Did Google Ban Me?!

Heads Up: The Truth About Being Banned

[martinibuster]

One of the most common questions posed on WebmasterWorld is the question about being banned. It seems that there are many people who fear they have somehow innocently (or not so innocently) transgressed Google's rules and have been banned- the only explanation, in their minds, why their websites do not rank.

That is not necessarily the case. There are many factors that go into a website's search ranking, and banning is apparently one of the last reasons why your website may not do too well, according an engineer at Google.

In a recent interview with Daniel Dulitz [e-marketing-news.co.uk], he makes a comment about "banning" that I think will be of interest to the many who fear that they have been banned"

you cannot get banned from Google for life... But
yes, you know particularly, and these are extreme cases...
Yes, bad spammers could be removed from the index. But
that happens so rarely. I mean, very rarely...

[wanna_learn]

I dont believe its "very rarely".
Last 2 months they have been screwing like anything for no subtantial reason.

[sem4u]

I can think of a couple of domains that come under the "very rarely" category, but it is true that most banned domains do come back after a period of time once they have cleaned up their act.

[cabbie]

On of googles latest trick is to ban domains but leave their pr showing.I have seen pr7 sites banned and retain their pr.
And of course there is banning and there is penalties and sometimes those penalties last a life time regardless of whether the site has cleaned up its act.

[I_am_back]

and banning is apparently one of the last reasons why your website may not do too well

There is a HUGE difference between banning and not ranking well. If your site is banned you will no rank at all!

I do believe that it is very rare for sites to banned. Not "doing so well" is more common than 'doing well' by a mile.

[percentages]

I think we need to differentiate between a penalty and "banned". I think it is true that banning happens "very rarely", however penalized but still in the index is a more common issue.

To my way of thinking a ban applies if you have been indexed with stability for several months and a search at Google for www.domain.com AND domain.com produces nada.

If Google can still find the domain you are not banned, but if you are penalized you may not show in SERPs.

[JoeyBall]

After the florida update my site dissappereared from google, my site still shows a pr6, still shows its backlinks, still hows the cache page but the site donesn't exist on google.com

Has my site been banned then?

[I_am_back]

Has my site been banned then?

Looks like it. But do you really "not exist" on Google, or only some pages, and/or some pages are just ranking very poor?

[hillborg]

A site can have a very bad position, e.g. 794, without being banned. Dirty tricks result in penalties. For example trying to hide text on the site, using the same background- and foreground colors. Or extreme keyword stuffing can also result in penalties, e.g. using a title, which is 1000 characters long.

[jbinbpt]

Yes... The truth is out there. Thanks martinibuster.

A point that I think needs to be stressed, is that you have to work at getting banned. It doesn't happen by accident.

Look at all the bad code out there. It displays. It gets indexed. Users click on it.

Is there an editor package out there that has an "INSERT EXTRA KEYWORDS HERE" button, or "DO YOU WANT THIS TO BE A DOORWAY PAGE?" button?

We all read about how to tweak our pages from many sources, the trouble is a lot of people believe them.

What gets people into trouble is coding for the SE's and not for the users.

jb

[merlin30]

"Is there an editor package out there that has an "INSERT EXTRA KEYWORDS HERE" button, or "DO YOU WANT THIS TO BE A DOORWAY PAGE?" button? "

Web Position Gold!

[superscript]

"Yes, bad spammers could be removed from the index. But
that happens so rarely. I mean, very rarely..."

This has been my experience - my sites are clean, but I have seen gross abuse of the guidlines by my competitors go unpunished for years. I would triple check whether you have been banned before jumping to any conclusions!

By the way, it's worth noting that many spammy sites are rubbish sites - that's probably why they've resorted to spam. I have had a spammer in the position directly above me for 2 years - I considered reporting it, but it is such a horrible, useless, empty, ugly site, that I never bothered. The second reason I never bothered is that Google doesn't seem to take any notice!

[ciml]

I agree that very few domains are banned, but a significant number are penalised in various ways. Usually, people can't tell but at times like these the folk-law starts to spread.

I guess it won't be long before people start complaining about the new-style phrase penalties when really they just haven't done enough to rank well. "I rank well for blue fuzzy widgets in mytown but not for widgets. It must be a penalty!".

[superscript]

CIML

I rank well for blue fuzzy widgets in mytown but not for widgets. It must be a penalty!

Agreed, but I'm now in the position where I rank better for 'widgets' than 'blue fuzzy widgets in mytown'

To paraphrase Churchill:

I cannot forecast to you the action of ****. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is ****'s ***** interests.

;)

You may care to substitute either 'Russia, 'Russia' 'national' or
'Google', 'Google', 'financial' into the above :)

[Nicola]

Agreed, but I'm now in the position where I rank better for 'widgets' than 'blue fuzzy widgets in mytown'

But from a surfer's point of view, they want to see sites about widgets.

WHY do off topic message boards, icq portals and blogs rank higher than the blue fuzzy widget site? When after all they are relevant to widgets AND blue fuzzy widgets?

[finer9]

Another good point is the 'no pass on PR' penalty...I believe this exists. My experience has been that a domain will keep PR and backlinks, but NOT be cached, no matter what if this is the case.

[ciml]

finer9, I think the 'can have PR but not pass it on' thing approaches its first anniversary (maybe it's there already?), yet I can still see affected pages making a good few thousand US dollars per month for the links.

So maybe there's as much problem with people not recognising penalties as there is with people seeing penalties that aren't there?

[superscript]

CIML,

The banning of a site by Google, whether temporarily, or permanently, is certainly a penalty.

But do you agree that what is often mistaken for a 'penalty' or even 'semi-penalty' isn't a penalty at all. It is merely the downgrading in relative importance of a factor that was previously benefitting your site?

I think this is an important point, and I'd welcome suggestions for a new term for 'penalty' - as in many cases it is causing confusion.

[nileshkurhade]

some sites never get banned or penalized thats what i think? search for "<snip>" and check out the second page. Full of spam results. (even first page has them). These sites have maintained there position pre-florida, florida, post-florida and even now on www2 and www2 including www-in. So i believe

But
that happens so rarely. I mean, very rarely...

[edited by: ciml at 2:57 pm (utc) on Dec. 9, 2003]
[edit reason] No specifics please. [/edit]

[martinibuster]

>>It is merely the downgrading in relative importance of a factor that was previously benefitting your site?

I can see that being the reason for many people, especially the PR challenged and sites with minimal content, that tend to bounce around a bit more.

[super_seo]

Would you say though that if your site has 1000s of incoming good links and its now missing in action as in non existant on the search engines and there have been no spiders for months that would be a google gliche or a ban?

[finer9]

Ciml - Agreed! People need to learn. It is my belief that if Google does not show a page with the 'cache' operator, something is going on, regardless of PR and backlinks.

[Chndru]

>You may care to substitute either 'Russia, 'Russia' 'national' or
'Google', 'Google', 'financial' into the above

Hehe...superscript..i think it's margining into politics. Not received with very good taste here :)

[rshandy]

Hi everyone - new to the forum -

I have also been "penalized" for our site...but, not on all KWs.

Our url kw1-kw2-kw3 - scores well for a search for kw2 kw3. And non existent for search of kw1 kw2 kw3 and kw4 kw3!

I've listened to alot of theories regarding backlinks and the like, and have a few questions:

If your url happens to be your KWs as well, how can one possibly control all the inbounk links? Logically, other sites use the name of our site as the link text. Many will use ODP, et al desciptions. If there's a Google threshold for inbound links with keyword anchor text, it seems virtually impossible to prevent a penalty.

Does Google care whether the internal links on your page(s) are relative or absolute? If so, what's best.

Does Google consider "link text" for a graphic the "alt" tag? If not what is the link text for that inbound link (from a graphic) - the pages title?

I'm pretty shocked from the recent update as we have been the "authority" in our field for years and have been on the top page for all that time. Historically, our search position has been due to our unique content and overall customer web experience.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[satanclaus]

its not that hard to get a site banned. I can see inexperienced SEO doing it quite easily. Kinda like SEO Darwinism

[bcolflesh]

banned = your site has absolutely no listings in Google - none

penalty = none of your site pages have any PR in Google

any other situation = not banned, not penalized.

?

[allanp73]

"banned = your site has absolutely no listings in Google - none
penalty = none of your site pages have any PR in Google

any other situation = not banned, not penalized. "

My situation is similar to what others expressed. The sites have pr and show backlinks, but are not in the index. I search using the URL and still nothing.
I don't understand why two of my sites were removed they used only whitehat techniques and I never spammed in any way. The sites were both ranked #1 for all year for major keyword, then one day gone completely. I wonder if a competitor wrote a spam report against me. I tried appealing to Google and received no response. It has been like this since June and I don't know what to do next.

[dirkz]

For many sites I see, even cloaking and hidden links don't help to get banned :)

Guess it's really not that easy!