was my site penalized? Why?

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was my site penalized? Why?

joejames

3:21 pm on Apr 21, 2003 (gmt 0)

I have been around here for a while but this is my first post. I have a site that I launched in December and by February I had good backlinks and PR. In the last two updates my PR has been a PR0. If I got penelized I think I know why. I had to sites one was widgetsforsale.com and the other was widgets-for-sale.com. The sites are identical but I never tried to promote the second site. I just bought the url to protect my first url. In anycase I removed that site and am now waiting to see what will happen. Is there some way that I could get info regarding my site from google? <snip> If this was the problem it was a honest mistake. Any advise would be great.

Thanks, Joe James

[edited by: NFFC at 3:35 pm (utc) on April 21, 2003]
[edit reason] As per charter [/edit]

jomaxx

3:32 pm on Apr 21, 2003 (gmt 0)

Are both sites PR0, or did Google simply choose the wrong mirror to index?

joejames

3:38 pm on Apr 21, 2003 (gmt 0)

both sites had a PR0. The widgets-for-sale.com site never had any backlinks or was never submitted to google so I didn't expect it to have PR. Looking back I'm not even sure what the reason was for me posting that site since it would have no value.

Traveler

3:59 pm on Apr 21, 2003 (gmt 0)

I have the same issue, exactly.
I had put a duplicate site up to "hold" a URL while some technical issues were resolved...

MY site is ranked PR1, and despite over 33,000 incoming links it has never moved from this position. (I have 5 other sites built for different areas that use the same design and SEO, and ALL of them are PR6)
I wrote requesting re-submission as per instruction in WebmasterWorld (from GG). Of course, I do NOT show on any significant SERPs...

I got a standard reply (assuming form letter) that says "no, we did not penalize you"..."use our rules and regs" "read about Google ranking"....

Now what?

Any advice from GG or ANYONE!? I'm at wit's end!

Traveler

4:02 pm on Apr 21, 2003 (gmt 0)

I have the same issue, exactly.
I had put a duplicate site up to "hold" a URL while some technical issues were resolved...

I got a standard reply (assuming form letter) that says "no, we did not penalize you"..."use our rules and regs" "read about Google ranking"....

Now what?

Any advice from GG or ANYONE!? I'm at wit's end!

joejames

4:13 pm on Apr 21, 2003 (gmt 0)

Hi Traveler, Who or Where to I email to request re-submission? Is there anything else we can do?

Traveler

4:31 pm on Apr 21, 2003 (gmt 0)

The instructions from GG are here:
[webmasterworld.com...]

Let me know how it turns out for you....

joejames

4:57 pm on Apr 21, 2003 (gmt 0)

Thanks Traveler, I will let you know what happens.

Napoleon

9:51 am on Apr 22, 2003 (gmt 0)

Joejames... you may have stumbled upon the same serious problem I did recently.

Tens of thousands of domain names already have a penalty on purchase: these are domain names that have been previously owned and have had a standard 'this domain name for sale' type page on them.

It looks to me like Google has penalized the domain names, possibly because of duplication or similar (well yes, they are obviously duplicates with the 'for sale' sign on them).

Of course you buy afresh and inherit the penalty, for no fault of your own. The penalty is pretty permanent and crosses ownership. Nice one Google!

I too would love to hear GG's take on this. It is a major problem and needs to be addressed by them urgently.

I am also somewhat concerned about the standard 'no penalty' return when patantly there is. It's a real concern this one.