A Google reinclusion saga

No reinclusion after 4 months and 3 updates

[webgator]

Late last year our main site (we are an SEO company) was removed from the Google index for what we believe was linking between sites on the same server. We emailed [e-mail] in December and received an email which said in part <snip>

Since then we cleaned up anything and everything that could be construed as being harmful. We emailed Google again in early January and were told:
<snip>

So we waited a few months for reindexing and after the previous update we emailed Google again. They told us that there were no penalties and that we may not yet have been crawled. Throughout this time we have seen Googlebot activity, but now that it appears the latest update is done and we are still not showing up. Our first reinclusion email was on January 9 and it is now April 17. There have been THREE Google dances since that date. So what am I missing? And if GoogleGuy reads this, please let me know if there is anyone else I can email.

[edited by: engine at 2:23 pm (utc) on April 17, 2003]
[edit reason] No e-mails, see TOS #9 [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]

[webgator]

Sorry, didn't mean to violate the TOS. I guess anyone who needs to see the emails should stickymail me. Just didn't want people thinking that I was making this stuff up...

[jdMorgan]

webgator,

You can paraphrase.

Jim

[webgator]

Ok, thanks.

The first email Google in December told us that we were kicked out of the index because of either cloaking, hidden text or deceptive links. We didn't do either of the first two, but the 3rd could have been construed as deceptive, so we cleaned it up. We emailed Google again. On Jan 9 we got an email telling us that we had no penalties and were cleared for inclusion but would have to wait until the spider found us again. On March 19, after emailing Google help again, we received a very similar email.

So my question once again is, how long does it take to get reindexed by Google. It has been 4 months and 3 Google dances. So what do we do now?

[WebGuerrilla]

>>So my question once again is, how long does it take to get reindexed by Google

If you are an SEO company, you will never get back in. Google looks at SEO's a bit different. A Mom & Pop can plead ignorance. The odds of them repeating the offense after they've been reinstated is quite small. An SEO is different. We know what the rules are. If we break them and get caught, we pay a bigger price. That's just how the game works.

Get a new domain/IP and start over.

[webgator]

If you are an SEO company, you will never get back in. Google looks at SEO's a bit different

Even if they explicitly tell the company in an email that you will be reincluded? That doesn't sound very professional for a company to send an email and not mean it.

[webgator]

I am not ready to start changing domains just yet. After doing some more research this morning, I discovered that Google has actually indexed our entire site, with just one problem. The name of our company is frequently misspelled, so much though that even when I give out business cards, I still get emailed that were addressed to the wrong domain. So we own the misspelling and from what our server guy tells me it is hard coded to point to our proper domain. Well Google has somehow indexed the misspelled domain, but since there are no links pointing to it that I am aware of, it has no page rank and thus only came up after very deep searches in Google. Is there a way to configure a pointer domain that Google approves of so that it indexes the proper spelled domain. I tryed to find this info on the Google webmaster guidelines, but maybe I am missing something

[jdMorgan]

webgator,

Do a site search here on WebmasterWorld for "301 permanent redirect domain" or similar, and you'll find a ton of info.

The short answer is to install code that detects access to your misspelled domain name, and does a 301 redirect to your correct domain. This can be done whether the domains are indpendently hosted or not. I use this technique myself for brand protection.

HTH,
Jim

[webgator]

I was hoping for a long answer

Could you explain what you mean by install code that detects access to your misspelled domain name, and does a 301 redirect to your correct domain? What kind of code do we install. Could you point me to a resource or specific thread that talks about this.

Thanks

[Tony_Perry]

webgator
If you're a SEO company shouldnt you really have known all about the issues that are causing you these problems? I dont think I would want to be one of your clients!

[vincevincevince]

Put this in a file called .htaccess on the root of the site [obviously changing badlyspelt and correctlyspelt to your correct details].... and yes I'm surprised at an SEO company asking these questions too:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^badlyspelt [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*) [correctlyspelt.com...] [R=301,L]

[webgator]

I have usually left the server issues to others and we really haven't had to deal with server configuration issues until now. I have a background in web design and journalism/communications, not computer science, but I am well versed in almost all aspects of SEO that we have had to deal with and have attended search engine strategies conferences. I am just looking for a concise explanation of 301 redirects, so that I can set my web hosting guy straight. I am usually pretty good at explaining technical stuff to people once I have a firm grasp of the topic.

[vincevincevince]

then send them that post i just typed for you :D it'll do the trick, it'll look for requests on your server using the badly spelt name, and then issue a 301 permenantly moved (honoured by google), which will rewrite the URL as the correctly spelt one. this is however slightly server intensive (two req's instead of one, when going to the badly spelt one), so don't do it if it's an uber high traffic site.

[webgator]

Thank you vince...I really appreciate your help. I don't think the misspelling gets that much traffic, just enough to make it worth paying for the domain name.

I tend to think of SEO/SEM as 90% marketing communications (which our company emphasizes) and 10% technical...so I guess webmasterworld is my technical team.