Forum Moderators: open
It's 7AM in the morning so pardon my slurred typing. :)
I woke up today to find that my site is now out of google and the page rank bar is "gray". Literally overnight this happened to the site.
It's been in google since April of last year so it is very odd for something like this to happen overnight. No spamming or any banned things have been done on my part. I have other sites that are also listed, but they are fine, just one site in particular has been ousted.
Any ideas why this happened? Could a competitor be messing around by "spamming" on behalf of us?
Now I'm really worried! Please let me know your thoughts,
Ronnie
<snip>
[edited by: ciml at 1:04 pm (utc) on Mar. 19, 2003]
[edit reason] Let's keep it general please. [/edit]
I totally agree with you. It really does seem that Google is sacrificing its results. I wonder if this is to boost their money from the AdWords program? Maybe their goal is to get less targeted results in the actual listings thereby making searchers click on the ads boosting their AdWords cash.
There are quite a few keywords in a music software search that link to "link farms" and "search" pages that point to Overture listings instead of real results. Previously it would point to sites with more accurate results (not just my own site, but others who are in the same boat).
I'm pretty sure that the cross-linking issue was not a problem at all. It wasn't heavily done and other sites actually have the cross linking on every page of their site for over 100 pages.
Is Google effectively shutting down affiliate sites?
What's your take on things?
I can't see anything on your site that would warrant getting shut down other than your site is identified in your profile here, although I haven't heard of that being a problem before.
There are other affiliate sites in your industry I see that have not been banned. For some reason, your site was targeted but I cannot tell why.
Yeah, it must be FrontPage automatically entering that. I use include pages for ease of update.
Regarding my previous post, what do you think? Banning affiliate sites? Boosting AdWords cash? Or perhaps it's just the luck of the draw and my straw was the shortest there?
I haven't heard too many people talk about this, so, as with my own experience today, it must be limited to a small percentage of sites.
Personally, my quick peek at your site didn't reveal anything at all to be concerned about. You have a great balance of text and graphics, and in my opinion, have not over-used the links at all.
IMHO, I would not change anything for a day or two and see if Google settles down a bit and gets you back in the game. If no improvement, then there are some great people here that can take a harder look at things and strip it down to re-submit to Google.
GoogleGuy mentioned the proper email address and subject line that can getting a quicker response from Google, if that becomes necessary.
PS: Also, if you are a drinker, you may want to have a 'double' tonight.....
I have 2 small sites on a related topic, one essentially being a subtopic of the other. There is no fishy crosslinking between the 2 (as in on every page); and quite obviously nobody could have much of a link farm if the entire farm were 2 small sites. ;) I'm beginning to worry that Google is setting the bar so low even 2 sites is spamming? :(
I could not find the link - but did (finally) find my notes:
GoogleGuy: "If you think your site may have penalties for violating Google's guidelines, but the site has now corrected any problems, you can email to webmaster@google.com with the subject line "reinclusion request." Wait to email us until you're sure your site complies with our quality guidelines at [google.com...] "
Hopefully you won't need it.
Steve
Thanks for insight and for helping calm the nerves. I've always strived to have great content, not just affiliate links. That's really important to me, of course!
Oh, and I think a triple is in order for tonight. :)
rfgdxm1, This situation that we are dealing with is just a reminder that it is important to follow the terms that Google clearly indicates. Whether or not you follow the rules, we're essentially at the mercy of the Google Gods which you hope to never disturb.
Thanks netguy for the info about reinclusion!
Ronnie
This has been a good discussion so far! Good content and informative insight from everyone which is much appreciated!
As this whole thing unfolds, it is becoming clearer that in all probability, there is nothing that was done wrong to trigger a ban. I know my site is not heavily cross-linked, and looking at Zzargo's, that doesn't seem to be the case either. Could it be something else I am completely unaware of?
And, does anyone know how a ban is enforced? Is it by IP? URL? Both?
I am now intrigued by the notion that certain sites, with certain content maybe in the cross hairs of external forces exerting their influence.
What are people's take on censorship and the Internet? It must put Google and other SEs in a tough position who want to defend free speech and the free flow of information, but still have to be cognizant about certain materials which may be socially/criminally questionable?
zzargo... as I mentioned in an earlier post, I think there are some flaky things going on with Google lately. We have a couple dozen sites that are stable, and a couple where there are weird things going on with the keyword results (dramatic changes in total results, old cache coming and going, etc).
I've been doing a bit of analysis on various keywords, and there are some really weird SERPs coming up, so hopefully you are right Netguy. Hopefully Google is just in a strange mood. I wish I can share specific examples, but I am seeing fringe search engines appearing in the results, along with sites that appear to be nothing but link farms. Very strange!
PS: Also, if you are a drinker, you may want to have a 'double' tonight.....
Ah yes, a few drinks should just begin to polish a bit of the edge off... no one said life on the web would be easy! :)
Thanks all!
g.
One minute we were doing OK - next Gray Bar city and the sites aren't listed
BUT - The really scary thing...
I hadn't looked at the sites in ages and clicking links etc and checking all our sites, I noticed one that isn't even ours! In error, we're listing a site as our own that isn't ours. Lucky guy, he's been getting traffic free of charge.
Now we've vanished from the DB, so has he - unlucky guy!
This shows is couldn't just be a site down when Googlebot visits problem, it's definitely something more sinister...
hmmmm bfb.... I was wondering why it was only my 'conservative' pages that were missing. Looks like this could be the result of a liberal conspiracy now that Al Gore is advising Google......... ;)
[theregister.co.uk...]
Our commercial property in Iraq pages have been left untouched!
:)
I was doing some digging around and found some interesting threads that may or may not be relevant for this discussion.
This thread covers affiliates links/sites and Google's handling of them:http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/6738.htm
JamesR: you mentioned in a previous post that Google wouldn't ban affiliate sites. Agreed. In doing so, there would be serious consquences because a lot of sites would get swept away.
Nonetheless, would Google even consider cracking down or applying tighter standards in the future on affiliate sites?
This thread covers small sites vs. big commercial sites:http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/8101.htm .
This thread ties in with the first one, in that some smaller sites may not be on equal ground when it comes to the web, especially when it comes to financial resources.
I don't think this is necessarily the case because there is a lot of room on the Web for the hard working. It's just a matter of being smart and resourceful (ethical) with the tools you do have.
Google and others have been "generous" in offering free indexing of sites. How long will this business model last?
I guess I'm taking this thread in more of an Internet marketing direction and how it relates to Google and other "free" search engines.
Google has done some great things for the Internet and I can understand from a business perspective, they would want to capitalize on their efforts.
Do affilate sites have to be worried about how things will evolve and how SE's will index and return SERPs?
Has anyone else that may be lurking see their site drop out of the index over the past couple of days?
With my experience the past couple of days with my site, I'm a little perplexed and worried about what the future may hold.
Thanks.
On the other hand, it can be tempting to produce a several hundred page site with no substantial content in order to target phrases and promote affiliate links. These kinds of sites are unlikely to be viewed kindly by search engines, but that's not down to the affiliate links.
People worry too much. If you publish good content in a human and robot friendly manner and Google will like you.
From what I've seen so far, Google's introduced some cross linking penalties, but not on the scale of December 2001. There may be other penalties still to come of course...
