Forum Moderators: open
We are a small company based in Minnesota.
Last year we hired an outfit to "beef up" our web site and conduct some opt-in email marketing for us.
I'm sure you've heard this sad story before - but I believe that based upon the "invisible" words they placed on our site and the "spamming" they conducted in our name, our sites have been removed from the Google directory. I personally approved their activities, so I have no one but myself to blame.
I don't know how to say this without sounding a bit pathetic - but I made a serious mistake in selecting this vendor - I've reported them to the FTC - and we've clean up out site completely. And we no longer conduct any bulk-email marketing of any kind.
To the best of my knowledge, we are not now doing anything wrong or anything that goes against Google's Terms of Service. Please let me know if there's anything else I can do to get back in Google.
[edited by: heini at 8:55 pm (utc) on Mar. 13, 2003]
Well, looks like the damage is done. Google has, like all good emporers, released some domains from the penalty box. Lots of domains never came back.
My advice would be to write to Google directly. Since they rarely give out anything else but canned replies, you would want to try it more than once.
If you put all blame on hideous snake oil selling seos, Google will on a slight chance be more willing to forgive you.
In the meantime, assuming there's no easy recourse, I would consider starting out fresh. You could buy a new domain name, take one that's good for branding, buy listings in Yahoo and other directories, where you can buy PR, pay for adwords and for OV PPC for a quick start.
Let me invite you to stick around here for a while, Dan. You will get a feeling for what is good and safe playing optimization and what's more risky very fast. If in doubt just ask, and you are sure to get educated help at any time.
I don't know how to say this without sounding a bit pathetic - but I made a serious mistake in selecting this vendor - I've reported them to the FTC - and we've clean up out site completely. And we no longer conduct any bulk-email marketing of any kind.
afaik, Google does NOT ban for Email SPAM, so I am assuming that its the SEO tricks you refer to that have done the damage.
as Heini has mentioned, stick around and seriously consider plan B with a new domain name.
from registering a domain to being indexed "can" be as short as 48 hours with the help of "ethical promotion partners"
Shak
