Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Well, fellows, what can I say.
As you remember, my site (www.mysite.com) was in -30 penalty,
and also there was my competitor's site (www.my-site.com) which also were hit by the same penalty. 2 weeks ago BOTH of our sites, in the same day returned to #1 pos for domain name search and restored high positions for other serch terms as they were before -30.
But few days ago (perhaps after recent data refresh), again, BOTH of our sites have lost high positions in SERPs and now they both in -30 penalty again.
What can I say. During period of my -30 depression, I checked and rechecked all my outbound links for its relevance and availability, I have counted all links on the pages and was made "no more then 100 links per page", I removed those few duplicated links to the same URLs but with different anchor text, all other work was done long time ago, (removing duplicate content, cleaning HTML, removing text with font size smaller than "2" and so on).
But when my site lost it rank again, I didn't do anything, my site's cache on Google now is the same as it was before penalty, and I think, -30 has much more off-site reasons than on-site.
Someone here, after analysing sites affected by -30 penalty told, that there was 2 different sites with the same names in meta description. I think it's interesting, because my site and my competitors site has URLs www.mysite.com & www.my-site.com BUT in meta names both sites has first word - "Mysite" and it looks like - "Mysite - bla-bla-bla-bla...description"
Perhaps, both our sites are the reasons for each other's penalty. I'm not sure, but who knows.
[edited by: tedster at 3:49 pm (utc) on April 5, 2007]
Congrats, but...
Not to bring you down, but don't you think this is a Pyrrhic victory? This sounds like you might as well just abandon the plagued site and completely re-build it elsewhere. Guys at Google just wasted 4 months of your time and efforts.
None of what you indicated as things that you fixed looks like a malpractice that should make Google punish your site. And if it did in fact help fixing the problem, it means that Google is punishing websites for innocent technical problems that may not even be considered problems outside Google's own algorithm. You have a sitewide link to the homepage? What's more natural than that!? You have several different ways to present your own content? Who can know better than you whether it's appropriate or not? Why is it considered duplication and why is duplication bad?
This may be just me but your coming out of the -30 does not really inspire me and just makes me want to send Googlebot away next time they come around.
Have you also seen a return to previous levels of GOOGLE TRAFFIC?
My site no longer sits at position 29plus for a search for www.mysite.com BUT my Google search traffic is STILL minimal at best.
Caryl
I don't think this is an "algo" imposed penalty. I now believe this is a human imposed penaly!
I have been a webmaster for 6 years now and the Google of yesteryear ALWAYS dealt with "infractions" through an innovative algorithum.
I have (until recently) always poo-pooed the idea that some human penalized my site - how un-Google could you get!
BUT I have recently read a white paper (Googlespamguide.rtf) that instructs HUMAN auditors on what to look for when scanning web pages/sites found in the search results to determine if PENALTIES ARE WARRANTED!
Now it seems that the search results are being "PATROLED" by some low paid college kids and it is they who are determining our sites destiny.
This is so pitiful it makes me want to spit!
Caryl
This sounds like you might as well just abandon the plagued site and completely re-build it elsewhere.
That's what I've decided to do, except I'm going to rebuild it in the same place because of some decent backlinks.
In my case my site would not pass a human inspection if I were to file a another re-inclusion request. It's kind of a mash-up site with info available from other places on the web. Nobody misses my site at the moment.
Has anyone gotten it removed automatically and how long after G processed /got the new pages?
Yes - traffic up significantly.
One of other sites which had "duplicate properties" also back on page 1.
Fingers crossed!
Nice one, good for you.
Walkman it can take a few weeks for G to recognise new pages.
You're brave putting a no robots on pages, won't this affect MSN and Y! Do you not get any traffic from them?
When you got the duplicate content sorted out, how long was it before your domain url went back to no1?
We're on day 44, where's our congrats then?
If this is indeed a human imposed penalty then what is the guideline to make some collegekid sitting in his basement approve our sites? I highly doubt google would give this sort of power out like candy.
C'mon Sir M Cutts etc surely the masters of the -31 deserve a free lamp.
Site's been transformed since then, drop by and have a look.
The dreaded frames are now gone/going (thank God), navigation a lot better etc.
How do you know this?
All of my 4 page penalties have been manual so I doubt it is any different with your sites.
Two words: affiliate links. Read the re-inclusion page and especially the part about "benefiting directly from search engine traffic". Google hates affiliates and the 4 page penalty has been designed for sites that follow Google guidelines BUT have too much affiliate content/links. Many webmasters out there have dropped 4 pages down and have no idea why and think they just need more backlinks to get back to pg 1. It's a clever idea but too bad for Google it's now public and webmasters are angry.
[edited by: tedster at 8:51 pm (utc) on Dec. 15, 2006]
During updates a LOT more sites come and go, so I doubt they can increase the intensity by that factor during updates. Did you do any tracing of the IP? Google has a gazillion services...
One thing is becoming clear: you need to file a re-inclusion request. I have yet to hear from someone who came back after a 30+ penalty after cleaning up without re-inclusion. Adam had indicated that it is possible to fix and wait, but I am not sure if the algo does the determination or...is it the same people who periodically review sites for changes? Maybe the wait is long enough that we will hear later about the automatic fix.
Two words: affiliate links. Read the re-inclusion page and especially the part about "benefiting directly from search engine traffic". Google hates affiliates
Yes. Now I also think so. From that that I saw before - It is the most plausible reason. Now we just need to know the critical level of affiliate links which is triggers the penalty.
One thing is becoming clear: you need to file a re-inclusion request. I have yet to hear from someone who came back after a 30+ penalty after cleaning up without re-inclusion.
Absolutely not. My site was recovered without reinclusion request. I didn't sent a request just because as you can see from their disclaimer, if you are filling a request, you plead guilty. I'm not guilty. My site is clean, my site is related, my site has lot of related links and unique content. I'm not guilty just because I have a few ads on my site which G dislike. These are their problems - not mine!
Everybody loves money. Looks like G likes money too much, and can manipulate their own ranking, violating their own principles, just for forcing sites to use G's adsense. Well, congrats to G!
I didn't sent a request just because as you can see from their disclaimer, if you are filling a request, you plead guilty. I'm not guilty.
Absolutely agreed. I can't understand why there aren't more complaints about this.
If there was true competition this probably wouldn't happen, but to have true competition you need at least the perception that the other guys search engine is as good. I say perception as I can't think of a real way to validate or assess how good a search engine is, apart from the obvious such as if you search for cookies and one returns results for trucks. So it all comes down to hype and one mans poison is anothers beer etc, etc lardy da.
well, guess what: you/me/we are guilty. Goog is judge, jury and the executioner :)
Andrew, did I miss your post on coming back (time it took and what did you do)? Can you pleae point me to it. Congrats and Thanks
I don't think I can link, and don't want to make Tedster's job harder, but here is Adam exaplaining why a unique site might be plagued with the 30+:
"Also, I'm not seeing a whole lot of textual or unique non-multimedia content. When I click on "News" on the top of your page, I get a banner ad. No, I mean, ONLY a banner ad. Oops :)
So it's possible that for this and other reasons, our Googlebot didn't have much to go on. "
seems like Gbot sends it to 30+ if not enough "unique" info is seen. Just one more piece of the puzzle...and this suggests an automatic penalty. Here Adam, once again, suggests a reinclusion request. Maybe because it's faster, or because Gbot can get confused at times (image & video sites for example), and humans need to override it.
Lets hope it sticks
Congratulations! What things did you do that triggered the recovery? Please be specific.
Andrew, did I miss your post on coming back (time it took and what did you do)? Can you pleae point me to it. Congrats and Thanks
You have not missed anything. I'm telling about my returning to the top positions, and to returning to -30 again, a few weeks later.
Now, my site is somewhere on 30-40 positions....
"Also, I'm not seeing a whole lot of textual or unique non-multimedia content. When I click on "News" on the top of your page, I get a banner ad. No, I mean, ONLY a banner ad. Oops :)
My site consists from unique text and text links on 95%. Only 5% - is pictures and few video info clips. And it still in the penalty ....
removed duplicate names from names database.
removed syndicated content
removed affiliate shopping cart that was a thin affiliate. not just removed the products, removed the pages.
removed heaps of links, and kept only links that were clearly good quality.
submitted a resubmission request with lots of polite cheery stuff, every 3 weeks, for 4 months, everytime i found a new problem, and fixed it.
:) and submitting a re-inclussion request /subsequent removal of the penalty does not?
If you fix something today, and submit a reinclusion request tomorrow, I don't think it will work.
if you fix things over 2-3 months, and then submit a reinlcusion request, google may well have already decided that something you fixed 6 weeks prior, was enough for the penalty to be automatically removed, at some point down the track.
By submitting the recinlusion request, google may well wave the period still left on the penalty.
