What Kind of Google Penalty Is This (Organic + PPC)?

[nmfam]

We have a site that was hit with an apparent PPC (AdWords) ban while at the same time wiping us completely out of the organic SERPs, where we use to be #1 for our primary key term.

Has anyone ever heard of such a thing? We weren't even doing any SEO or PPC work (nor have we in a very long time), so I don't know what could have caused such a terrible wrath. Its even more frustrating because its a valuable root-keyword domain.

Can anyone tell me what this is and how to get it removed? Already tried a re-inclusion request ...it did little/nothing for us.

[tedster]

There are many possibilities here. The most recent flood of Adwords problems hit sites that Google considers "bridge" sites - offering little more than a connection to a different site where a sale is made.

The above could also describe a "thin affiliate" which is another type of site that Google has been weeding out of their organic rankings for a while - usually via human editorial inspections. Again, the hallmark of a thin affiliate site is that Google doesn't see it as adding much value for the visitor beyond what the affiliate parent site offers.

If neither of those descriptions rings a bell, the next place I would look is some kind of malicious action by a third party - server hacks that are cloaked to anyone but googlebot, parasite hosting of links and other content, that kind of thing.

[nmfam]

Hmm ok. Well the "bridge site" issue may have applied. It was a 10 page content site with related affiliate links throughout. Not blatant ... just not a deep site. After discovering the issue, we redesigned the site and re-lauched with several hundred pages of content. Still have some affiliate leadgen forms and now some adsense...pretty standard content magazine type site for our space.

Given that we've relaunched with so much content, we did a reinclusion request but and that resulted in a search for {xyz.com} (example) finally returning our site ... so there was some progress ...but barely. We're still nowhere in the index. So its as it they've reppealed one thin layer of the penatly.

As for malware, I've used Webmaster Central to confirm there is no reported malware on the site.

I agree this seems manual based on some diagnostic articles I've reviewed online. Particularly with this also spanning PPC, not just organic.

My real concern is this - its a rather pricey domain name. And its *impossible* to contact Google to consider this issue. How do we get this resolved?

[tedster]

What is the time scale here - how long ago was your domain smacked down, and how long after that did you redevelop everything and launch? Also - if you can no longer run Adwords, then you usually get some kind of clue in your account area, right?

[nmfam]

We first noticed the issue around Spring of this year. I submitted a re-inclusion request via webmaster central around this time. Nothing happened. We decided to redevelop our site in September, then tried running a series of test PPC campaigns during October, while development was underway (more on that below). We relaunched the new site as of Nov 1. The second reinclusion request was sent 2 weeks after launch of the new site. This time after hearing back about the re-inclusion, we could see that the site at least comes up if we do a search for the exact domain ... so something small shook loose, but still, many issues there that are not resolved that apparently are indicators of a penatly per an article I read.

As to the PPC issue - We tried many PPC tests and every single one immediately went into "pending review" status and was declined shortly after. We optimized the hell out of the campaigns and did everything we could think of to improve quality score and substantially overpay per click - still nothing. We finally tried running the campaigns with the exactly same landing pages hosting under a different domain - immediate success.

So all said, the time scale stretches out over the course of the past 8 months roughly. The new version of the site has been up for one month.

What can be done to repair and move forward from this situation?

[nmfam]

PS - We had the 10 page site up there just to monetize an effectively parked domain until we got around to building it out. As mentioned, quite a valuable domain, we were just waiting until the right time to build it out. So, we definitely were not try to game google with a bridge site ... though I suppose I can see where they could interpret as such if they chose to... :(

[tedster]

My guess - and it is a guess but based on some past experiences - is that you'll need to wait 3 months from the new site launch to see any real recovery. If I'm right, you can have a Groundhog's Day party. If you haven't sent a reconsideration request through your WMT account since launching the new version of the site, I'd do that. And work those WMT reports to keepeverything shipshape in the meanwhile.