Banned vs. Penalized?

...follow up to "Exiled" Post...

[Jane_O]

Our website uncerimoniously disappeared from Google's database last month... On an earlier post, most people suggested that it was simply a matter of an "unexplained" cause, or spidering failure... I don't believe we have had even a moment of downtime...

Question 1: I tried to use Google's utility for finding sites that link to you - and the result: "Your search did not match any documents." Does this indicate a temporary deletion from the database or a penalty/ban?

Question 2: If it is the latter, what are the contingencies for penalties - permanent exile, month elision, etc?

Thanks - Jane-O

[c1bernaught]

Jane_O,

I have experienced the same unexplained disappearance. The site has never been re-indexed and shows, on the Google Toolbar, to simply be grayed out, not PR0. I have my suspicions as to what happened, but nothing 100% conclusive.

I believe that I had a link to someone who was punished by Google. My site was simply caught in the wake.

A couple things to look at.

1. Look in the Google Cache(www2/www3). Is your site still there?

2. You may want to check the sites you link to. If you find one that is missing from the index, look in the Google cache for it. Then track other sites linked to it and see if they are still in the index.

You may have been caught in the wake of anothers punishment.

Now for Q1:

<<Question 1: I tried to use Google's utility for finding sites that link to you - and the result: "Your search did not match any documents." Does this indicate a temporary deletion from the database or a penalty/ban?>>

Are you using the utility on another site, looking for a link back to your site?

Q2:

<<Question 2: If it is the latter, what are the contingencies for penalties - permanent exile, month elision, etc?>>

You never know, it depends on whether it's a glitch or that you have been penalized. If it's a glitch you will probably show up in the index within a couple of months. If you have been penalized ... well, Google tends to hand out pretty stiff penalties.

[Beachboy]

Jane, it may not have been a matter of your server being down when Googlebot came to visit. The issue could well be a backbone carrier or some other remote connection that failed at just the wrong moment.

If your toolbar is grayed out, it means your site was dropped, and should be back with the following update.

[Jane_O]

Thanks for the replies. Here is the data - perhaps someonce can interpret this for me as a Google penalty OR as a case of merely being temporarily dropped....

1) Our site is not listed in Google www2 /www3 cashe
2) Tool-Bar does not appear to be grayed out - same features as other indexed sites....
3) Tool-bar states "no-backwards links"
4) No "similar pages" listed
5) 0-page ranking....

Again, no SPAM infractions were committed, and I don't use any SEO software or submission programs.... creepy

I'm really at a loss here and we appreciate a professional interpretation of this data... wow...

Jane

[ciml]

Can you find a page with decent PR that links to a URL (spelt exactly the same) on your site that has an all-white PageRank chart on the Toolbar?

If so, and if the page that links to you seems to pass PageRank to other pages, then it sounds like it may be an automatic, "PR0 style" penalty.

I advise you to look carefully; in my experience most people who think they have a penalty do not.

[nancyb]

ciml,

I'm confused ... I thought that googleguy, and others, stated that a link from a page without a link back could not cause a penalty??

If that isn't so, then it would be possible for any competitor to link extensively to other sites from a "bad neighborhood" that they created just for this purpose.

Or - did I read your response incorrectly?

[ciml]

Sorry nancyb, I didn't word myself well.

My suggestions above is to try to prove that the domain is penalised. If Jane can find links as I describe then almost certainly she is. Proving the negative (in this case that the domain is not penalised) is much harder.