Black listed from AltaVista

How can I resubmit a blacklisted site?

[curly_clare]

Hi,

I have just been appointed webmaster for a small UK based website. However it seems that there don’t appear in AltaVista (.com or the UK addition). I think that the site may have been black listed as the previous webmaster seemed to be submitting ever page of the site to AltaVista every month. What can I do to rectify this problem?

Desperately in need of advice!

Clare

[Eric_Jarvis]

first port of call would be altavista...have you tried emailing them?...I often find that in times of crisis brutal honesty can be a remarkably effective approach

[4eyes]

I don't think the over submission by itself could have resulted in a ban - there may be other reasons (past or present)

AV has a pay for inclusion program which might be worth trying - but make sure your site is now squeaky clean, just in case.

It may be nothing you have done, I have had sites mysteriously vanish from AV only to reappear a few months later.

[tigger]

Been there got the t-shirt & the book AV never responded to any of my very very polite emails this was over a 12 month period

So I gave up and the client got a new domain now he's ranking number 5 for his keyword :)

[engine]

Good advice here, curly_clare.

Some additional points:-
Is the site in any other search engine? If yes, then it may be something specific to AV. If not,, then it may point to something on the site.

Check for a robots.txt file and it's contents - it may be an issue.
Check meta tags - a refresh on a short time is not so good.
Check incoming links - make sure you've got some quality links and no rubbish links.

See how you get on with those and let us know how you get on.

[fathom]

Generally, it is very difficult to get black listed from AV.

In saying that, what is wrong with the site?

It would be extremely noticeable.

An easy test... is the site in Google?

Yes! ... Not blacklisted in AV then, since Google would PR0 a site long before AV dropped them.

AV is very slow to update free submissions.

Best bet... if budget is short... submit to DMOZ.org and these listings will propagate to AV in about 3 months.

If you have the $200 cash, as 4eyes suggested do the pay inclusion route but don't overlook DMOZ, it's cheap and when you do the homework, adds alot of weight to pages in most search engines

[cjtripnewton]

Way back in 1996 my site was banned by AltaVista. I emailed. Then I wrote a letter. Then I tracked down their phone number and spoke with a receptionist. Then a year later, the site was back in. We had been doing far to much experimentation at the time :).

Now customer service is a much more important issue to all of the search engines, so you may have much better luck by just emailing them and explaining the situation.

[curly_clare]

Thanks for your advice! I think my first point of call will be to try and contact them myself.

Cheers Guys!

[Crazy_Fool]

>>I gave up and the client got a new domain

if i take on a client whose site isn't listed somewhere like AV and there is no obvious reason for it not to be listed, i'll just get a new domain and start again. clients are reluctant to change domains until they realise my time is money and they are the ones that pay. domains are much cheaper than several hours of my time.