Google Ban by IP or other similarities

[Crush]

We have had 10 or so sites penalised. 3 or 4 were pretty similar in that they were thin affiliate sites and possibly deserved it. The others not at all and are collateral damage.

Because the other sites were banned I can only deduce it was via similarities in the IP ( same class but not same IP), dns or registrar. There is no other explanation because some sites are totally unrelated.

How our company works is that we buy domains centrally, get the admin to set it up on one of a few servers and then let our guys get on with building different sites. I always wondered if it was a bit too lazy and now it seems it was but as we recentley spent 14,000 USD on server hardware we did not want to go to virtual hosting elsewhere after buying that kit.

I feel really sorry for the guys who have been hit with a penalty because they are guilty by association with our "dirty" hosting.

[tedster]

I can't help but wonder if there's some other factor at work since I haven't ever seen a problem based purely on the hosting or the IP block - and especially if being a "thin affiliate" is the only infraction.

Are you talking about a penalty (lower ranking) or a ban (not in the index)?

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I would assume that it's the common ownership (registrar information) that's creating the problem. But even then, there is probably something on at least one of the sites that Google considers a major violation. Thin pages don't get ranked, but the site isn't banned. That takes something more spammy, like dodgy backlink schemes.

[Crush]

Tedster it is a lower ranking e.g -50 on all sites. The thin affiliate sites were using a dodgy backlink scheme and were ranking becaue they were on old domains. Fair cop, those sites should be removed. The prob is I think they have associated all the other guys sites that were not partipating in our manipulation. In essence I think Google have said all these sites are dodgy and pushed the -50 button for all.

[Crush]

I should add for conspiracy factor that we are toying with the idea that now google can see behind protected whois. Sort of domain like X-ray vision :) Speaking to someone I know in the dark arts says it is the only way they could have taken his network down.

[tedster]

A dodgy backlink scheme plus common ownership - yes, I can see that happening. So the question becomes how Google is detecting common ownership - whether they are using their registrar status to look behind the "protected whois" barrier. They've always said they can't, but that they do have a lot of other ways to determine the common ownership of sites.

I can't say for sure, but I do know that when Matt uses his tools at site review panels, he comes up with some wildly accurate stuff very quickly.

[CainIV]

A dodgy backlink scheme plus common ownership - yes, I can see that happening

Not only dodgy - a repetitive link scheme to all domains - even with very editorial links - over numerous websites that are on the same C class can do this as well.

In my estimation its about patterns - some are acceptable, and others cause domains to cross thresholds. When they are detectable relationships with other domains, the other domains take the fall as well.

Tough to say whether protected whois is information that Google has and / or uses. My sense is that there are likely other patterns at work here which are sufficient enough for Google to trace without needing to use protected whois info.

This all comes back to thoroughly researching the network, how it is developed, registered, and linked to at start-up.

[Crush]

Yeah, I think you guys are pretty much spot on there. The issue is only a few sites were using the turbo backlink network and the good sites have been taken down. Examples are one site is a free tool that has 4500 users ( no need to look for backlinks as people link because free), another is a europe travel site with 500k pages of content developed over many years.

So I think the tools that Matt and his spam team have can sometimes take down people with similar data. Well nothing is perfect. Perhaps they could add a quality score to double decide if a site on the neighbourhood should be taken out or not.

[SlyOldDog]

Perhaps putting clean sites on new servers and submitting them for reinclusion might be the way forward?

If a site is worth money it's worth making it totally unique including the registrar info.

[Crush]

As several sites have been penalised what would you think, doing one reconsideration request for all sites or one by one?

[edited by: Crush at 1:05 pm (utc) on Nov. 17, 2008]