Have you e-mailed Google recently and received a reply?

...from a human of course.....;)

[nutsandbolts]

A quickie - has anyone e-mailed Google this year (at help@google, [e-mail] and [e-mail]) and received a reply from a human? Just curious as I don't want to keep on sending these pleading e-mails if they're just being deleted straight away ;)

I did receive a reply from Google 2 years ago.......

[Key_Master]

I've contacted Google a handful of times over the past year and have recieved a prompt and helpful reply each time.

p.s. The </head> tag on the site listed in your profile is misplaced. Also found a <br> tag in your meta keywords. I'm not sure what effect these would have on Googlebot (or other crawlers) but I thought I'd let you know.

[nutsandbolts]

Thanks Key - that site requires a good lick of paint although the penalty applied on it is more to do with my stupid cross-linking last December then my dodgy HTML from 1999 ;)

I must admit to be amazed you got a reply - and a prompt one at that. Okay - I will keep on trying.....

[giggle]

nutsandbolts.

In your profile you say "don't cross-link" - what do you mean by that?

giggle

[NFFC]

>I will keep on trying

I would call it a day, I think they are much more sensitive to email "spam" than search engine "spam" [boy I hate that term, I feel a post coming on]. If you keep bugging them I think it will hurt you in the long run.

[nutsandbolts]

Once a month isn't spamming ;)

Giggle: Try This Thread [webmasterworld.com] :)

[NFFC]

>Once a month isn't spamming

If I had banned you and you emailed me once a month I would ban you forever.

If you beg, buckwheat! :) imho

[nutsandbolts]

Well, if I was banned and if you worked for Google I wouldn't e-mail you either ;)

(I really must stop winking, my eye is hurting....hehe)

[giggle]

nutsandbolts

Thanks, Giggle

[Dinkar]

>>Have you e-mailed Google recently and received a reply?

Yes. Almost everytime (recent email included), I received a reply from a human.

If you have any specific question/problem (Don't ask why I am ban or what's the algo etc etc) then only you will receive a reply.

[nutsandbolts]

Well, it must be the questions I ask then. :(

I'll get my coat....

[rogerd]

I've received replies to about half of the e-mails. While they were definitely human, they also had a cut & paste feel to them. Worse, they reflected an extremely cursory check of the problem and provided incorrect and/or useless information.

At least they are trying. My guess is the PR0 thing created a big jump in queries earlier this year, and they have had to address this with new hires or temps with limited experience.

[angiolo]

I sent an email inquiring about cross-linkings ( a specific question).
I received an automated reply, informing me that someone will read my email carefully and will answer me.

It was about two months ago: I am still waiting..

[Marcia]

angiolo, the whole subject of cross-linking has a lot of unanswered questions. Maybe they're not even completely answerable, even by Google. There's still a lot of cross-linking going on, some from the same source across multiple searches; it's very well done, a beautiful job with PR6 and top-notch rankings for 2 or 3 sites with each they target.

If I wrote asking about those I would 100% not expect an answer. I don't think they'll answer anything related to scoring, especially in this area because it doesn't look like they quite have their act together in this regard. I suspect they don't totally know all the answers themselves just yet. ;)

[latimer]

Key_Master: Which email address did you use for google that you were able to get replys. We have tried several times and only got the usual generic responses.

[soapystar]

ive had one response to 10 emails..the only response was to tell the spam url to report spam..which of course as we all know is a waste of time....since google arent interested in looking at actual cases of cheating...just adjusting filters to catch out as many innocent sites as possible!..call me mr cynical if you like!....

[angiolo]

Hi Marcia!

My question was about the same content in several languages: one site per language. My question was about the possibility to be penalized for cross-linking these sites: giving to the searcher the possibility to switch from a language to another is a good service. I do not think that this is something related to spam. I hope they will answer me..

[rogerd]

Sorry to veer off-topic a bit, but if each site is in a different language, angiolo, I doubt if you will be seen as having identical content.

I think this is the kind of question that would be very difficult to get a knowledgeable e-mail answer to - it really requires higher level knowledge of the spam detection algorithms, which the first line reps are unlikely to have. It also doesn't sound like something that would be found in their FAQ materials (assuming they have something like that).

[angiolo]

My question was articulated with specific questions about ALT tags too.

I would not like to be penalized for something that I think is legitimate. I think that they could have answered me.

In any case I would suggest to Google not to promise to answer personally to any questions! (Or to specify something like "You will receive an answer in the next .. days. If you did not receive an answer after that time, please resend your question...)