally accepted that I have been given some level of penalty. The server hosts 12 sites, and of the 8 that are publicly available - all are showing a zero since this past update.

Each site is different. Each site features unique content. While a few of the sites are based around similar topical catagories, they cover a spectrum of information.

I had been doing well with my sites in Google, not top 5 rankings anywhere but the typical results from a mildly-optimized site with a PR of 3 to 6. Now, 8 sites within that same PR range from last month, are no longer showing anything. They are all white.

I have uninstalled the toolbar because I am paranoid that it could have been an issue. The fact still remains that I would like to find out why all of the sites run on my cohosted servers are being penalized for something that was not done intentionally.

I would like to find out what changes need to be made for reinclusion to the Google index, and what steps would need to be taken in order to ensure something like this does not happen again.

Thank you.

[tbird]

First of all, try not to panic.

I have uninstalled the toolbar because I am paranoid that it could have been an issue.

Rest assured that the toolbar is not the problem.

If you are guilty of spam fix it.

Then send an e-mail to [e-mail] with the subject line "reinclusion request." It never hurts to mention Webmaster World--seems to get quicker attention.

[martinibuster]

Hi Roosty, welcome to WW. Thanks for not posting any url's, very cool.

My question to you is, what do you mean by "mildly optimized?"

Another question, do you use any robots meta tags on these web sites?

Are you using a robots.txt?

Are you using any position checking software?

[edited by: martinibuster at 11:16 pm (utc) on Mar. 11, 2003]

[BigDave]

How old are the sites? Was your server down during the last crawl? Are they in the index, but not showing in the SERPs or are they totally gone even when you search on the domain name? Were they previously expired domains when you bought them?

[Mr_Muff]

Not an expert but I run a few sites with PR 3-5 and I have a few friends which are interested in G as well...

All I can tell you is that something has changed in G's algoritmus.

If your sites have been doing well until this update, maybe you shouldn't change anything and wait for another update... If it continues (low PR) then you have a pretty good reason to find out what has happened and start rebuilding your sites! Otherwise it'll be OK again...

I really don't know what had happened, friend's site went from 6 to 4 and no radical changes at all!

This is just my advice... Wait and don't panic!

[edited by: Mr_Muff at 11:13 pm (utc) on Mar. 11, 2003]

[RoosterTail]

Mildly optimized: Unique page titles, text links, incorporation of headlines, etc.

The sites have been around for a few months at the very least. Some of them have been around since last summer.

To the best of my knowledge, they were not previously registered. If they had been, they would have been registered a long time ago (well over a year from now).

There are no robots.txt files there, and there never has been. No META robots either. In fact, none of my sites even have META tags at all because they're of little use (aside from INK, based on what I've heard.)

I have emailed [e-mail] with a reinclusion request. How long does Google take to respond? Any ideas?

Thanks much, for replies and the welcomed feel. I'm new to posting here, but certainly not reading. :)

[RoosterTail]

Does anyone know how long it takes for Google to respond to the Reinclusion Request emails?

Just looking for a heads up as this greatly affects my business and my clients for whom are hosted on my server.

Thanks again for everyone's sound advice.

[dwilson]

If each of the 8 had links to each of the other 7, you might be running into a cross-linking penalty. Just guessing here.

[mayor]

Did you change IP addresses for these sites within the past several months? Some people have reported Googlebot is lazy about updating it's nameservers, perhaps by months, in which case the bot could have been trying to fetch your sites/pages at a "vacant lot".

[RoosterTail]

One of the sites domains had the IP changed, but that was because my client had told me that he was unable to connect to it via FTP. From what I can tell, we've resolved that situation and it is back to the original IP that had been used.

[Bradley]

As bigdave pointed out, was your server down for any period of time? If Googlebot came-a-crawlin, but you weren't home, then google might think you are gone (temporarily).

[RoosterTail]

According to Netcraft, the last time the server was restarted, it was back in Feb. of 2002. Well over one year ago.

[NotePad]

>Does anyone know how long it takes for Google to respond to the Reinclusion Request emails?
Just looking for a heads up as this greatly affects my business and my clients for whom are hosted on my server.

Thanks again for everyone's sound advice.

I requested reinclusion and it was back in within a week :)

[RoosterTail]

Excellent news notepad. Now, I'm hoping for a reply. :)

[NotePad]

after i sent the email, i got a form letter response right away, about 3 days later i got another from a human saying they were about to look at it (my server was down at the time so i was paniced LOL)
the next day it was back in the index with its proir #1 position.

it still shows PR0 bbut i expect the PR to return next update hopefully :)

THANKS GOOGLE TEAM!

[BigDave]

The time it takes them could vary greatly. It would depend on why you were not in this index.

[RoosterTail]

Got the response from Google Team, indicating that none of the domains I sent to them had been penalized.

Why then, would my PR have dropped anywhere from 3 to 6 all the way down to zero?

I've pulled screenshots of the toolbar on the domains, and there is about 1 pixel wide of green there... What does that mean?

[martinibuster]

Hi Roosty,
Could it be link rot? That's when the value of an incoming link goes down because the values of the incomings of your incomings had gone down, going backwards down the line like a domino effect.

A couple of the sites I manage bounce up and down in PR because their links are always changing (Inbounds from the press and concert halls,etc). So the quality of the links from them to me fluctuates as well, which buffets my own PR.

Remember, Google added many more pages to the index which can dilute PR.
Certainly your drops are dramatic, but were they dependent on a single type of inbound link (i.e. guestbook, press, reviews, blogs)?

Did you check the PR of those who are linking into you?

Did you check for a list of inbounds at FAST/AllTheWeb (more complete)?

[RoosterTail]

See thats just it, I can't find any links at all coming into these sites anymore. They're simply showing no results.

That, along with the white PR bar is what lead me to believe that the sites had been penalized.

[martinibuster]

Did you check for a list of inbounds at FAST/AllTheWeb?
Do you for a fact that anybody is actually linking to you?