Not in the index?

[treylane]

I've got a (legitimate, non-porn, non-spam) website that's been up since September or so that's been visited by googlebot each month since it opened. The site isn't using any 'questionable' SEO tactics like invisible text, redirects, doorway pages, bogus affiliate sites, etc. (at least, not on purpose). The site is fairly usable without cookies and there are links to some static pages on the home page.

Googlebot has never visited anything other than the homepage, and the site has never been included in the index at all. The google toolbar just shows a grey bar for 'current page is not ranked'.

The site is listed in the Yahoo! directory, though still waiting for ODP review. Sent a message to [e-mail] three weeks ago about this problem and haven't gotten a response yet.

Does anybody have any suggestions for what to do? Major rearranging of the sitemap or site functionality isn't much of an option right now, but I think the site should at least be IN THE INDEX as it is, whether or not it ranks highly.

[SEO practioner]

Hello Treylane and welcome to webmaster world!

If I were you, I would write a nice, polite email back to Google explaining them the problem, and include your WW nick... "Treylane" in the email...

Hopefully that should do it

Good luck :-) SEO

[GoogleGuy]

Don't forget to submit the url to our add_url page too..

[SEO practioner]

There he is.. the Man Himself!

Hi there Google Guy.. :-)

GG... I did exactly the same as Treylane today too!
Mine is there since March 11... You will recognize it, I put my WW nick in it... I'm still greyed out too.

:-) Thanks GG Your the best resource a webmaster can have...

[treylane]

I've used the add URL form, had the site added to yahoo and submitted it to ODP, then I tried being patient - two months later, I emailed google (I might not have been OVERLY polite, but I certainly wasn't belligerent), and then today I've posted here asking for help. :-/

Why would mentioning my WW nick in an email to google help? (pardon my newbie-ness :)

[SEO practioner]

We were ALL new at one point too Treylane... and beleive me, we are all still learning too.

It helps if you post your WW nick, because it gives a chance to our great Google Guy! to look at it closer I guess... last time I did that a while back, that new site I had put was in the next major crawl... (Like you, they had forgotten me too the crawl before)

It always helps Treylane... every little bit helps

:-)

[GoogleGuy]

Hmmm. You might see if your site was ever a spammy domain before. You can check on archive.org for older versions of that page. I would send an email to webmaster at google.com with the subject line "reinclusion request" and tell about your domain. Sounds like you've done all the right things so far, so I'd be curious why we haven't crawled it yet..

[treylane]

Alright, sent a reinclusion request to [e-mail] (and included my WW nickname)

According to archive.org, waaaaay back in 2001 the domain was owned by one of those domain squatter sites with the typical assortment of "helpful" links to gambling sites, car buying tips, etc, but archive.org didn't visit very often.

[Alphawolf]

GoogleGuy,

Don't forget to submit the url to our add_url page too..

Why does that submit button remind me of the functionality of the buttons by some traffic lights in New York? It makes people _feel_ like they are doing something. ;)

AW

[SEO practioner]

Google Guy-

You read my mind! In fact, I did just that 3 weeks ago, just to be sure, and Niet! Never been registered or owned before according to archive.org

I was sweating too a bit, before looking up archive.org but I felt better after. The lesson I have learned is: "When in doubt, check Archive.org to make certain your newly-acquired domain hasn't been banned or penalized before... "

:-) SEO

[treylane]

Does google ever respond to these help requests, or do I just have to sit and wait another month to see if the site shows up in the index?

If it's not showing up because of some problem with the site, it would be nice to get some feedback - are there any resources available for troubleshooting these kinds of problems? Any gurus out there with experience in this?

[treylane]

Two weeks later and no word at all? Nobody can even tell me whether the site is banned?