Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Anyway I have usually had good experiences when dealing with Google in the past but my current dealing with the Internet giant has left me mystified.
I recently decided to expand on one of the concepts of one my websites and build a series of niche focused sites for the US and UK and halfway through the project I unwittingly bought a domain name that now looks it might have a really dodgy past. Got the content up for the site and linked to my other sites. Before you know it within a week, kapow! like a Chuck Norris back hand kick on a breezy sunny afternoon, all those sites got hit with a penalty and the traffic drop like a pair of trousers in a Nevada place of pleasure.
I did what all well meaning young online business men would do in this kind of situation -- I panicked and called for my mum! After some soothing words and a slice of apple pie, I started trying to work out what exactly had happened with my faithful sidekick beside me. We soon found out that the US sites had been the only ones to be penalized and the only changes on them in the weeks preceding the "penalization" had been the putting up our a link to the latest member of my family of websites. I also found that the domain name had been owned by somebody up to a couple of years before I had bought it.
So I did want I thought needed to be done and got rid of all the links to the new site and took the site down, didn't see the need in keeping on to a domain name with a dodgy past as that might cause problems for me in the future. I promptly informed Google what had happened, made what I though was a case for my innocence and being naive in not properly checking to see if the domain had any previous owners. The only response I got was a further drop in traffic for the affected sites. I waited three weeks and still no change and I protested my innocence again and you guessed it, another drop in traffic. The traffic has now fallen to less than 10% what it used to be in the good ole days. I am not saying that someone in Google is deliberately targeting my websites, why would they? However it is frustrating when you try to get in touch to explain things in the hope they would be understanding and all you get is the same response I get when I ask ex-girlfriend to make something else besides pasta, steely silence.
While Google reserves the right to determine what goes into its database and how those are displayed in SERPS and do everything it can do to catch out those who try to beat the system, but shouldn't it try to do better responding to those who innocently get caught up in its war. It seems a shame that for a company as big and as powerful as Google that it seems the only way for people to communicate with its engineers for cases it algorithms have got wrong is by sending emails via is webmaster central with a "we may or may not get back to you in some weeks time".
I got penalized within a week of putting up the link to the new domain, and it is almost two months since I sent out my first email to Google. I guess in the World of Google you are guilty until proven innocent and when it would get to access your innocence at its own good time. If I am really guilty of putting a link to a site that I knew to be dodgy, I would I say I deserve it but when that happens when i buy a domain which from all records, the last onwership on it expired in December 2005 and then get penalized for that, it makes me not want to eat my dinner (past again!).
[edited by: tedster at 8:26 pm (utc) on Sep. 4, 2007]
[edit reason] remove some specifics [/edit]
At the same time, the scale involved for Googlemakes it undertandable.
Grrr. And the day was going so well. ;)
Just because it's "understandable" doesn't make it right.
Again, Google chose the motto of "Do No Evil" -- not me or anyone here.
For a company that based (and profits) from a marketing concept of "we are champions of all that's right and fair and true" to not throw a few of their millions into a respectable system to prevent the above situations is frankly, "evil"
That may make them a "normal" company but by no means does it mean respectable or even ethical in a business sense.
And even from a business sense, Goog should be wise enough to learn from the history of all businesses (that get as big as they are) that dealing with these types of issues now is more profitable than waiting for some nutballs like me to get government intervention and regulations forcing them to deal with them instead.
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P.S. Nice copywriting skills, webrampage. :)
You wouldn't by any chance be seeing yourself as an "innocent"?
My disappointment with the situation is mainly from the time is taking Google to respond. Though I would rather I was not penalized in the first place.
It is like going into a legit used car dealer and buying a car that had been previously owned by a serial illegal parker, but the car doesn't tell you that nor is he under any obligation to. Then out of nowhere come all this parking fines. The computer system in charge of parking is inly interested in sending out the parking fines cause that what it is supposed to do. You try to get in touch with the police and the only way you can do that is by sending them a snail mail and be paying off some of the fines while they complete their investigation.
While I hear what Tedster says and pretty much see where he is coming from, I have to agree with whitenight says, Google as a business needs to able to deal with issues quicker. This is not a government body staffed by under payed and overworked people. This is a company which regularly puts in stunning profits quarter after quarter.
I might not be a good person all the time, like when I pushed a friend of mine in the girls toilet in high school.....on several occasions. Sorry Charlie! (I suspect he liked it cause even though he complained afterwards, he always had a smile on his face). However I stand my ground on this one.
How about this?
".. I recently decided to expand on one of the concepts of one my websites and build a series of niche focused sites..."
"Got the content up for the site and linked to my other sites."
"..putting up our a link to the latest member of my family of websites."
Since when was it against the rules to build niche sites and own niche sites. Unless I am mistaken there are millions of niches sites out there on the Internet, some like YouTube (which is video sharing site, that is a niche, isn't it? ) that is owned by Google itself. Not everybody is interested in building sites like Yahoo and MSN, and then again not that many people do.
If you instance you like Italian food like I do and decide to do a site dedicated to Italian recipes and that goes well. Is wrong to now build another site dedicated to Spanish recipes, and say another for Greek recipes. Am I missing something here? I haven't seen it any where that it says you can't do that.
"Got the content up for the site and linked to my other sites."
Sorry but if the sites are related, would I be wrong in linking the site? I thought that was the concept of good link building. I am not linking my Spanish recipe site to a site on Ford Motor cars. That is just bad practice. Or are you saying that if I own a Spanish recipe site and an Italian recipe site, I can't link either of them based on the fact that I own them even if they were both related (they are both recipe sites). Has Google ruled that the linking of sites is also based on its ownership? I think I would like Matt Cutt's take on that. If there is a link on that subject, please send it to me.
"..putting up our a link to the latest member of my family of websites."
Again I would like say that the link was from related sites, and the number of sites got up in the penalty is 4, not 40, not 400, not 4000. just 4. So it wasn't like I was trying to build up a massive amount of back links.
Back to my recipe thing. If I did 4 sites for Spanish, Italian, Greek and Portuguese recipes, is it wrong to link to either of them even if they are all recipes sites and they also have Mediterranean theme between them as well.
Have the rules changed on how many sites you can own and what type of theme your sites should address? I really baffled now, I must have missed all that on Google's site.
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When you say niche sites, and don't mention the sector...
When you say put up the content and don't say "I've took a three week vacation to try and educate myself in a certain niche that I've always had an affection for, just to be able to *write* about it"...
Or "I got together with a few people who are experts in this area" or "I hired a few copywriters and we worked together for weeks"...
When your post includes the 25th long, out of place americanizing joke...
Something's ringing the alarm in my head.
Call me sceptic.
It's not that you're not innocent,
...rather that unless I see your sites, judging by your posts, for all we know, you could be complaining because Google slammed your affiliate sites and doesn't return your calls for a reinclusion request. Which is... while not professional from Google, something I may not argue with. Affiliate marketing is a gray area on the net.
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Also, you never mentioned where else your websites linked to, where else they were linked from...? ( in generic terms, not the exact sites of course )
While I agree with tedster and whitenight, and think that a good, foolproof 'customer relations'-like department would go a long way at Google ( if they could see through the intent of those complaining with good accuracy ), in *your* case, while I actually read through your posts, all I saw was a jump to conclusions, very little actual information and very little SEO terminology.
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If that was news to you, well, yeah, inbred websites aren't working.
Again, I have no idea on what your sites are like, but you asked whether you seemed innocent -- without us knowing the specs -- and... quite honestly, I'm not sure just yet.
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I would try to help you out once I learn of the specifics though, I've some practical experience in bringing out domains from penalties that their last owners' activities bestowed upon them.
[edited by: Miamacs at 11:37 am (utc) on Sep. 5, 2007]
Once hit taking that single step back may not be enough to get it lifted, I'd have a cynical eye look over your "family"...
I was ignored and misstreated.
The only thing that changed their mind was a very creative letter from my lawyer.
They went from treating me like a criminal to getting all my accounts back up followed by an apology. ( my case was with Adwords )
