Anatomy of a Banning

Spammed, Banned, Misery & Redemption

[rnrtvb]

Okay, okay, I spammed…but hardly. I mean for crying out loud my home page was 98% graphics – I needed cool looking fonts to go with the site’s theme, therefore there was virtually no text… what was I to do? So, I put three measly sentences of “hidden text” that basically contained the essence of the image-based copy. Is that so wrong?

I was fat, dumb and happy for over a year then all of a sudden…I was <snipped>! Ouch!

Here’s the chronology:

April 21-03 my site had a PR 6 and was doing very nicely thank you. Except there was one weird occurrence: a site visitor emailed me that telling me my search was not producing desired results (I use Google for my site search.) I dismissed the visitor’s comment as “operator error.”

April 22-03 my site’s PR dropped to 5 and I noticed I had dropped in the PR order in the Google Categories. Weird.

April 23-03 Grey bar. <snip>! I emailed Google and asked what had happened.

April 24-03 Received semi-personalized reply from Google telling me my site had been blocked from the index due to one of a variety of possible causes. I removed the hidden text and redesigned my home page using Verdana font. (I looks very lame now!) Later that day I emailed Google again, explained the situation, begged, groveled and made a fool of myself asking for mercy.

April 24-03 (Same day!) Google emailed me back with a personalized reply thanking me for making changes and informed me my site would be resubmitted for possible reinclusion. (I was very impressed with Google’s rapid replies.)

May 7-03 I joined Webmaster World. What a terrific resource. Except I’m amazed at the amount of bandwidth used for mere speculation. Very entertaining reading though!

May 9-03 I emailed Google again asking for a more definitive statement regarding “possible reinclusion.” No Reply.

May 12-03 I emailed Google again this time I acted like we had never communicated before. I told them I cleaned my site and hoped they would consider me for reinclusion.

May 19-03 I received an email from Google thanking me for making the changes and telling me site should be reincluded very soon.

May-22-03 I’m back baby! PR 6 just like before and still well ranking for many keywords.

The odd thing is, when I view the “cached” version of my page it’s the old page with the hidden text. Go figure!

Anyway, I have a hunch it may not be over yet but just thought I’d share my journey.

Here are some stats:
Since banned from Google my opt-ins dropped 80% and my revenue dropped 60%. A very expensive lesson!

[edited by: Marcia at 7:24 am (utc) on May 23, 2003]
[edit reason] Optimized for appropriate semantics [/edit]

[Wuschelbuschel]

There is one thing I really would like to know. Are there any differences between reporting spam which contain english or non-english content! I reported two german sites which have doorway pages for about hundred keywords and each keyword is top ranked, but in most cases the keywords doesn't even fit to the content. The first time I reported this was in january ... I repeated this spam report twice in the meantime but nothing happened so far.

[GoogleGuy]

whoz2, you should write to webmaster at google.com with the subject line "reinclusion request" and describe what happened and what you've cleaned up.

Wuschelbuschel, doorway pages can be a little trickier than hidden text. Wouldn't hurt to do a resubmit and mention WebmasterWorld and your nickname. saltwaterpizza, I wouldn't worry.

[notsleepy]

Hi
I have read here that most seem to think that the current index contains data from around February.

My site is new was not given any PR until around March. As of a week ago the PR was at 4. Now, I am seeing gray bar.

Have the old PR's been reinstated b/c of the old data? In other words am I back to a gray bar b/c I'm essentially brand new again? Or is the PR in the toolbar still in flux? Or do you think I have been banned. I'm not doing anything I know to be considered SPAM. I have seen the PR4 popup occassionally when I hit the back button from some pages.

Thanks much in advance

[shaoye]

my belief is that the update data now is using 2 months ago data.

Unless GG confirms otherwise....

[ogletree]

I can confirm my site only has 2 month old results in Google. I have a friend that has only very new results in Google. He does have a much higher PR than I.

I just found that I come up on the first page for several search terms. I made sure that those old non existant pages are now 301 redirects to pages that have the same content but the new look and design and URL structure. (Content Management System)

[Alphawolf]

Just noticed in one of the SERP's I watch...

The #1 site which is the Association of the industry phrase that is searched- had a grey bar.

allinurl revealed indeed they were wacked.

I quick 'select all' on page and yep.

font color="#fffffc" on white BG for just one sentence- not even keyword stuffed.

What is stupid is that they had no need for it at all. They have (or had) the most links of any of the sites in the SERP's since they are thier Association.

LOL.

GoogleGuy, does one have to send a request to be included again, or after 'x' amount of days/months will the site ban get lifted?

AW

[GoogleGuy]

Automatic penalties (e.g. hidden text) tend to expire automatically after a period of time.

[markus007]

GG how many people are actually aware they have a penalty and reform themselves? .01%?

[rfgdxm1]

Odds are markus007 if someone would go to the effort of hidden text, they'd be checking how they do in search engines. However, rather than reform they might toss up a new, spammy domain.

[GoogleGuy]

markus007, we'll see how many webmasters have cleaned up their pages. Hopefully lots. :)

[chiyo]

>>GG how many people are actually aware they have a penalty and reform themselves? .01%?<<

I guess if webmasters are smarty-pants enough to use SEO-based "tricks" to the extent that they get banned, they should be equally smarty-pants enough to know the implications, have done their risk analysis, and check their google referrals trends... All part of being a professional rather than a part time SEO hacker.

Seriously, would you trust a SEO or webmaster who does not check and investgate should they suddenly get no or much reduced hits from Google?

[Zuckus]

GoogleGuy, can you please tell us anything about cross-linking penalties? When are they applied? I've been doing some link exchanges with sites that had content similar to mine and although my PR hasnt disappeared (only dropped by 1 point) i'm on the 5 page for a particular keyword (when i used to be in top 10 before this last update).
Does google take into account cross linking from similar IPs? (virtual hostings have hundreds of accounts)

[mayor]

This has to be a first in the world of search engines ... a recognition by a search engine that we are all members of the cyberspace community ... and that webmasters aren't a bunch of morons that will go away with their tail between their legs if the search engine bans their whole site for all time for a minor violation of what they think is wrong.

If I had hidden text on my site, I wouldn't think twice about removing it, not because of possible penalties but because it looks like Google is now trying to be a good citizen and neighbor.

[GoogleGuy]

Hey, automatic-but-expiring penalties are better for the web (less hidden text) and better for Google too. We get to deal with fewer webmaster emails, and good websites get back in quicker. We're working for the day when everything is automatic. It's not there yet, but maybe in time.

[victor]

Hmm, I'm not convinced by that, Googleguy.

If someone knows that a site will pop in and out on (approximately) a monthly basis, but, while it's in, the hidden text (or other "mild" spam technique) gives the site a ranking worth spamming for, the answer is obvious: have several such sites. The timing'd be such that one would always be in and raking the money.

If you increase the sin bin duration, they'd add more sites. result: more spam.

Surely not putting them back until the code that triggered the penalty is cleaned up is a better way?

[nutsandbolts]

GoogleGuy, can you please tell us anything about cross-linking penalties?

As an example from me, I cross-linked sites about a year and a half ago. Google was very, very kind and lifted the penalties off them after I explained how much of an idiot I was to do this. But, there is one site I didn't mention just to see if it would automatically "lift" away from the penalty. It hasn't, even a year and a half later! It's internal pages are still pagerank 0 and the index page is normally set around pagerank 4 - although it's showing 5 with this update. But that means nothing as the site has vanished from the index.

Cross-linking penalties can be waaayyy stronger than others and some may never expire.... So.. Don't.. Do.. It.. Kids!

[swerve]

GG how many people are actually aware they have a penalty and reform themselves? .01%?

I think Markus007 makes a good point. If the there is intentional spamming going on, then yes, the webmaster should be smart enough to realize they have a penalty. But what about a site that may have accidentally done something to trigger a penalty? Their site might reappear each month only to disappear again...and again....and again. Here's an idea: a red line in the toolbar. That would certainly reduce the number of "do I have a penalty?" emails to Google.

Also, just curious, are there "bottom-of-the-SERPs" penalties as well as "out-of-the-index" penalties?

[madmatt69]

Ok, I know this might have been addressed before, but does the title tag count as hidden text? I mean obviously if it's full of keywords and there's a title tag on every element of a page, that's a little sketchy. But title tags on links and headers should be fine, right?

Just wondering because my site's dropped from a pr 5 to a white bar since the last update, and I can't figure out why.

[seofreak]

If your page has quite a few links, all of them have title tags, which matchs the text .. kinda bad .. not always though .. depending on the no. of links in ratio to the page content.

[djgreg]

I have experienced stranges things regarding penalties ,too:
About 2 years ago I built a site to promote my company(at that time no proffesional seo but webdesign and webhosting) I used hidden links on the bottom of the page and got penalized. No problem, I understand that. Business wasn't very good, so I decided to give it up. I signed off the domain at the DENIC. Now I have registered the domain again for my seo business because the company name is still the same and it is related to my name. I didn't even think of that old penalty of that domain. The first days GoogleBar was grey but when googlebot hit the page the first time it got a white bar. Can't be because of missing backlinks because I have set up some. Of course no hidden text or smth. like this on the page only some FLASH.
Could it be that this old penalty still exists although the domain was not reachable for about 1 year?
[Yes it is the domain in my profile ;-) )

greg

[rnrtvb]

Trusty:

Don't get too hung up on PR if your site is still coming up well on SERPs. I know of sites that dropped in PR this past update but still come up the same for their keywords.

All Hidden Text Offenders:

If you have hidden text and now receive a grey bar, remove all hidden text and send a reinclusion request to Google webmaster. If you don't receive a "personal" reply don't worry. Your penalty will automatically be removed after 30 days.