Did your "reinclusion" sites get back in?

If you sent a reinclusion email to Google, did the site get back in?

[Perfection]

During the last update Googleguy said that if your site was ever banned and you think now it has fixed whatever it was banned for, that you should email Google a reinclusion request.

For those of you who did, did your site get back in this update? Mine didn't. There isn't even a slight possibility of anything on this site that could have made Google look at it again, and say no, keep this site penalized, yet it still is. Which is why I wonder, did anyone actually get back in?

[coconutz]

GoogleGuy did mention to send another message to [e-mail] before this month's crawl. See message #85 in the Update thread [webmasterworld.com].

Haven't seen anyone mention that their site is back in, but it may take awhile to get through those reinclusion requests. I just checked for a site that I know sent in a reinclusion request, but no luck. Maybe after next month's update?

[NotePad]

Yes! I had a message board banned because of a redirect, I requested reinclusion and was back in the SERPs within a week, and now the new update has restored my PR as well.

[tsdpsg]

It's been over a month since Google responded saying "We received your reinclusion request and will review your site." No change during this last update.

[allanp73]

I had 2 of my sites re-included after the request. The original problem was I had accidently had background and text colors the same (though in different tables) Google must have thought I was spamming even though the text was visible. I corrected the mistake, but the two sites were already indexed. I tried in vain to get them indexed and Google refused them. I ended up, after a year of trying, giving up on the two sites and built two new ones to replace them. The same content with improved look. Now Google has re-added these old sites and after this last update I now have two copies on the serps. I figure I'll redesign the old sites and change the content so that Google won't think I'm spamming. It has been truly annoying.

[carlr]

I asked for a reinclusion request last Saturday. The website is not "banned" but "penalized" (All interior pages PR0) because it was an expired domain (i assume) - It could also be because of previous spam issue with this domain.

I don't know if "penalized" and "banned" are handled the same way for reinclusion requests. It may help if you let us know your domain status when you asked for the reinclusion

[jeremy goodrich]

More than 2 months - the site banned by Google for more than a year - and still, no luck.

dmoz listing & everything - not 1 thing that goes against the google TOS anywhere on the site.

Seems to me that they either a) hold a grudge for a very long time

-or-

b) they did the whole 'reinclusion deal' for PR (and no, not pagerank :) ) and it wasn't about helping webmasters.

Just my .02 cents. I still like their search, but having a site unfairly banned -> just makes me want to violate their webmaster guidelines even more...

[EliteWeb]

jeremy, i've found many of my sites loss of PR to absolutely no PR this month, not even 0 just none. We will see how this reinclusion request thing works out. Don't know why all of them went down all at once.

[jeremy goodrich]

Hm, nothing happened to my sites this month. In face, traffic is up across the board.

Though, iv'e been wondering - if my site is down as a 'spammer' or what not, and re-inclusion requests fail - do u think I could perhaps get more of my stuff banned by linking to it from the banned domain?

Would be an interesting test...:)

[colinf]

What if your site has NOT been banned but penalized, i think i made an error with internal cross linking and my pages went from top 5 and pr4 down to position 70-80 and pr0 and have been completely thrown out of the Yahoo results.

I have long since corrected this problem and sent an email to Google with no joy.

Which email address (Google) do i use and what do i put in the "subject" field?

[tsdpsg]

You should send it to [e-mail] with the subject line being: Reinclusion Request.

My site has had PR on the home page but PR0 on all interior pages for almost a year and a half. It was great news to hear GoogleGuy say you could request reinclusion early last month. Would certainly like to see this long suffering penalty lifted but haven't seen it yet.

I've replied to their last email asking if they would give a status on it or if you just have to wait it out. Since we don't have much data to help out with the known procedures and steps for this, it's hard to tell what's going on.

[Oaf357]

A few months ago I asked for reinclusion on a site and that next update I was in.

[Perfection]

More than 2 months - the site banned by Google for more than a year - and still, no luck.
dmoz listing & everything - not 1 thing that goes against the google TOS anywhere on the site

Exactly the same thing here, except mine isn't really banned, just pr0 and doesn't show up in the results for any search, even the specific name of the site. Been about 2 years.

I also have a dmoz listing and I must have rechecked every page of the site 20 million times, there is NOTHING even close to spam on it. How Google could look at it and still see any reason for it to have to penalty is beyond me.

I sent another reinclusion request stating all of this, and asking why I didn't get reincluded last time and what, if anything, is causing this site to be a problem. Haven't gotten a reply yet. Maybe even they can't figure out why this site has a penalty?

[tsdpsg]

"Maybe even they can't figure out why this site has a penalty?"

A manual penalty that a real person has to lift instead of relying on the algo?

[rfgdxm1]

>Just my .02 cents. I still like their search, but having a site unfairly banned -> just makes me want to violate their webmaster guidelines even more...

So you are saying you had a site get the Google Death Penalty that was squeaky clean since the beginning?

[tristan]

I've mailed Google with a reinclusion request for two months
in a row now... it's still penalized...
Used to have a decent PR on that site (5), and somehow I
got PR0'd for 4 months, after that it came back with a PR1
on the index, and all subpages PR0 (trust me, I got enough
decent PR links to that site to be sure this isn't normal)
I hope they'll un-penalize that site soon... or at least
give webmasters some service where you can actually see
why you got penalized... (I'd definately be willing to pay
for that)

[carlr]

Now that's a good idea. Seriously.
How many of you guys would be willing to pay $ for re-inclusion (after cleaning your site!)? I would.

[chicagohh]

How many of you guys would be willing to pay $ for re-inclusion (after cleaning your site!)?

I am all for that... I would be trying all kinds of crazy things. If I got banned - just pony up some $ and get back in (with a clean site).

Joe

[carlr]

And how about an online tool that would "validate" your domain and website for technical problems before you ask for inclusion? (A real-time tool)

I would pay for that too 8-)

BTW: I have no more money than anybody here 8-) It's only that I think so many people are spending so much time on these issues and waiting for updates to see if their site is OK etc.

This would be more productive for everybody.
Anybody from Google reading this? ;-)

[EliteWeb]

Offering a way to figure out what is wrong with a domain would degrade google and its value. A spammer could find the secrets by walking thin lines and requesting reinclusion. I dont think this would be an option or a smart one. We as SEO's walk thin lines from the get go, so its our jobs to figure out what may have happened, and if its not anything wrong then reinclusion would be free just like it is now :D

[tsdpsg]

But that's just it. If there was something wrong, it could be fixed and all is good. It's when there is nothing wrong and still not being included in Google that is the issue. After cleaning up and then a year or so in the penalty box seems a bit excessive. A year of internet time is a very long time! I have competitors spamming the heck out of Google being rewarded with high PR and great positioning. Spam reports filed but nothing happens.

I'd definately pay to find out what the problem is. That way I could fix it or maybe be told that the domain will never recover. Are some domains doomed forever, never to recover? If it's mine, then I need to quit wasting my time getting related links, adding valuable content, etc and refocus on something that will be beneficial. Is that worth a fee? You bet!

[BigDave]

GoogleGuy never said that sending the request would get your penalty lifted. He said they were lifting penalties on some domains that had cleaned up their acts, and informed Google. These were domains from specific rounds of penalties.

I also believe he mentioned that the goal was specifically to help out the mom & pop type webmasters that made a mistake and not necessarily those that should have known better.

So, you should give it a try, but don't expect that a reinclusion request entitles you to get back into the index.

[div01]

I got one foot in the door (PR1), though my PR0 had to do with the expired domain issue.

[GoogleGuy]

Just FYI, a reinclusion can take until the next index to get in, and that's assuming that the request makes it in the queue and is approved before the crawl starts.

For what it's worth, I saw several reinclusion requests get approved in time for the new crawl that will be starting soon.

[jeremy goodrich]

thanks for that...

A friend earlier pointed out -> in the new index, my site got it's pagerank back :)

Hm, are you announcing new crawls here too?

Cool. Sounds like good news to me.

[jcoronella]

I had a site that was linked to on the 404 error for all my domains. It was PR0'd, and after a re-inclusion request it is back to a PR5.

Good stuff... once more it pays to be honest and play by the rules.

[Perfection]

Thanks for the info Googleguy.

That's really the only logical explanation I could come up with. That Google reviewed my site, and will allow it to be reincluded, but didn't do it in time for this update. Hopefully it gets in the next one, or else I'm back to just wondering why it's still not in.

[tsdpsg]

I'm hoping the same.

In any case, thanks for communicating with us GoogleGuy. It helps. :)

[rankme]

FWIW, my reinclusion request was successful. Woke up Monday morning to log files showing google traffic. Yippee!

It took about 1 month from the initial email to reinclusion. It took 2 weeks to get a reply to my original email, "Please be patient, we'll review." No other communication since then. (but who needs communication when we're back :->)

My suggestion to Google: Maybe improve communications with us, either directly or through a FAQ here (My request had a happy ending. Yet I did have an anxious month, getting pressured from client, "what's happening with google?"):

1) Reasonably, how long from request to review?
2) For those to be re-included, a quick "you'll be back with after next crawl and update" would be great.
3) For those reviewed and still denied inclusion, reasons why would be great. It's tough to fix something when we don't know what's broken.

[carlr]

Just asking..

Does Google sends any reply/info before inclusion or we have to wait for the update to see if it went through the approval process?

Thanks