My sites were dropped, don't know why

[oliver_w]

I have a small widget company, about 8 employees.

3 of our salespeople have their own "brands", and therefore websites.

Google just dropped all the sites from their index; nearly all of our business comes from searches and we may have to lay off employees due to this (we've been listed for over 2 years).

I really need to figure out why this happened and what I can do about it asap, as I don't want anyone to lose their employment.

Relevant info:
*all sites are on the same server, different IP addresses (same subnet)
*all sites link to one another, sometimes using image maps
*all sites have many entry pages targeting specific search terms
*each site has much different content than the others
*there are many links to each site from our clients (we had pr5)

I am assuming the worst -- that I've done something that google despises and therefore I am blacklisted. I'm planning on building new sites and hoping that whatever I may have done wrong I can not do on the new sites.

I would appreciate insightful comments on this situation; also, if anyone knows what kind of feedback I can get from google, I would love to hear it.

[deejay]

If the three sites are that distinctly different and you haven't used anything spammy, the main thing that occurs to me is that the server may have been inaccessible on the last crawl.

Are you positive they are gone from the index entirely, or have their positions just dropped?

[jdMorgan]

oliver_w,

>> *all sites have many entry pages targeting specific search terms

Doorway pages are not loved by search engines. If these pages are useful on their own, there is some wiggle-room, but if they are only there to expose more keywords, watch out.

On the other hand, yes, it could be that the server was down during the deep-crawl, in which case the site should come back when/if it's visited by freshbot. Many weird side effects have been reported for this update, so it could also just be a glitch - no comfort if you're considering layoffs, though. Once you have recovered, think "diversification". Don't get stuck depending 100% on any one search engine.

Best of luck with this...
Jim

[DotBum]

You mention that your site was pr5 before the last update,
what is your pr now? Should help clarify whether it's a drop in rankings or a ban.

Good luck getting this sorted. ;)

[oliver_w]

To clarify, these sites seem banned (if you search for the URL, there is no record).

I suppose the sites may have been unavailable during a crawl, but I'm more fearful of a ban.

I did create many doorway pages for geospecific search terms (ie Florida widget broker), and most of our business was coming in that way. I am wondering whether this is something I would be banned for?

[mrguy]

---I did create many (doorway pages) for geospecific search terms (ie Florida widget broker)---

You just answered your own question.

If you take the time to read Google's TOS, you will notice that they do not like doorway pages.

There is a business in my industry that just when grey.

They had their main site crosslinked with about 50 other doorway sites and one huge duplicate site that had doorway pages for all the states. Hidden links, etc. All ofl the sites except one (the one for their own state) went grey.

I commend Google for taking that action!

[oliver_w]

I understand the potential for abuse, but we have manufacturing facilities in those regions, so why is this wrong?

[mrguy]

I'm not going argue the semantics of what defines a region.

Here is a link to Google Guidelines:
[google.com...]

Here is the specific area that should apply to what your talking about

Take note of the last 2 sentences.

------------------------------------------------

Quality Guidelines - Specific recommendations:

Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
Don't employ cloaking or sneaky redirects.
Don't send automated queries to Google.
Don't load pages with irrelevant words.
Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.
---------------------------------------------------------

My suggestion to you would be:
1. Kill the duplicate sites.
2. Make your state specific pages part of your main site. Do not create a page just to capture traffic. It must have real content on it and not be a duplicate of other pages. Otherwise, you will find yourself in the same boat.
3. Once you have cleaned up your site, request a re-inclusion.
4. If you can not wait for a reinclusion since there is no guarantee as to how long it may take, then start over with a new domain and don't make the same mistake with that one.

With some luck, you might be back in the index in 2 or 3 months.

You won't be back in if you don't clean up the reason you got penalized in the first place.

If you sticky mail me your URL, I'll look at it and give you my honest opinion as to why I think you got dropped. If your affraid to give me the URL, then you probably already know why you got dropped.

Good Luck!