Can this ban me from google?

Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi

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Can this ban me from google?

ali_420

3:04 pm on Jul 3, 2006 (gmt 0)

A few days ago I made a temporary directory on my website for holding some content temporarily. That directory and the content in it got indexed by google (when I did a site:mysite.com nothing was returned but a site:mysite.com on www2.google.com and www3.google.com would return the links in that temporary directory). Back then my homepage was a redirect to temp. directory so it wasn't indexed.

A few days ago the purpose of the temp. directory was no more, so I put a redirect to my homepage in each file in that directory (all of these pages were indexed).
Now, when I do a site:mysite.com I don't see any results (not even my homepage) on any of google domains. I realized it could be because I didn't put a 301 redirect to my homepage in those files (quickly fixed now).

Could this mean my site is banned from google? (by the way i just checked my logs, google bot last visited my site at 2nd july and gave 9 hits)

kaled

4:31 pm on Jul 3, 2006 (gmt 0)

I doubt you have anything to worry about, but in future, ensure that temporary files are not indexed. Also, there is little advantage long term in setting up redirects from deleted temporary pages (which presumably had no inbound links and no significant PR).

Bear in mind, Google can discover pages that have no inward links if they are visited by anyone with a PR tool installed, whether it is an official Google toolbar or simply a Firefox extension, etc.

Kaled.

Quadrille

5:11 pm on Jul 3, 2006 (gmt 0)

By placing redirects where they are not needed, and moving files about, you may damage your chances - if you make your site unspiderable, you won't get listed.

On the other hand, all this pointless faffing about certainly will not help your listings.

Why not stick the the 'day job' - building a better site.

Create a folder called, perhaps "temporary", block it with robots.txt, and keep all your fiddling in that one, safe place.

If your site is intended to make money, you should never, ever be doing wild and careless experiments within two miles of it. ;)

tigger

5:15 pm on Jul 3, 2006 (gmt 0)

what really makes you think blocking a folder with robots.txt will keep you safe! I've been trying to block G for weeks from accessing some pages and so far I've had no luck

Quadrille

5:21 pm on Jul 3, 2006 (gmt 0)

I know - there's a bug somewhere.

My understanding is that adding robots.txt retrospectively sometimes fails - but does it fail for new pages?

tigger

5:26 pm on Jul 3, 2006 (gmt 0)

yep I put some new pages up a couple of weeks back within a blocked folder those pages are now crawled

As for a bug in G - I dam well hope so!

Quadrille

5:41 pm on Jul 3, 2006 (gmt 0)

That's very bad news.

It seems to tie in with the supplementary pages coming and going on different datacenters - I'm hoping it's some kind of temporary thing!

Having said that, there seems no logic to it - I had to robots.txt a bunch of duplicated pages on two of my sites (created by cheap off-the-shelf database program), and had no problem (believe me, it's pure luck - I'm no techie!)

And as far as this thread is concerned, one more reason not to play games with your main site :)

ali_420

12:47 am on Jul 4, 2006 (gmt 0)

Howdy everyone.
You're all correct about not playing games with the main site. I should have placed a robots.txt but I just wanted to get indexed fast by google. I didn't know it would end up like this :(

Anyhoo, the problem is, those temporary pages DID have a few inbound links. I posted on some forums the links to the content in there and from there it was crawled. This is what is worrying me now..

Do you still think my site isn't banned? (Considering google bot visited on 2nd July, but hey, I removed the temp. directory on 1st july!). I've definitely learnt my lesson and wouldn't do this again :(

Quadrille

1:11 am on Jul 4, 2006 (gmt 0)

Remove all trace of the offending pages - personally, I'd remove the 301s, too. Why keep any mention of pages that are causing problems. But that's your choice.

Find a 'unique phrase' on the site, and search for it.

Also, check your site for anything else that may cause you problems.

Then check it again ;)

What makes you think you are banned?

bobothecat

1:18 am on Jul 4, 2006 (gmt 0)

yep I put some new pages up a couple of weeks back within a blocked folder those pages are now crawled

Why not block via .htaccess?

ali_420

3:50 am on Jul 4, 2006 (gmt 0)

What makes you think you are banned?

A few days ago I made a temporary directory on my website for holding some content temporarily. That directory and the content in it got indexed by google (when I did a site:mysite.com nothing was returned but a site:mysite.com on www2.google.com and www3.google.com would return the links in that temporary directory). Back then my homepage was a redirect to temp. directory so it wasn't indexed.
Now, when I do a site:mysite.com I don't see any results (not even my homepage) on any of google domains. I realized it could be because I didn't put a 301 redirect to my homepage in those files (quickly fixed now).

Quadrille

7:44 am on Jul 4, 2006 (gmt 0)

A miising 301 will never help a site.

Neither will it get you banned.

I think you need to come clean about what really happened ...

What was on those pages?
Did you do what I suggested above? What happened?

What was on those pages? I think we should be told!

ali_420

9:11 am on Jul 4, 2006 (gmt 0)

Nevermind everyone. I just did a site:mydomain.com (on the actual google domain name) and my homepage was returned in the results. Muwahahah! Thanks for the advice.