Google reinclusion request forces you to 'admit' that you're a spammer

You have to say you're a spammer for them to reinclude you, even if untrue!

[Big_Dug]

The company I work for recently launched four small sites around a topic. The first site launched in June, two in August, and one in October. They are created as subdomains of a new domain, but the domain itself was not used at the time.

The sites got indexed and started ranking for a few longer tail terms, then in January the entire domain fell out of the Google index, that is, there are no pages on the entire domain (all four sub-sites) in the Google index, so it appears that they're banned. Now I’ve got absolutely no idea why the domain/sites would be banned – I have talked to the people who developed the sites (it’s been completely created in-house although I myself was not involved in the creation) and have been told of everything that has happened to the site, I’ve looked all round the sites, and I really cannot find anything that would cause it to be banned.

So anyway, I have gone to Google’s reinclusion request form to look into submitting a reinclusion request for the site. However, to submit such a request, you MUST agree to a declaration that the site has been spamming (you must agree to: “I believe this site has violated Google's quality guidelines in the past.”)

So what do I do? I don’t want to sign a declaration that says we’ve been spammers, because it isn’t true. I’m quite happy for people at Google to look into why the domain is not indexed, as I think it’s clean, but I don’t want to be forced to ‘admit’ to being a spammer when that’s not the case.

Do you think that it is reasonable for Google to demand an admission of liability for them to look into what may be an error on their part?

[glengara]

*.. so it appears that they're banned.*

Still think banning all four is an unusually harsh response, the indicators are quite similar, could it be a "not indexed" rather than a banned problem?

[Big_Dug]

It is no longer indexed, but it was previously indexed and I'm seeing 458 in-bound links now (I appreciate that this isn't many, but the emphasis on link-building for this domain has fallen a little since it dropped out of Google) and a search for the url turns up 250 odd results in Google but, where the domain previously enjoyed a reasonable position for some long-tail phrases, now the domain is not listed in Google at all.

[EDIT: Incidentally, the index of the 4 sub-domains is my homepage in my profile, if anyone wishes to take a look?]

[edited by: Big_Dug at 1:34 pm (utc) on April 4, 2007]

[Altair]

Google massively bans sites using ODP data. If you are using Open Directory data, see my post: [webmasterworld.com...]

Google bans sites for non-deceptive (non-spammer) reasons. If this is your situation, a reinclusion request won't work. See my posts: [webmasterworld.com...]

[edited by: tedster at 4:30 pm (utc) on April 4, 2007]

[glengara]

Had a quick look at a couple of them, the links are pretty dire so while not-indexed is still a possibility, the PPP footprints I found could well point towards it being a ban..

[nippi]

I'd be looking at technology and site structure as the problem. its a bit naughty on this forum to post your url BTW.

but now you have.

you have got lots of 301 and 302's on site, plus some 404's
You've got duplicate content from other sites on yours.
Your site might be fat enough to not have a thin affiliate tag, probably it is... but perhaps not.
You are cloaking, redirecting users to a login page, and allow search engines to progress through to same pages. It not intentional cloaking, but its cloaking. Matt Cutts specifically refers to this, as a big nono.
You've got repetition of page titles/phrases throughout your site... every page starts with the same 2 words, and then many more with the same next 3 words. Google might see this is as keyword stacking.

Loads of other issues that I would not do as you have done.

SO... yes, you've broken googles tos so when you fill out the form, you can happily tick YES.... because you did it.

[Big_Dug]

"Google massively bans sites using ODP data"

We aren't using any ODP data in the sites.

[edited by: Big_Dug at 9:36 am (utc) on April 5, 2007]

[Big_Dug]

you have got lots of 301 and 302's on site, plus some 404's
As I understand it, the way we redirect URLs is as recommended by the search engines (with 301's, though there is the odd 302 in some places) and we serve the recommended 404 status code for not found pages (though I have just spotted a 404 on the front page of one site, I'll get that fixed now).

You've got duplicate content from other sites on yours.
If this is true, I would love to know about it, so that I can have a stern talk with our content writers and editors. I've had a quick look and can't see anything obvious.

Your site might be fat enough to not have a thin affiliate tag, probably it is... but perhaps not.
We have lots of original content on the sites, I am confident that we would be considered 'fat'. The sites are really supposed to be informational first, and the affiliate bits are extremely low key.

You are cloaking, redirecting users to a login page, and allow search engines to progress through to same pages. It not intentional cloaking, but its cloaking. Matt Cutts specifically refers to this, as a big nono.
I can't see anywhere where this is happening (except for an admin-specific URL and the destination is robots.txt excluded and any spider which did crawl it would be treated exactly as a user would). As far as I can see, logins are optional even for reviewing items, they just let you keep track of your reviews. If I am missing something please let me know.

You've got repetition of page titles/phrases throughout your site... every page starts with the same 2 words, and then many more with the same next 3 words. Google might see this is as keyword stacking.
On some of the four sites, each page title starts with the site name - this is a fairly common practice, but I will look at having that changed if it is likely to cause an issue, (I think it is useful for users to have the site name in their tab bar though? Matt Cutts, for example, does this with his blog).

Loads of other issues that I would not do as you have done.

SO... yes, you've broken googles tos so when you fill out the form, you can happily tick YES.... because you did it.
I can't see anything else you mentioned that would lead to a ban. Please do reply if I have missed something, but I cannot see where I am breaking the TOS here (and I do want to know!).

[edited by: tedster at 4:00 pm (utc) on April 5, 2007]

[tedster]

Folks, this thread has become a specific site review - something the Google Forum Charter [webmasterworld.com] explicitly prohibits. You are always welcome to offer private help to each other, but our threads should not require seeing the specific urls involved for other to follow along.

The opening topic - the "forced confession" - has been addressed, so I'm locking the thread.