Content removed at the request of the site's publisher.

[x3nos]

I have become aware this evening (10:39PST, 30 Jan 2004) that Google has removed one of my sites from the Google Index. No backlinks, no listings, nothing, no PR and get this when I look @ the cache in google, I get this:

Content removed at the request of the site's publisher.

We have a disgruntled web marketing guy we fired about a month ago, all passwords changed, locked tight etc. No email access nothing. Could he do this through google.com/remove.html automatic URL removal system without root access to change robots.txt file?

Please any advice, consolation or otherwise helpful or hardened sage words appreciated.

Thanks in advance. . .

[x3nos]

Additional Info:

So far, here's possibilities I came up with:

Moved our domain to another DNS 7 days ago, disgruntled postal ex-webmaster, glitchy google weird thing

Sent emails to alot of people @ google, as well as typed up a formal letter on company letterhead tb faxed and fedexed to Google corporate.

[Jenstar]

Ouch. That is the warning they give when a URL has been removed via their removal tool. Have you checked (and triple checked, and maybe run it through a robots.txt validator as well) that your robots.txt file is fine? Then check the meta tags to ensure neither <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW"> or <META NAME="GOOGLEBOT" CONTENT="NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW"> is on the individual pages

[google.com...] mentions that it has to be done with a webmaster with root level access - any chance it could have been done right after he was fired, but before the passwords were changed? Or perhaps he knew and did it right before he got fired?

The good news is that G will only keep that site/url out of the index while the robots.txt (or metas) are disallowing Googlebot. Bad news is that it seems their removal lasts for 90 days.

Did you go and resubmit your site via their Add URL tool? [google.com...] I am not sure if this will counter a removal request, but it couldn't hurt. Getting a high profile backlink that would be spidered right away couldn't hurt either, AFTER you have checked that your robots.txt and meta tags are allowing Googlebot. And finally, did you do a reinclusion request? GoogleGuy gave instructions here [webmasterworld.com].

Good luck!

<added>Generally, those without access to your website files cannot remove a site via the removal tool. If a company has a problem with your content for copyright or trademark infringement, it would go through the DMCA [google.com], you would be notified, and there would be a note at the bottom of the serps that one of the sites that should be listed was removed due to the DMCA complaint. There would also be a copy of it at chillingeffects.org.</added>

[x3nos]

Jenstar,

Thanks for the help. This is the best advice yet. I have been sticky-ing and IMing and so forth all night. I have sent the email as suggested in GoogleGuys post. Also, I rechecked the site and found no direct violation of Googles Webmaster FAQ and do not have either meta or robots.txt issues as detailed in google.com/remove.html or in your post. Thanks again. You rock!

x3nos

[x3nos]

Got It!

I just ran through my robots.txt file more carefully and found sandwiched into all of my disallows a disallow: /. I think is time to change root password. Like now

Thanks for all

x3nos

[webgp]

I made a mistake with my robots.txt and removed all my site from google using google removal tool, I would like only to remove a directory. I sent an e-mail to [e-mail] explaining the case and they reply to me.

Hi ,

Thank you for your note. If your site has been removed per your request,
we cannot manually override your request. Please be assured that your
robots.txt file will be re-evaluated in a few months.

Regards,
The Google Team

My site has page rank 4 at google toolbar and after I corrected my robots.txt file googlebot visit my site almost every day and made some deep crawls. I’m still waiting to come back to google index , 90 days of my removal is at mid February. It seems that my pages are at google index but just hidden form results , if I search the name of my site at google , uncommon word that I use in all my page’s title , is displayed only 45 pages from other domains , but google informs that are about 1800 pages that I think is from my domain , but is filtered because of my mistake with robots.txt.