Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Still penalized for 56 consecutive weeks now. Domain name search swings between 33-45. However, sadly the targeted search terms I follow so closely and ranked #1 for almost all of 2005, now turn up from #283 to #950. This occurred last Friday. They used to be in the same #31-#45 spot.
We have followed everything Adam has pontificated about:
1) make your site squeakly clean. We did. On November 20 we ditched all the crap the hired programmers put up last year which apparently triggered the penalty.
2) provide unique and compelling content. 78,000 new, unique content pages in the past 21 days! Site is now 95% new, unique content--something Google says they love.
3) ask yourself this question: "...why would someone choose my site over others in the same field..." That is an easy one. We provide a unique visual search method. So we are definitely not run of the mill.
4) then file a reinclusion request. Filed on 12/14/06.
5) et al
But Adam also stated: "... it would be extremely rare for a site to be penalized for years..." Looks like we may be that extremely rare occurrence.
FYI, Google continues to crawl aggressively and has since October 5.
Lastly, while Google says that they listen to webmasters and provide communication via their webmaster central and notify webmasters of reasons for penalties or impending penalties, they can't hold a candle to MSN.
I notified MSN in August that I thought I had been unfairly penalized. They answered back in about 10 days stating that I was right, that I had indeed been unfairly penalized and that I would be seeing a return to the serps in a couple of weeks.
They lived up to their word. I did return to their index and guess where I rank and have ranked for months for my targeted search terms. #1, #2, #3 or at least page 1 or 2 for all my targeted search terms (such as <edited>). The SAME EXACT search terms I used to rank #1 for in Google.
Makes you wonder how much Google really does care about correcting an apparent error. Sure doesn't seem like they live up to their promises of communication. Heck even convicted murderers come up for a parole hearing every few years.
<Sorry, no specific search terms.
See Forum Charter [webmasterworld.com]>
[edited by: tedster at 3:49 pm (utc) on April 5, 2007]
I know what you mean about being penalized yet seeing your competition using every spam trick in the book continuly ranking in top spots.
First thing I want to clarify is what this pheomenon looks like: your domain used to rank well for a number of searches, and now all those searchs show you at position #31, top of page 4. The very best test to discover if you are infected is this: do a search on your domain name itself - type example.com into the Google search box, a search where you naturally expect to be #1. If you have this particular penalty against you, then even that search will show you at position #31.
Let's not assume every ranking problem is the -30 penalty. It's pretty rare, and it's getting rarer, from what I can see. In fact the -31 position is no longer a solid indicator, but the domain search is always knocked far off the first page...if it isn't, then something else is going on.
HaH!
AustrianOak, you and I are one of the early victims of this penalty, which I believe is not being applied in the same fashion any longer. The penalty is definitely manually applied and also requires manual reinclusion. Don't ask me how I know, but I have now had my suspicions confirmed from a source that knows all, if you see what I mean. It is also not classed as a penalty but as a warning before eventual removal from the index. There is likely to be a site-wide problem, but you are not going to get a hint from Google about what it is. That's all I can find out at this stage, will keep you posted. Go through your pages again, look for common code that might be offensive. Especially look out for links to other sites you own.
I remember Adam Lasnik pointing out that he highly suggests that if you feel you are under a penalty then you should submit a re-inclusion request to "speed" up the process. My take on that is that the penalty can be removed automatically once you have made the correct changes and the next time googlebot takes a closer look at your site will notice it and penalty lifted.
Either way.. it's a case where google doesn't like something or things that our sites have.. somethign that are written between the guideline lines and we need to figure them out.
[edited by: AustrianOak at 6:28 pm (utc) on Feb. 1, 2007]
I would say it takes googlebot much longer than a week to find changes. I get deep crawled maybe a few days out of every 6 weeks or so.
I don't believe that they often get involved in dishing out penalties on a strictly individual basis. It's a group here, a group there.
I agree. Penalty was applied simultaneously to my site, and to my competitor's site that I mentioned earlier.
Are all the sites that are affected by this penalty in some way linking directly to known affiliate houses like linkshare, cj.com, etc?
Just wondering how strong the connection might be between affiliate marketing and this penalty.
I got a question for people who have been affected by this penalty.
Are all the sites that are affected by this penalty in some way linking directly to known affiliate houses like linkshare, cj.com, etc?Just wondering how strong the connection might be between affiliate marketing and this penalty.
I suspect the connection is quite strong. We are the link directory, but we only have 4-5 ads on whole site - all other data is a links to resources and it's descriptions and reviews. We aren't just affiliate site, we are building our database of resources for over 7 years, and this is the main target of our work, not affiliate content or affilliate links.
But looks like G doesn't care. The monopoly for information has to be in G's hands, all others must create a sites which only should be the sources for G's database. They are using content of our sites (copyrighted content) on their servers and in their databases for their own purposes and for gaining the profit. But don't forget, without my, yours, their sites - google is just useless set of algos. Don't forget it - King is not G. King is you - who built a new sites with new content. And G uses them free of charge in own purposes.
I heard of project of US law, which should order any SE to get a permission from every site they are going to crawl, before their content will be used in SE database. I think it's reasonable, content is copyrighted, so why SE use it without any permission on their servers?
from the pages affected that I have been able to browse, I would say it's split evenly between sites containing affiliate links to those that have nothing to do with selling.
AndrewSlk,
some good points. BUT, google can simply say.. "if you don't wish to be part of the google index then place a 'no index' in your robots tag, if you do wish to be part of our index, follow our rules or else." Simple as that.
Only thing I request is a bit more effort at communication with those webmasters that have been unfairly marked as spammers.
[edited by: AustrianOak at 2:33 am (utc) on Feb. 2, 2007]
dangerman, it's great you received some serious help from the top. Sounds like you've figured out the problem, good luck!
[webmasterworld.com...]
Everything described there is exactly what I am seeing on my end.
The sitemap is downloaded and instantly I dissapear from the serps for days if not weeks at a time. Makes you wonder....
Let me confuse things: has a re-included site gone back to -31 without changing anything /by doing the same stuff or do they get a somewhat trusted label?
Only thing I request is a bit more effort at communication with those webmasters that have been unfairly marked as spammers.
It's not about spam, can't you see it? G is now defining by itself, is the site "too similar" "not interesting" "not enough informative" "too affiliate" and applying to sites other, too subjective filters. And this is the manual correction of their ranking. And where is the human - there is subjective criteria. So perhaps your site dropped out from top results just because somebody decided that your site is not enough comprehensive or not enough interesting for your niche.
AustrianOak, you are waiting for rising for many months, but looks like someone decided that whole your work is a crap, and your site is not interesting for visitors any more. And guess who decided it?
Here the nature of this kind of penalty.
Anyone have any updates / news on the penalty?
[edited by: Gavolar at 8:31 am (utc) on Feb. 3, 2007]
How is everyone making out?
I am nearing month 10..
Oak
How is everyone else doing? Those of you who recovered are you still out?
northweb
results are strictly between slots #28 and as high as #59 for domain name search.
myuniquedomain.com is on #28 right now
myuniquedomain is on #36 right now
Fed up with this I have to say. 10mths in the doghouse. Tried everything, I mean everything except the one thing that will make the difference - Google know but won't tell. All these hurrahs about new webmaster tools in sitemaps - big deal! Is no help to me whatsoever. Just want someone at Google to spend two minutes communicating. It is crap.
