Duplicate Content Problems or Sandbox?

[sgsurvey]

Hi everyone,

I am very new and I start my site on 26 May, it's about <widgets>.
I am not good at english so writing content is like killing me, then i copied a few articles from one of the top <widgets> website and paste as my contents (of course we provide our services, too)

So far, the site jumped to PR3 since the july google update and ranked at 1 million over at Alexa.

It's CSS and html, no tables, all the tags are carefully designed (well, i admit i use some hidden text by applying css disply:none, in order to get more keyword density, however, the hidden text is less than 30% on each page).

Now, the site is ranking near top in MSN and Yahoo for almost all my keywords(it's country targetted), however, in google, no news. I can only find my site on a few very minor keywords (no competition at all).

The backlinks, google shows 8 only, yahoo shows 85 and msn shows 139 ... and more than 50% of the pages (total: 40+ ) are indexed by every of them.

I really don't know if my site is still in sandbox or not? (as i can see my site on those non-competing keywords, so i doubt) or I was penalized by google because i use display:none or duplicated content?

Please help!

[edited by: ciml at 10:56 am (utc) on July 25, 2005]
[edit reason] Widgetised. [/edit]

[Ian Cunningham]

"I think every dublicate directory, should not be indexed anywhere on google, also not yahoo or dmoz, it will just lead us to other search results, when I search google I want RESULTS, not another search option. "

Thats a fair comment, and I agree to be honest... I didn't add the directory for people to find though google, its simply an addition to my site for members to use (which they do). Its no reason to ban the entire site though (if that is the case).

[moftary]

Ok why does Google itself has a google dir duplicated from dmoz? Also the directory (unique content + yahoo listings + dmoz listings) is a part of my website, but all my subdomains were nuked along with my www. I really hope it's just a glitch and google will return their old index again.

[nsqlg]

Googleguy, hey man you can read my post at first page of this topic? Thanks

(http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum30/30530.htm#msg5)

[europeforvisitors]

As far as I understand our site was kicked as a "scraper" site today?

Just out of curiosity, how do you know the reason? Is it possible that your loss of listings is the result of a technical problem at Google's end and not a ban?

[andrea99]

Is it possible that your loss of listings is the result of a technical problem at Google's end and not a ban?

Do technical problems like this occur very often? It has never happened to me, some fluctuations yes but never a total drop out of the index.

Do we know that some real scraper sites have been banned?

[NazaretH]

I do not "know that", I guess. And the guess comes from GoogleGuy's words that today they're banning some scraper sites. It seems obvious for me to connect his phrase and our ban, because the site has never suffered even a single position lost, even during toughest Google updades, the site does have DMOZ listing and Yahoo listing, plus we changed nothing during about 1 year already. That's whehre my guess comes from.

[zoltan]

It might be a technical glitch or stolen content. My site is (was) visited daily by about 4 - 5000 visitors. Only about 10% of the site is DMOZ content, the rest is user submitted information, photos, etc. Yesterday the site totally disappeared from Google...
Today, when I search for "mydomain" without www. or .com I see many pages with my exact title including my domain name from some .info subdomains! It might be a stolen content. Strange is that these pages do not have a google cache they all point to a scraper site having AdSense on top!

Any comment?

[kctipton]

Whether or not Google implements this perfectly, I'm glad to know that most ad-plastered ODP clones (whether scraping or using a script) that I've been seeing lately will get a hard knock on the head.

Now, when will Google proactively block the Blogger-based spam? ;)

[Webdetective]

Googleguy,
What is Google's policy regarding the use of page generation programs such as Rankingpower? Could "rankingpower" pages be classified as a "scraper site"? This is a question nobody seems to have an answer to. If I am currently using this or similar program, is it highly advisable I either quit using it and remove all the pages from my site, or else put this in my robots.txt?

User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /pages/

Some of my sites also suddenly dropped out of Google yesterday and I'm struggling to figure out why.

[girish]

Since your rp pages were once indexed, if they are the offending pages, then by trying to keep Gbot out of the rp folder using

User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /rp (example)/

Gbot will ALWAYS think they are still on your site. If your plan is to remove the rp-pages from G's index, then first remove them from your site and "invite" Gbot in so it sees these pages are gone.

This would apply to anyone thinking about removing directories too using a robots file.

[Webdetective]

My sole reason for considering to keep some of the RP pages is because they are receiving traffic from MSN. True, if Googlebot hasn't spidered robots.txt yet, it will still look for the pages. Last time I checked, Googlebot has mostly been spidering my homepage, on one of my sites but hasn't yet spidered any of my other 3 dropped sites yet.

The big problem is I don't even know if Google has a policy against these pages or not. I won't know for sure until Google replies back with an answer and I don't know how long that will be. They might give me a vague answer as they often do. Since lots of people with 100% white hat sites reported the same problem, it's impossible to know if my sites were truly penalized, or was just mistakenly deindexed along with other innocent sites when Google cracked down on scraper sites 3 days ago.

I think just as with any page generation software, it can be abused and result in penalties. I probably went a bit overboard long ago and generated way too many pages. I have reduced the number of pages a lot, and have since deleted most of them. I'm hoping I won't have to contact Google about my dropped sites.
Fred

[texasville]

kctipton says"Whether or not Google implements this perfectly, I'm glad to know that most ad-plastered ODP clones (whether scraping or using a script) that I've been seeing lately will get a hard knock on the head."

Personally, I think the odp should clean up it's own backyard. Turn off that garbage tap itself instead of putting it on google. The odp is the one creating this problem.

[nsqlg]

kctipton says"Whether or not Google implements this perfectly, I'm glad to know that most ad-plastered ODP clones (whether scraping or using a script) that I've been seeing lately will get a hard knock on the head."

Personally, I think the odp should clean up it's own backyard. Turn off that garbage tap itself instead of putting it on google. The odp is the one creating this problem.

IMHO ODP "scrapers" dont looks too bad why give some backlinks for us :)

[ckc1227]

I think every dublicate directory, should not be indexed anywhere on google, also not yahoo or dmoz, it will just lead us to other search results, when I search google I want RESULTS, not another search option.

Yeah, and add to that list most forums on the same subject. After all, its just a bunch of people saying the same thing.In many cases its the same people saying the same thing, lol. May as well add blogs to the list as well. I mean, heck, how many of those are really necessary? From now on, only one site per subject allowed.....

[ckc1227]

This thread lays out exactly why you shouldn't put in lots of time and effort on a legitimate site that relies on the search engines. People who have worked their butts off building legitimate sites that are 2,3,4,5 years old, poof! Just like that, gone. Thats why I use page generating software. I might lose a few sites here and there, but how much effort did I put in? Not much. To add, when you're putting up 1,000 sites a month, what difference does a hundred bans here and there mean? Not much, especially when there are other search engines out there. Shocker, huh? There ARE other search engines out there! Who'da thunk it?

[Webdetective]

ckc1227, you do make a good point. That particular philosophy has worked out very well for many affilates, who use cloaking, etc... My use of doorway pages was working very well for me for Yahoo, except my big problem was it was mostly one site that was doing well, so losing that is a big loss.

The big problem with adding new domains is building link popularity. It takes a long time to find new link partners, and most are gambling, viagra, etc..

Which page generation software do you use? Please send me a sticky note.

[zeus]

Of cause its easy to make those scam sites, but some of us still believe that a good homemade site will do well again in google, when they clean up there - to soon omitted results/URL only/fake sites/302 googlebug/the HUGE sandbox which they dont say exist/scraper sites domination.

[Elixir]

WRITE YOUR OWN CONTENT....Develop your OWN site do your OWN work you will do well in the long run.
Steal other people's content break the rules and hopefully you will be nuked off the planet. You hit a nerve here. I spend days at a time contacting lazy webmasters who steal our content, preparing DMCA complaints and generally ensuring that people like you do not get away with profiting off my work. I dont care if your english is bad hire a copywriter who speaks english the Indian copy writers speak good english and they are cheap.

[sunflower12]

I was looking at my stat logs and came across a very popular website that had many referring hits to my "once very popular site" before my ban last week from google. Anyway, when I went to their site they had an article from my site quoted. It says click here to read the article about widgets from the site "my sites name" Anyway when I clicked on it it went to an exact duplicate copy of my page but in the browser was ;
<http://www.thatsitesname.com/my_sites_name.php>

Now this article came out on July 21. Do you think that my site was completely banned from google because of this? What is this by the way? I don't understand how they got a complete copy of my page exactly on their site with an url from their site.

[moftary]

I don't understand how they got a complete copy of my page exactly on their site with an url from their site.

sunflower, this is what is called "scraping".

I won't know for sure until Google replies back with an answer and I don't know how long that will be.

webdetective, dont hope for that as you will never find out. You either reinstated in their serps or not, will never get a reply in both cases and will never also know why you were banned. Google simply does not give individual assistance.

[kwasher]

I was looking at my stat logs and came across a very popular website that had many referring hits to my "once very popular site" before my ban last week from google. Anyway, when I went to their site they had an article from my site quoted. It says click here to read the article about widgets from the site "my sites name" Anyway when I clicked on it it went to an exact ...

googlejacked?

WRITE YOUR OWN CONTENT....Develop your OWN site do your OWN work you will do well in the long run.

Isnt that what the people who are writing about being dropped did?

[joeking]

"WRITE YOUR OWN CONTENT....Develop your OWN site do your OWN work you will do well in the long run."

If only life was that simple. Patronising advice offered without reading what other people are actually saying.

[econman]

How is this advice patronizing?

Seems to me that people are just trying to be helpful in without being verbose.

[wiseapple]

I am learning that Google duplicate content problems are not all about copying other peoples info. I am finding out that following items can cause issues:

- Site structure...
- Articles that have completely unique content but have same titles...
- Same meta-descriptions that are used across multiple pages...

I do not think dup penalities can just occur because you have copied someone elses info.

[WebFusion]

I do not think dup penalities can just occur because you have copied someone elses info.

Agreed. If they did, all the sites using a reuters, AP, or similar news feed would get nuked as well.

I think it has alot to do with overall site "quality" (as perceived by google's algo at the time). We also had a site that lost ground (about 30-40 spots lower in the serps accross the board), but traffic is slowly returning (as it always has).

Personally, I think people building "businesses" using these
page scraping programs (ranking power, traffic equalizer, etc.) are building their income on quicksand. Why on earth would you want to base a business on always trying to stay "one step ahead" of the engines?

While you may scorn those who actually work to build solid web properties, a TRULY unique & valuable site, while it may lost traffic now and again, can usually maintain profitability rain or shine.

[Webdetective]

The main reason I used Rankingpower was because at the time, leading webmarketing gurus were endorsing it and recommending it. They sure aren't recommending it now. They actually claimed it "adds content to your site that search engines love." For me, it never worked well on Google and only worked well on Yahoo on one site for a while.

The only solid foundation to build your web business on is real original content. I will have to learn how to do effective research related to my products, so I can write lots of it.

[nutsandbolts]

Great, some scraper sites have been taken out, according to GoogleGuy... but what about sites that are stuck in the sandbox/duplicate box/whatever box thanks to previous scraper sites actions?

Google support said two months ago my missing site problem would be forwarded to the engineers - but nothing...

Come on Google, set-up some sort of pay support system to get real support!

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

How is this advice patronizing?

I must admit that I was asking myself the same question.

[WebFusion]

The main reason I used Rankingpower was because at the time, leading webmarketing gurus were endorsing it and recommending it. They sure aren't recommending it now. They actually claimed it "adds content to your site that search engines love." For me, it never worked well on Google and only worked well on Yahoo on one site for a while.

Funny how no where on theri 5-6 page hype-filled sales letters does it mention the HUGE number of sites using those things that get banned everyday - nor did I see it mention anywhere not to use them on a site you value ;-)

[Phil_AM]

If the dupe content penalty is more than just content scraping, would having the same Title and Meta Description for each page on my site potentially hurt my rankings?

Also, another question, if I have inbound links with tracking id's in the link (www.widget.com/index.cfm?trackid=2) will that hurt me in google's eyes?

I try to manage the site in the best way I can for the business (just like G says to), but sometimes what's best for the business can conflict with their algo. And that doesn't help me.

Any advice is appreciated.