Forum Moderators: open
Last week our 8 year old site (rank #1 for crucial keyword)
with thousands of inbound links
and a toobar ranking of #7 was delisted without warning,
notification or specific reason. We had pre-google hidden text
and links on our homepage.
The site provides a popular and important public service
Not to sound like sour grapes, we have been replaced by
sites which have similar TOS violations. It seems that
there is no consisent enforcements.
Anyway, we've apologized, mentioned how important
our site is to the public (2 million monthly page
impressions), and assured google that we didn't
intentionally violate the rules, and that we are now in
and will stay in 100% compliance.
How long will it take to be reincluded?
Also, will we regain our ranking?
On a more positive note, we would have never found
this website had we not been delisted.
Thank you.
Your ranking should be similar minus any boost you might have gotten from the hidden text.
To state the obvious, check carefully that you have removed all hidden text plus any other dubious "legacy" measures.
Could you explain how it is that you had "hidden text and links?" I realize that I am sounding like an idiot here but I'm not sure how you would have these things if you wanted to. I'm familiar with the old black text on black background trick but thought this disappeared years and years ago. I'm trying to understand what it is you had so I can be sure to avoid it myself.
Those sites are still going strong. I picked up a new client just last week with loads of hidden text, Text/BG color the same, links on every period/full stop on the page, 1x1 pixel links, transparent gifs, CSS to place stuff off the page.....it was like their last SEO was determined to try every trick in the book.
The site doesn't actually seem to have been penalized:) But I'm sure it would be when the new Google filters found it again.
The only thing the last guy didn't try was to increase the backlinks and get some good anchor text!
Happy Spring Cleaning;)
