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It's quite clear from reading this forum alone,
that's it's quite easy and very possible to
knock someone of the rankings who are competition.
In effect Search Engine Ranking attacks!
It's also clear, that google just have no policies regarding
this, and if someone is given a low rank, they clearly
couldn't do anything about it. Google are now so powerful, I think this is a very worrying situation.
Has anyone else had loss of ranking that could be attributed to an Attack, by a competitor or for some other reason?Google Penalize URL's on Spam Reporting Sites?
A site of mine has just disappeared off the scope (from page 2 to page 102).
..... It has been there for some time with no major changes (just info, pricing updates, etc.).
[ GrinninGordon ]Google Bomb Attack?
We also got a couple of sites banned due to a competitor signing a ton of guestbooks and listing these few sites with them to
eventually get us eliminated from their index.[ trueMarketing ]
I hate to admit this, but sometimes lawyers are quite usefull.
decease and desist...
LOL! - bring in Murder Incorporated.
1) Have you noticed how GG has steered clear of this thread?
2) dwilson "The only methods y'all have come up with that arguably could hurt a competitor involve stealing his content"
As things like medication / medical disclaimers (for example) are written by the manufacturers and have to be carried / shown by all Internet sales site, Google has either a problem with this (as everyone has to basically have these disclaimer pages and using the same same text), or passes that problem on to other sites.
I wish Google would state they do this as fact. As I, for one, as the original author for certain disclaimers on the net would like to ask Google if they will drop every site that came after mine for copyright theft / duplicating my content (including the manufacturer!).
So, as I did digress a little, let me get back to the point of my original post and tone it down a little.
In a nutshell, our company had a couple of sites, they were both doing very well in Google (first page for 5 of our top 8 keywords). In fact, we were number one for a few of the keywords.
After a Google update in November/December 02, we were totally blacklisted....GONE!
After a little digging, a co-worker found a bunch of backwards links to our website to guestbooks, an overabundance of them (263 legitimate search engine/directory links and around 90-100 guestbook entries).
We feel this was done by someone outside of our company within the same market to penalize us. I mean, who else would have the time on their hands to make all those posts for fun, right?
After several pleading emails to Google and receiving a half automated/half personalized response saying they "perform automated experiments" and that the website was taken out for that reason, they also concluded in a later email that the root of the problem was in the types of links pointing back to the sites, or a relevancy ratio/quota (I don't remember the exact wording now).
So, now we can do nothing about it. I've even gone so far as to personally email almost all of the guestbook owners/webmasters to delete us, but have only succeeded in getting a few to delete the original post from the guestbooks.
So, what to do now? GoogleGuy? Anyone?
Seems we were taken to the cleaners big time, so any input is helpful.
Thanks
Truemarketing,
this is the kind of email you should save! Can you remember anything else from it? I also think that since you have that many directory links there are more gb links out there than those +/-100 you've found.
I don't have any good suggestions for what to do next. Others have proposed sending a c&d, but the problem is: far from all sites are in US. And harm has already been done, you are out of top ten. I would suggest you continue to pressure the adms of the guestbooks, later sending another email to google outlining the situation once again, detailing what you have done to try to rectify the situation.
1) Have you noticed how GG has steered clear of this thread?
He probably knows that, if google get a whiff of what they consider spam or "wrong" in thier, you do get demoted/banned/etc..
Even if that person hasn't done anything wrong, he
knows that that person can't do anything - google won't
listen.
Which is a big moral flaw in google, they clearly are too powerful now.
So, now we can do nothing about it. I've even gone so far as to personally email almost all of the guestbook owners/webmasters to delete us, but have only succeeded in getting a few to delete the original post from the guestbooks. [truemarketing]
QED.
I expect this thread and ones like it is responsible for the new "GOOGLE ALSO SAYS.." new thread by googleguy.
Clearly an attempt to try and help webmasters who may have advertantly broken some of their golden rules.
It's still NOT ENOUGH. Why someone would to sent a present to googleguy is beyond me!
I assure you that this site was the most properly formatted website with unique content, hardly of which you would find anywhere else on the web. There is no question from a number of SEO experts that this site was following every guideline to the utmost degree.
In regards to the email from Google, it reads (quoting exactly):
--------------------
Thanks for your email. Google routinely runs small experiments aimed at improving the quality of our search results. Occasionally this means the results you see may vary from those seen by other users. During this process sites not only shift in their ranking, but new sites are added and some sites completely fall out of the index.
Google also frequently updates the pages in our index of websites in an effort to improve quality. Not all of the more than 10,000 machines serving Google results can be instantaneously updated, so there may be some variation in what you see when you conduct a search multiple times.
These fluctuations in search results occur automatically and are not the result of manipulation by any individual at Google or elsewhere. We hope this clarifies the reasons for the variation in the results you have seen.
Thanks for taking the time to write to us.
Regards,
The Google Team
---------------------------
Although this was the first "real" email I received, it still doesn't clarify anything. In the later email they simply state...
"because the ratio of websites pointing to your URL are non-relevant topics, a large portion of them being guestbook entries, this may be the reasoning for the website's elimination from our index."
So, where we are now is back to square one with no definitive answer or concern from Google about how we can even rectify something we never did in the first place.
They simply will not listen to us. It's great to see that Google's "small experiments" have cost us so much time, effort, and money in our small company. {sigh}
I was ridiculed for posting a while back that I believed a domain was banned because of excessive, malicious guestbook entries, and Google themselves seems to suggest that this can happen.
Mfishy, it sound like you should thank whoever put you up to pr 7 for three months.
trueMarketing,
Your first email listed is a canned reponse, not a 'real' email. The second is the one that; a) You don't seem to have a copy of even though it came in after the one you did save. b) Certainly does not sound like anything anyone from Google would say. c) Can't be real because as we all know, Google does not respond to anything.
I think you have missed the point. I had legitimate links for months and a PR 7. The guestbook crap came later. Why would I want to thank them for being removed from the index?
I'm sorry that you do not or have not had good experiences with Google responding to you or someone you know, but I'm definietly not lying here.
Also, about our PR. It was a stable PR5 before the penalization from Google. We had this PR at 5 for four months before and also had a growing, stable network of backwards links from Yahoo, Dmoz, and tons of other directories and portals that linked back to us.
With this recent index, we are seeing the grey bar from Google fluxuate from grey to an actual PR. So maybe we will see something happen on a positive note this month (I will not hold me breath though).
>"because the ratio of websites pointing to your URL are non-relevant topics, a large portion of them being guestbook entries, this may be the reasoning for the website's elimination from our index."
When did Google send this e-mail? I believe GG once posted that quite some time back, they did penalize because of guestbook links, but no longer do so. Given that this idea of guestbook signing has been well discussed in this and many other webmaster forums, EVERY SEO that is even semi-competent is aware of it. If Google is penalizing now for guestbook links, hundreds of SEOs have hired bored teenagers dirt cheap to sign the URL of their client's competitors in guestbooks. Posts like the one you just made above *guarantee* that some SEOs reading here are gonna be trying this guestbook sabotage technique. I can't believe that Google would be acting now in cases of sabotage techniques that are common knowledge in the cut-throat SEO world.
