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It's worth checking for obvious problems. I would traceroute from your server to Google's spidering servers and check that the /robots.txt doesn't return HTTP 403 Forbidden.
Also, you can type www.example.com into Google and see if it gives the "If the URL is valid, try..." link. The absense of that link is seem by some as a sign.
How does one traceroute to Google and are you talking about the robots.txt on our site(s) or Google's?
A whiteout on the toolbar means PR0...grey means you're not in, there is a difference.
A whiteout on the toolbar means PR0...grey means you're not in, there is a difference.
So if it's grey - the site is NOT banned ? just not in the index ?
And if it's while (PR0) - then it's banned ?
No other sites ever get PR0 if they are not banned ?
The minimal normal PR is 1 ?
PR0 isn't banned (or removed), it's just the absence of any page rank for the page, so it will be all white on the toolbar.
>So if it's grey - the site is NOT banned ? just not in the index ?
If it's grey it's not in the index. But it might or might not be banned, or deliberately removed.
>>>If the URL is valid, try visiting that web page by clicking...
I just typed in www.example.com for a site I know for sure was removed from the index, and got that.
However, a site was greyed out and out of the index altogether in December. Finding out that the hosting at the time was having slow response times and downtime, that was suspected as the reason. Sure enough the site was back with the following update, it had just slipped out temporarily.
One might possibly slip out and grey out with the next update because of a nameserver issue with the domain registrar - it was offline for several days right at the wrong time.
That happens, and it's not a big concern, they'll be back in next time around. It can make for some suspense, like December was.
Without knowing whether it's been taken out or just slipped out, it can take seeing how long it's been out or stays out.
I am going through the site to make it squeeky clean but when I have finnished I want to know whether to just resubmit or plead via the Google Anonomous helpline.
What is more important is to find out if the GoogleBot is in your logs. When was the last time the bot visited?
In my case it is a ban. My site got hundreds of links from other websites, but since the last Update it's a PR0. And the link:www.mysite.com search at google brings "No links found".
Maybe it is because I got some hided links on my site? I have disallowed the /css/ directory in the robots.txt and then I made a class in the css which has the same color as the background of the page. Google must have ignored my robots.txt, otherwise they couldn't have noticed it.
greg
CSS being used to hide links is pretty tricky stuff - Google specifically mentions against it. Even if it is off the page CSS - if google looked at it - they still might ban you manually.
I don't make any moral judgements about what is or isn't "spam", but would like to "suggest" that most people that are that tricky - also probably use other methods that google might consider spam. I would find it hard to believe that someone would ONLY add invisible links to their page and nothing else.
the only thing I have on my page are hidden links. No other spam!!
But in fat I believe that the penalty was because of that. I hope it won't last tooo long. Does anybody know how long this type of ban may last?
greg
Welcome to Webmaster World. Yes, hidden links can get you in trouble. If you've removed the hidden links, then you will find out if the penalty has been removed (or partially removed) within 60 days.
Resubmit your site to Google and watch for Googlebot in your logs. If they do remove the penalty, your PageRank might come back in stages. PR2, followed by whatever higher PR later on. Or you may suffer the fate of many here, with low PR on the index page, PR0 on interior pages.
The term of that low-PR penalty is unknown. It could be permanent. If that happens to you (give it a few months to see what happens), you could well be better off reconstituting the site under a new domain name. Good luck.
How comes that my web sites got pushed down in rankings by Web sites that use decent but conciously placed hidden links network with the only purpose to achieve higher rankings and secondly, does any use of CSS raises the red flag?
By the way, the respective Web sites with hidden links have been reported several times since April 02 without success.
How does this pertain to a brand new site on a brand new IP that has no reason to be banned or not added to the index? I have a site that is now about 3 months new, it is in the Google web directory but not the index. The tool bar comes up all white. I am not sure why I have PR0 as this site is listed in ODP. Any ideas?
There were also top and bottom frames each carrying 2 Marquees (left and right scrolling) with lists of about 30 keywords each. Apart from screwing my eyes up and viewing the main content through a letter box, I thought Google may take exception to this.
Needless to say the whole site is now being de-framed and cleaned up at a great rate of knotts.
The main reason for my orriginal question was to find out what to do Googlewise when it is finnished.
Incidentaly to reiterate, the GG Bar is greyed out and GoogleBot last visited in Feb.
