Google Penalty Question

My site has been removed from Google

[knowgangs]

Our site was recently removed from the Google search index. Through much research we learned that we probally received a Google penalty.

On our opening page we had some black text on a black background. I had that immediately removed. So where do we go from here?

I have typed Google apologizing for our mistake and requesting we be relisted.

Does anyone know how long this takes?

Also... I learned that if you have more then 100 links on a page, that you can receive a penalty that way as well. We have one page inside of our site that I'm sure breaks that rule.

So my question--if a page inside a website breaks the 100 page rule, does that mean google will just ban that one page--or will they ban the entire website?

Any ideas?

[Vadim]

Does anyone know how long this takes?

It depends on Google and the reason why you are banned but in many cases it is virtually forever.

I know one respected (by me) and popular site that have distributed innocent news about really interesting sites in Internet, mainly through the mailing lists subscription.

Their site existed I believe about 10 years and was recently banned in Google. They clime that they don't know the reason and I believe them because I have been reading their newsletter for years.

They immediately changed the domain name, beginning from the scratch.

The bottom line is that though the probability that they forgive you is not zero, it is not very high either.

P.S. There is however difference between to be banned (completely out of the index) and simply loose SERP or PR.

Vadim.

[followgreg]

Never heard of the 100 rule before, I doubt it exists as a penalty, more like a filter eventually...

[tedster]

The 100 "rule" was a practical recommendation because of crawler and indexing limits. Those limits are getting stretched every day in more recent months -- and even if it was a very firm limit (it's not) this was never a penalty.

It sounds like you did the right things. Assuming everything else is sparkling white-hat on the site I think you can expect the beginnings of a gradual, step-wise recovery in the near future. No fixed time frame for these things, but I know of folks who started recovering in 6 weeks from the time of their re-submission request.

[Romster]

100 links -> it is more like first 100 are counted and after that the importance of an outgoing link is close to 0. Having 150 links would not cause a ban - having a site that consists only of links (Link Farm) would get you banned.

How long a ban is - a friends site just got back in index AFTER 3 YEARS!

[classifieds]

knowgangs,

Matt Cutts discusses the best method for submitting a reinclusion request:

[mattcutts.com...]

There are also some other posts regarding this topic and advice on making sure your site is within the Google Webmaster Guidelines: [google.com...]

Good luck.

[MamaDawg]

Following Matt C's instructions to the letter, I had a site re-included exactly 1 month after I submitted the request.

The site in question was dropped due to a nameserver configuration error - your mileage may vary.

[knowgangs]

Thanks everyone for the replys! You've given me hope!