Getting (back) into Google

How does it work and how long does it take if your site is dropped?

[erthworm]

I know this lament is going around a lot here lately, so apologies ahead of time for the redundancy. My website recently got dropped from the Google index for reasons that remain unclear. I had great success for a long time with a relatively passive approach to site optimization and promotion, but something (old doorways, redirects from old site content, Flash homepage redirect, perceived duplicate content?) may have triggered Google's new algo into seeing us as spammers, and I'm wondering what the chances are of the "clean" site being reindexed.

Freshbot still visits the site on a daily basis. Is that any indication of Google's interest in indexing it? If the consensus is that the site has little chance of reindexing anytime soon, I'd like to know so that I can start fresh with a new domain and avoid anything even remotely spammy. Of course, a new domain is a big undertaking when you have an established brand and company name, so I'd rather not have to do that.

[Shak]

old doorways, redirects from old site content, Flash homepage redirect, perceived duplicate content?) may have triggered Google's new algo into seeing us as spammers,

"may" just be an understatement

I'd like to know so that I can start fresh with a new domain and avoid anything even remotely spammy. Of course, a new domain is a big undertaking when you have an established brand and company name, so I'd rather not have to do that.

Shame that wasnt thought of before embarking on the crusade.

Its a real shame when the above happens, but seriously when building a brand, please please do NOT play tricks with the SEs, today its Google tomorrow it could be someone else.

as for the re-inclusion, no idea if it has worked for anyone yet.

Matt Cutts did make a comment at PubCon in Boston, but not sure if anyone remembers the exact words.

Shak

[erthworm]

Thanks, Shak, and your admonition is certainly well-taken.

However, the site has been essentially the same for several years now, so it wasn't like we recently embarked on a branding/SEO campaign that turned the site into a hotbed of Google spam. There were some holdovers from back in the fledgling days of SEO that I never changed, only because the site was still doing well and they didn't seem to be causing problems (i.e. doorway pages with relevant non-hidden content). For the most part, Google didn't have any of that content indexed, althought the residual link structures were probably helping us out.

Up until getting dropped, I figured "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." There was never any indication that Google didn't like the site (quite the opposite), and it had very good ranking for very relevant keyphrases, so why go changing anything?

It's an interesting theoretical issue with the way ever-changing algos and penalties work - in certain cases you don't know you've broken the rules until it's too late. Google goes from condoning a site for years to penalizing it with no warning and no indication as to why. Maybe they should send a warning notice to websites that send up penalty flags...

[Brett_Tabke]

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