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Has anyone actually recieved reason to their website being banned directly from google? Has anyone recieved an answer as to when their website would be possibly unbanned if banned? Last but not least has anyone appealed their website for being banned.
These are issues we have regarding our website listing in google. We would enjoy hearing what other businesses have experienced in regards to this issue.
They offer the guidelines for sites located within their domain...under their /about.html link...and then Webmaster Info...
These guidelines should spell out what Google sees as good practices (though there are plenty of folks either using these guidelines as a launching pad for abuse, ignoring them or just not informed...
Here and there we still hear of clients that spend big dollar with Adwords and the reps tell them if they see problems with their site or if they are peanlized. So you may want to contact an Adwords rep and give them a lot of money. LOL.
Another thing is that these days a lot of penalization in Google is done by algorithms and not manually, so try to remove some of the things that might be problems and see if you get listed. GoogleGuy even mentioned in the last WW conference that "it's amazing how much of spam our algorithms catch these days."
Link farms will still work if you change the template around so that it doesn't flip the dupe content filter.
Simply pick a well known link farm and search for it on google and you will still find pages indexed. anyone remember linkstoyou? I do, and one of my sites got banned 3 years ago for using them. But you can still find pages in google from their link farm.
You can't find as many as you could a long time ago but you can still find a few pages indexed from them.
I still think alot of problems come from dupe content filters. which is why there are problems with page hijackers and 302 redirects too. Google is treating dupe content as spam.
I like googles coverage, however if they had msn, or yahoo, or other famous engine results it could be even better. The changes they have done in the past year have changed their entire search engine.
I was trying to find why a site is not in google anymore, and why we did recieve confirmation it wasn't banned, they simply don't guarantee inclusions. The site has been ignored its quite obvious. I guess some people got lucky with answers from google, I am sure we aren't the only business in the world that hasn't also.
For now we will keep our website on the same domain name and code considering alot of people in our country know and visit our website, and it does just list products and services from our country. I don't feel there is a need to modify the website.
I guess if you want to be in google you have to live with the fact anything is possible it seems. If for some reason your banned, you could be banned for 50 - 300 years or 2 months... This is my entire question, there is no answers (firm ones)...
I was hoping there was more company information regarding the google website banning.
As a crazy example: Imagine if google suddenly banned Cnn or Fox without an excuse or without a date of unban? I could not see this happening without a full disclosure. Now I do know that our website is not anything like these 2 examples, however I am wondering if it depends on the size of your business how this ban is practised. Also what comes in to play, could the type of business you own? I was using the sites/news above as a simple example of business size or type. I am also aware that big companies pay to be in the search results as well, not all however, some just pay to optimize and submit and have enough traffic as it is.
I am just trying to see this in a large aspect.
Lower PR sites get placed into the secondary index and higher PR sites are placed in the main index.
Then there is a "Supplemental results" index where all of the sites/pages go that had errors like 404's and 302's and 301's when the spider crawled and are held there until the spider goes through those pages again on the next crawl.
I think google does this supplimental index because they know humans make mistakes and want to give site/pages a second chance just in case there was a glitch/error or your site was down for a short time.
I think new sites are placed in a fresh index and given "fake Page Rank" for a few weeks until their real page rank is calculated. That is why the new sites rank right away. Because the page rank is not an accurate calculation but just a guess until the next update.
Then when the real page rank is calculated your site is placed in one of 2 databases. If your real PR is high then you get put into the main index. If it's low you go in the secondary database. If your site get's errors when the bot crawled your pages, those pages go to the supplimental results database.
I think this is what is happening. But I see google is messing with the knobs and supplimental results are beginning to rank higher than normal results etc...
This could explain the small trickle of traffic we are all seeing coming from google to our "sandboxed" sites for 4-7 word searches in the last 1-2 weeks. Because they are allowing the secondary index and supplimental index to rank a tiny little bit better than before.
Google is just trying to take the cheap way out instead of dumping money into creating a better more expandable index that can hold more than 4 billion pages. So they just create a second index and then a third and then a fourth etc... Problem solved!
But they are just hurting themselves by doing this. Unless this is just a quick fix to buy themselves some time to perfect the new improved system that can index more pages? But I don't feel like they would abandon the cheap system they have now.
Some of the cheapest people in the world are rich! I know a few.
Has anyone here retrieved information from google saying why their website has been banned?
The key phrase in this sentence is "retrieved information from Google" and the answer is ... Yes! There are several pages on Google's site which can be retrieved by clicking on the links which outline why a site may be banned. I supplied links for these pages in your last thread. I won't do it for you again!
Has anyone actually recieved reason to their website being banned directly from google?
The key phrase in this sentence is "directly from Google" and the answer is ... No ... and you won't because it is not Google's policy to do so. If you bothered to read the links I supplied, you would already know that.
Has anyone recieved an answer as to when their website would be possibly unbanned if banned?
No ... and you won't because it is not Google's policy to do so. If you bothered to read the links I supplied, you would already know that.
Last but not least has anyone appealed their website for being banned.
No ... because there is no appeal process!
First you must do some work for yourself and go over your entire site with a fine toothed comb. Figure out which of Google's guidelines (link supplied in your previous thread) you have managed to break.
Then you need to do more work and fix those things ... assuming of course you have the inclination to actually admit there may be something wrong with your site and then do something about it. Somehow ... I think this is where we will lose you!
Fixing your site could take months depending upon the size of the site and seriousness of the problems. In some cases, it may be easier to just start from scratch with a new site and new url. However, if you want to try to redeeem yourself, start with your index and work down from there. Then you must wait for the googlebot to visit, find your fixes and reindex your site. Once fixed, you will eventually be reincluded in the SERPS.
If for some reason that doesn't work, then you should write to Google and beg forgiveness. Explain which of their guidelines you think you had infringed upon and assure them that it has been fixed. Be absolutely certain that you have really fixed all things which may have caused the ban before doing so.
So give us some details, who did you contact and how? What type of representitive gave you information?
There is nobody to contact and no means by which to do so. There is no "type" of representative unless you are a paying adsense or adwords customer. Its all up to you!
Your right they don't need any reason at all and can pull any #1 website for no reason whatsoever anytime they want and for no reason whatsoever.
Lord you are hard headed! There is a reason your site was pulled! ... you just haven't bothered to look for and find it!
I guess the only way to be sure your listed in google is to pay.
The operative phrase being "to be sure" ... and you are absolutely correct! However, I have never paid and millions of others have never paid because we have taken the trouble to read and ensure that our sites meet Google's guidelines for free inclusion!
Here we go again...Lots of answers yet noone has actually been thru the experience.
My site has never been banned altogether ... because I have never let things go that far! My site has however suffered from many and various types of penalties over the years. Some were very costly and lasted far longer than I liked. But I did eventually manage to figure out what was wrong, fixed the offending pages and all has been forgiven.
The only reason I and all the others are trying to help you though its getting a lot harder which each additional comment from you is because we understand how upsetting and difficult it is to endure through such a trial.
The answers to all of your incessantly repetitive questions are located on the pages for which you were supplied links in your other thread.
You have been given the answers over and over again. Just because you may not like the answers does not mean Googleguy or anyone else is going to come to your rescue and fix your site for you!
If you want to pay somebody to fix it for you, I would imagine you could recruit help in a heartbeat although it would be my guess that you might be a tough one to work for since you seem to have a hard time listening to what people "in the know" tell you!
I don't feel there is a need to modify the website.
... And there you have it in a nutshell! The best solution in your case is to pay Google to list your site and have done with it! We are all wasting our time.
Lord, I'm exhausted! I need coffee. Best of luck to you. I'm done!
After that take a hard honest look at your site, (now that the chip on your shoulder is gone you will see so much clearer) and try and find the problem and then fix it. Then send an e-mail in the most polite manner you can muster and ask back in.
You will get no where however until you find and fix the problem. Chances are you already know what it is.
you'd have a chip too if your site was "#1" and it was banned by the real #1 site ;)
I have to say that I don't think sites always get banned or removed for legitimate reasons. In the current iteration my site, which had been on the front page for ages and has no spamming and a PR5, is gone, but a in its place are a site that's literally been closed for over 2 years and a site that is the biggest internal link farm I've ever seen. He's got hundreds upon hundreds of keyword stuffed urls and entire pages of hidden text on each page. Google actually took care of him for awhile, but as of Friday more of his spammed sites are indexed and are ranked very high as are the sites of another company who also uses an extensive set of doorway pages, redirects, etc.
I'm thinking that this has to be temporary, especially since the site that's been down for 2 years showed up again. That usually only happens when Google does something strange with their algorithm. I did a site: search and only got 4 links, but all of them were for a store that was closed last spring. So, I'm thinking that Google must have rolled something back.
Well, evil includes some of the things that their rapidly growing organization is starting to do. Making huge changes to the search engine right before the holidays is simply wrong. Sure, it would be nice to say that everyone should just pay, but if you've been getting a certain level of traffic for years you can hardly be expected to plan for getting completely wiped out for no reason. It's like having a brick and mortar store that gets walk-in traffic and suddenly coming in one day and the entire sidewalk has been moved to the other side of the street and walled off. Stuff like this isn't allowed to happen and if it does you'll usually see on the local evening news as a huge injustice. You may not pay for the sidewalk and you can't expect anyone to feed you traffic, but blocking you off completely just isn't right.
I hear the Bush adminstration wants to let private companies bid for highway projects now. They would be allowed to make them toll roads and could keep the revenue. If we take the same attitude toward these companies as some do with Google and the like we could soon find highways that only go through certain neighborhoods and to certain locations with money being the barrier to getting anywhere. I'll remind you that Capitalism is a type of economy, not a form of government and it should never trump basic fairness.
I have seen clean sites of my own and my competitors being bumped in favor of lots of throwaway type spam of a sort I never used to find in Google.
You'd think these sites would show up in glowing, flashing neon letters with the word "SPAM" when the algo is going over the contents, but apparently not.
Odd and kinda sad.
I'm almost afraid to post considering how some of you jump down people's throats.
We generally don't start out that way. cdnmarket started this in another thread and paid no attention to what anyone said in that thread either.
I have to say that the search function isn't as helpful as some of the more experienced may think, especially if you don't know what phrase you should be searching for.
That is quite true. But When I first suggested it, I gave an exact search term to use, as did others. Like all other advice, it was ignored.
I have to say that I don't think sites always get banned or removed for legitimate reasons.
Virtually any time a site is manually removed it is legitimate. But there are other reasons that a site can disappear other than being banned.
In the current iteration my site, which had been on the front page for ages and has no spamming and a PR5, is gone,
What do you mean by "gone". This is in fact an important question.
Are you saying that it is no longer showing up on the first page on that one particular search? or are you saying that when you do [site:www.example.com] on your domain name that it comes back with zero results?
How long has this been going on? Sometimes sites disappear for a day or so, for no apparent reason. Then they come right back.
If your site was down for a couple of days, during a heavy crawl, you might disappear for a month or so.
If it has been gone for several months, then something is seriously wrong.
but a in its place are a site that's literally been closed for over 2 years
Now you go off into a bunch of stuff totally unrelated to having your site disappear. As annoying as those other sites are, you should ignore them until you figure out why your site is gone.
If you are gone, it does not matter who is there. You have to actually be in the index to compete.
This includes my "gone" site. I was down for a couple of days over Thanksgiving weekend when Yahoo deleted my store. I was out of town and freaked out because I was out of Google within a day. I got a skeleton site up in 2 days and popped right back to where I was originally which was a huge relief. For the past several years I've gone back and forth from a PR5 and 6. Well, suddenly on Friday morning I woke up and found my site literally gone. I did a site: search and again only found 4 links (3 supplemental). None was for my front page and they were all actually dead urls from a Yahoo store that I closed last spring, moved to MonsterCommerce and then moved back to Yahoo (this time with Merchant Solutions. This was also the store that got deleted and I had to suddenly move it to Storehost when Yahoo couldn't figure out what happened. It has moved a lot, but this is the first time its disappeared completely because of it and the old urls simply don't make sense to me
One in particular doesn't make sense because its an old url, but the cache is of the front page from my deleted site. It has my 'gone for Thanksgiving' message so that means that cache was grabbed over the 36 hour period that it existed before the whole site was deleted. Again, my site did disappear for a couple of days, but popped right back up within a day of the new site going up. As far as I can tell I don't have anything spammy. I have some links to my other sites, but I just added those today. Meanwhile, my competitors, whom Google seemed to have partially banned for their techniques, have actually moved up substantially and their spamming has actually gotten worse. I had someone at Yahoo look at the source code and they were shocked, especially since Yahoo search has completely eaten it up giving them upwards of 5 to 8 spots on the first page (MSN too).
Again, I run a very simple store in a very simple category. I do all of my own sites and certainly don't have time to even attempt doing anything fishy, which is why I think I got banned for no reason.
You also were not banned. Your site was down, google thought it was gone, so all those pages they could not find were pulled.
That allowed more obscure pages from way back to show up.
Now it is behaving almost exactly like a brand new site. It shows up for a day or so, then disappears for a few, then starts working its way back in.
As hard as it is, just be patient. You can't make any judgements according to what is happening so far. You have to give it more time. There is nothing you can do to speed it up.
If it is not getting back to normal by the end of the month, then you should start worrying.
My frustration with Google is the fact that it couldn't be timed more poorly. Yahoo deleting my store (it was built on Merchant Solutions so there was no back-up) was a nightmare, but disappearing from Google right before Christmas for a gift basket site is pretty much death. I wasn't down for that long and it picked me back up right away so I just don't get how 5 years worth of links on different platforms could turn into 4. I did a link: search as well and came up with a big goose egg. Doesn't that seem odd? Same thing with a couple of my other sites. I know for a fact that I've got at least one link! I've gotten press and other links that I know exist but it's showing zero. Any opinions on what would cause that? Thanks again -
Basically, the timing on it sucks, and you are screwed. The best that you can hope for is that you get a rapid reinclusion.
Once you are back in, you can start worrying about that other site. If you want, you can always report them, but you have to be very concise about everything to have any hope to get quick action on Google's part.
Most of the time no disclosure can be worse than disclosure. With no proper ban procedures, guidelines, or proper resources made public, more evil can happen.
This is very big news, and just a matter of this problem happening to the right corporation before something big will happen. This is a very serious issue, and most companies would frown if they knew this was happening. For a very large corporation you would think google would have these simple guidelines accurate, and made public. You cannot enforce laws or guidelines which are not made entirely public and 100% accurate. Google doesn't seem to realise how big they actually are, and what serious problems this will cause. Most businesses with a full understanding of this serious issue would agree.
never seen that happene to a nice person asking for help. Now, if someone is arrogant and demands things, he gets what he deserves.
The other user was not banned, so it absolutely has nothing to do with what you were posting about. Getting screwed by your hosting service is completely unrelated.
In fact, if what was said was correct, they would be well served to attempt to get other sites banned. That would create more sites in your situation, But as usual, you didn't read it very well.
What you WILL find is that this is an amazingly big-hearted list, and if you stop lashing out at everybody and everything, you'll have access to an incredible amount of help that people provide willingly and without cost.
Just stop using the word evil - it doesn't suit a reasoned discussion...
DerekH
(Off to put a tin-hat on, and lie low..)
The post was created to discuss bans with no actual literature made available to the public. There is no firm disclosure, rules or regulations. There is nothing you can say in googles defense other than agree, so therefore whatever your comments are, have no relations to this topic.
As I mentioned earlier No Disclosure is worse than a negative disclosure.
This would be the same as a business having guidelines without any list. What is happening is wrong, and hopefully google will read this post and implement the required changes otherwise a big company will someday smack their hand.
Thats the type of business practise that single business owners may try to pull, not billion dollar corporations.
Just a matter of time before we see a) changes at google OR b)the media getting involved.
You cannot have rules and regulations without disclosure or an actual list.
Why not let others have a chance at saying something, come back next week and then post all your negative comments at once :).
It seems you have both followed me from a previous post, you really dislike the fact I am making a serious issue more publicly known.... odd.
We look forward to hearing from DIFFERENT people who feel the same. If Sergei was asked right now about this issue, I imagine he would likely choke without knowing what to say.
It seems you have both followed me from a previous post, you really dislike the fact I am making a serious issue more publicly know.... odd.
Sorry to take up this forum's bandwidth on whipping myself for the delectation of others...
DerekH
I presume if a website is banned the owner is considered evil? Who are they referring to when they say "Don't be evil"?
I feel making laws. rules, regulations, or disclosure without any paperwork or public posts evil. Thats like being a judge with no written law for the public.
Using the power to judge who is evil and who isn't without any information is entirely evil in itself, and by far worse.
By far these are not accusations, they are simple facts that there is a very LARGE lack of information.
The most important facts are not stated. I would assume that if there is such a ban as a "50 year ban" (which there likely could be, unsure due to lack of information) then the ban should be made public.
I cannot believe that the business google is in pointing people to information that this information is nowhere to be found. What should that make me think?
I am not trying to bash google in any way, in fact I am wondering why our company website is not listed.
Because our website is not listed, and we have checked all other things, we have come to the conclusion our website is banned without any information.
We want to be in google, we just want more information made public so we are not clueless like we are now. Right now we have no clue if our website will ever be in google again, or if it may show up tomorrow, or in 3 years. If anything, this post should give google an idea of the problems not having disclosure can lead to.
I agree with you! You have every right to be angry.
Actually, you should boycott them. Ban Googlebot from your site and use Yahoo or MSN when you need information.
How does that sound? I think eventually Google will realize what they lost, and you'll see them begging you to come back.
How's this for a win-win situation? Teach them a lesson!
If they revealed the "reasons" why "your" site is not listing then they would be exposing some important variables regarding their coveted algo..(actually the fact that "your" site is not listed in Google and you appear to be resistant to making some "adjustments" so that your site will better align with Google's algo...exposes the same info)
Remember...Google is in the business of generating revenue through their advertising channels. The natural SERPs are simply a leverage point to their revenue channels..
"Your" primary question:
"Has anyone here retrieved information from google saying why their website has been banned?"
There's really no reason, legally or ethically, why Google should "inform" any web site owner as to why their site "may" be banned....
All you can do is take a break from this forum...get back to work and figure out what "your" site and, more importantly, "your" network of sites, is doing that is causing you problems in Google's SERPs (if you want to list here)...
Good luck....