site:example.com count suddenly is zero along with traffic

[epmaniac]

today i noticed a drastic drop in many of my sites,... the traffic on all these sites went to ZERO

site:example.com count is also showing zero

what is this?

i have never ever seen anything like this before where millions of indexed pages have vanished overnight and traffic is reduced to rubbles

now this problem is occuring in 100s of sites which are hosted on different servers, so the problem is varied

what do u think, could be the problem? or is it just a temporary glitch?

[epmaniac]

i just received message in WMT that my sites dont meet google quality guideline.... i checked and i found i dont have TERMS OF USE and PRIVACY POLICY!... could this be the reason these were de-indexed?

please help

[mslina2002]

Seems like you have been hit with a penalty if site:example.com is returning a blank. Doubt that not having privacy page, etc would cause that rather something more serious. What does your WMT say - any messages?

[Marketing Guy]

If site: is returning nothing then it's an outright ban and not a penalty. What kind of sites are they?

[mslina2002]

You r right, meant to say ban.

[netmeg]

How many sites are we talking about? Are they linked to each other?

[epmaniac]

they are not linked to each other...... these are news sites and sports site... nothing is illegal there... except maybe youtube vidoes (which are percentage wise very less ) and NO PRIVACY POLICY AND TERMS OF USE

only my those sites are put on ban which dont have terms of use and privacy policy...... all others are fine

@netmeg

i am talking abt around 54 sites

@mslina2002

wmt says that my sites dont meet google quality guidelines

[mhansen]

now this problem is occuring in 100s of sites which are hosted on different servers, so the problem is varied

- Are they all connected to the same Adsense account?
- Are they all in the same Webmaster Tools account?
- Google Analytics?

If site: is returning nothing then it's an outright ban and not a penalty.

Agreed. If not a BAN, then its your robots.txt, but you confirmed a penalty with the WMT message.

i just received message in WMT that my sites dont meet google quality guideline

I have seen these types of bans before and they rarely ever end well for the site owner. They are likely about something more than a Privacy or TOS page not being in place, and unfortunately, you will never know the exact reason from a Google employee.

From my own experience looking at others in the same position, you need to determine your own jumping off point, and decide how much effort you want to put into recovery of these sites just for Google, which may, or may not ever recover. 1 week, 1 month, 1 year? And when you reach that point, walk away and start something new, or settle for the traffic you get elsewhere.

Just my opinion...

[netmeg]

Are you using primarily syndicated content for these 54 sites?

[epmaniac]

for news site i am using syndicated content (only showing headline and one small paragraph) with proper attribution and link going to original news source.........

in sports sites, i am not using syndicated content, but i do have small percentage of youtubes there...

youtube news are also there in news sites also

@mhansen

yes the sites are linked via adsense and analytics account... but i have got other sites also which are not affected and they do have TOS and privacy policy on them.......

only the sites without privacy policy and TOS are affected

[netmeg]

You don't get banned just for no TOS or privacy policy. Heck I have privacy but no TOS. It's something else; sounds like your content maybe.

[indyank]

I too also have privacy policy in place but I didn't even know that TOS is now mandatory. Is it necessary to have one?

I don't think you will get banned for not having them. May be you will be warned. But banning sites straightaway seems more harsh.My guess is Google might have somehow considered this to be a network of sites used for links or something else that don't meet their guidelines.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Ironic, possibly banned for showing syndicated content while that same content is Google's bread and butter in their news and other product.

[lucy24]

the traffic on all these sites went to ZERO

Obligatory double-check: Do you mean literally zero? Or do you mean the traffic sent by google? No matter how much you get from google, it's never 100%. Is the non-google part unchanged? Does everything look normal when you browse the assorted sites yourself?

[Marketing Guy]

When you say they're your sites, you mean you own them? How many people contribute to them? How many different subject areas? Are they all content websites (news, etc)? Is Adsense your only source of income on the sites?

[epmaniac]

I think if u dont have privacy policy, u will get banned,... how many of u will agree?

syndicated content i have only on news site... but i am giving proper attributition to the original source, even giving outbound link to original news page where complete news is present...

i am only carrying headline.

these sites are not old sites, they are not linked with each other, these sites are hardly 2 months old and were under construction

[epmaniac]

dont you guys think this issue is similar to this one

[productforums.google.com...]

this guy also lost his privacy policy page for one night and his site also got banned even though it was reputed

[netmeg]

Nope.

I seriously doubt it's lack of privacy or TOS. But if you think it is, why even debate it? Add those things and file a reconsideration request and see what happens.

[Marketing Guy]

54 websites. All less than two months old. Using syndicated content. Still under construction. *Millions* of indexed pages vanished.

Hmmmmmm........

[HuskyPup]

these sites are hardly 2 months old and were under construction

I'm pretty sure it's against the TOS to have AdSense on "under construction" pages...do you actually state "under construction" or are the sites very thin of content?

I can't understand how you can have millions of pages indexed yet be "under construction"? Are these pages all blank except for navigation and AdSense?

I think if u dont have privacy policy, u will get banned,... how many of u will agree?

I have no idea since I've had legal, privacy and cookie pages since 1994. Since .info was introduced I put all this info onto one site and in the footer for all my B&M sites they all point to this one site.

However I do seem to remember 2/3 years ago that Google stated all sites had to have a privacy policy and last year I also remember having to update my privacy policy to comply with new Google stuff.

Someone around here at WebmasterWorld actually wrote and posted an approved/acceptable privacy policy.

[netmeg]

or news site i am using syndicated content (only showing headline and one small paragraph) with proper attribution and link going to original news source

Also, having the link to the original source is not enough to keep it from being banned. I know of several people who put large quantities of undeveloped domains into alternative Parking services that put syndicated articles on them - with attribution - and were promptly completely deindexed by Google.

[tedster]

I think if u dont have privacy policy, u will get banned,... how many of u will agree?

Not a chance. I know of too many sites that are doing well with no privacy policy.

[aristotle]

There must be millions of websites that don't have a privacy policy or TOS, mine included. Google has no right to tell webmasters what to put on their sites. It's nonsense.

[netmeg]

Well you do have to have a privacy policy if you want to run AdSense. They made that part of the AdSense TOS a few years ago.

[HuskyPup]

Google has no right to tell webmasters what to put on their sites.

As netmeg wrote it is necessary to display AdSense however I can't understand why any site would not have Legals? I did this in 1994 to cover my backside should anything untowards ever happen.

It's not as though having one costs anything other than a couple of extra pages, certainly a lawyer need not be consulted "nudge nudge wink wink".

[indyank]

I think Marketing Guy has already given you the right reason. Let me repeat them.

these sites are hardly 2 months old and were under construction

millions of indexed pages

syndicated content

Doesn't the above sound automated?

[aristotle]

@HuskyPup
Each person can decide for themselves what kind of sites they want to create and what to put on them. Google can do what it wants, you can do what you want, and I can do what I want.

[indyank]

Yes, Privacy policy is mandated for sites running adsense and that makes sense. But I am not sure of TOS. Aristotle might be partly right in saying that Google cannot mandate TOS on any website. Can they?

[Shaddows]

Aristotle might be partly right in saying that Google cannot mandate TOS on any website. Can they?

Nope. They can't tell you what to put on your site.

They can stipulate the criteria to be eligible to rank (aka "not banned")on their website though. However TOS and privacy policy are not one of these stipulations for organic SERPs (although IIRC they have said the might consider it a sign of quality or somesuch)

[indyank]

Each person can decide for themselves what kind of sites they want to create and what to put on them

Yes, one can continue to run such websites. Google has also the right to de-index sites if they don't abide by their guidelines. But they don't have the right to continue to hit these sites with their bots though they conveniently argue that the site owner has to lock the doors (for the thieves?) lol...