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I don't believe we met yet, Welcome to Webmaster world.
I have reported a great spam one month ago
Spam reports can seem to take a very long time to be acted on. Apparently Google prefers to act on them by adujusting the algo, rather than hand working them individually. It seems, based on what I've read here, that the aim of this is to treat a category of spam as a unit, and it simply takes time to develop a fair response.
I know that doesn't relieve the frustration.
I had 2 sites full of content in Google and they have been banned for a little of hidden text (cleaned).
If you are certain that your sites were penalized for hidden text and have cleaned them up, you might consider emailing Google a reinclusion request.
That could take some time to be implented, if they agree to reinstate your site, but it's worth a try.
I don't have the details on filing a reinclusion request, but you can probably find the by using the Webmaster World site search feature and searching for ...
reinclusion or reinclusion request
Best of luck with this.
Being the owner of a search site, now I have to worry about losing everything because someone was annoyed that their listing is behind a search engine SERP, and, seemingly, Google is more than happy to get rid of the 'competition' (yeah, right).
Selective, no? If Google sold hotel bookings, mortgages, or ran online casinos, I wonder if they would be just as quick to respond to spam reports relative to those products/services.
Sorry to hear about it, but maybe there's an analogy in the justice system. Serious criminal cases like murder can take years to try, meanwhile garden variety offenses like traffic offenses are clear cut and get processed quickly.
Google will end up banning 20% of the sites on the web over the next few months!
Hidden text could EASILY be stuffed at the bottom of a page and left visible. Plenty of sites already do this.
So why don't webmasters just do it that way if they want the text in? Or better yet, do the smart thing and include those important keyboards in their webpage the natural way....
Because they don't know that hidden text is a "search engine crime" that carries a strick penalty. Google is punishing people for something small like hidden text in-order to satisfy the whiners and it WILL eventually come back to bite google in the ass if they dont watch themselves.
One of my sites has a splash page with our flash logo and very little text(Keywords in the title and also the most important keyword in the footer), and after the splash page is a ligitimate disclaimer page that happens to have a bunch of our keywords inside it... will I be banned for "doorway" pages next? pffft
This can also be justification for the Google Death Penalty. I've made spam reports against sites doing the above.
>Because they don't know that hidden text is a "search engine crime" that carries a strick penalty. Google is punishing people for something small like hidden text in-order to satisfy the whiners and it WILL eventually come back to bite google in the ass if they dont watch themselves.
And, would you please list the legitimate reasons for using hidden text other than to with cheat search engines to come up higher? I am pleased whenever I see a site I report with hidden text go gray toolbar.
I can't for the life of me figure out what innocent reason 20% of the sites one the web would have for putting hidden, bandwidth wasting text on their pages.
Please enlighten me with the legitimate reasons that 20% of the websites would do this that does not involve manipulating the results in search engines?
I am willing to believe that there are some possible reasons, but I do not believe your 20% of sites could be doing it for some innocent reason.
I've seen it happen in 15 minutes. Guillermo! No justice? Hang out for a bit...
Nothin' but love,
Big Softie
Because they don't know that hidden text is a "search engine crime" that carries a strick penalty. Google is punishing people for something small like hidden text
Ignorance is no excuse. Hidden text is there to deceive. Spammy indeed.
in-order to satisfy the whiners and it WILL eventually come back to bite google in the ass if they dont watch themselves.
The only person that seems to be whining is you and Google doesn't do anything to satisfy whiners. It does what it does to satisfy users. I hardly think that anything like banning sites with hidden text will hurt Google. I would think just the opposite.
And, I doubt many who do this are ignorant. Who puts hidden text on pages other than those who are savvy to the fact that this is a way of deceiving search engines? If it weren't for search engines, there wouldn't be hidden text on web pages.
However, there are several things you should think about:
- report and forget - patience is important and saves your nerves
- Carefully analyze the sites you report. This *can* lead to the conclusion that they don't just use shady tactics but do also other legit things that can improve your ranking. If you carefully analyze the linking and onpage optimization you sometimes find things you didn't know. It can even go so far that you change your mind about your own definition of what's spam. I don't say spam is better seo. But it's worth to analyze a site carefully before reporting it. Sometimes you'll find legit "tricks".
- if a reported site stays within the index even after months start thinking about setting up a test. Maybe google doesn't have the same defintion of spam than you...!? You could buy a cheap domain or even use a free hosted subdomain / directory and try the tacticts the people you reported use ...
- While you are waiting for report results / removal, never forget to expand your own site(s) with quality content. Never forget to hunt for quality on theme links.
"He uses lots of keyword-rich text at the top and bottom of his pages and so I shall report him, whereas I use links from high-PR but irrelevant guestbooks to increase my site's rankings in a pure and virginal way."
Luckily, there are no morals in the search engine algorithms - just an amoral effort to provide results that users find effective.
even with that sin is just a little white text and a little white background, I don't know what googles pet hate of the month is but my guess was "hidden text" and all the PR they have been giving it you have to be whiter than white at bring google spy into your space.
To all out there thinking about reporting spam?
1) do you report spam even if its not in your space.
2) do you report spam even if you are 20 results ABOVE it.
3) do you go searching in highly competitive areas when bored looking for spam.
The spam report in google IMHO is for the NON-webmasters the people that just browse, Who's better to say whether or not the search results are relevant or not. Guillermo I generally do feel sorry for you but in the same breath I bet the site you reported was above you in the serps and that was the only reason to report them not because they where give relevant results.
DaveN
But you need to define hidden text. Do you mean the "blatant" style with hundreds of white keywords at the bottom of a page, often making little difference to site's ranking anyway?
Or do you mean many hidden links on a page which are revealed when the user mouses over them - the basis of most dhtml menus?
And is it better or worse if that link says "contact" or "widget information"?
And how would a search engine algorithm distinguish between all these different kinds of "hidden text"? I must admit it makes me worried when I see these great outcries against "hidden text" - and even more so when the search engines seem to be responding to them and start talking about layers, external css and external js.
It seems as if the imperatives of the search engines may drive us back to the use of tables and inline styles.
It's difficult to catch anything with your new net if you remove all of the fish from the pond.
[webmasterworld.com...]
Other spam report is about 2 search engines using databases: yes, I discovered these sites above me for any keywords. Am I a bad guy? No, I think to report all the spam sites. But if Google doesnīt act quickly the spam will be a great business. The professional spammers have 3 or 4 great sites full of content and they donīt mix with their spam sites (100, 200 or 1000 domains). It is not a problem for them if Google bans their domains after 3 months because they have $30000 Google-dollars more in their pockets to buy other 1000 domains. Meanwhile the poor and noob webmaster with 2 sites and a little of relevant hidden text is banned from Google. Yes, a great justice!
Guillermo, it's hard to be a little bit pregnant too!
"And, I doubt many who do this are ignorant. Who puts hidden text on pages other than those who are savvy to the fact that this is a way of deceiving search engines? If it weren't for search engines, there wouldn't be hidden text on web pages."
I agree. However my point is, although most people using hidden text knows that it is wrong(Some use hidden text for ligitimate reasons)...what they dont know is that it's a 'major search engine crime' that carries a -severe- penalty. Google doesn't warn anyone before or after. Not EVERYONE comes to this forum or researches google. Yes, ignorance IS an good excuse.
How come when you guys report a site for something like hidden text, you don't first email the webmaster and tell him what he's doing is wrong and than inform him of what the penalty will be? You dont do it because you _want_ that site removed. One less site to compete with.
A PR reduction of 2-3 points would better fit the "crime."
I still rule for my SERPS and these people were below me. I just did not like what they were doing, 20 sites all linked together with the good keywords going from one site to another and getting more and more PR.
The bad thing is that Google has kept the oldest site in the SERPS. They have not been punished in anyway because they are just back to where they were before they had the idea to turn into spammers. IMO this new ALGO is going to deal with cross linking farms. Fear the iron fist of google is coming for you!
