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Previously I posted along with many others about a website run by us that had been grey barred and 'dropped from Google'. This happened around the time of the Google February cull.
Noting contents in this forum, we made the site 'clean' by checking for small text, spam, multiple internal links etc. then as directed by Googleguy e-mailed webmaster at Google dot com.
Each month for 3 months, the same e-mail was sent with the same plea then the beginning of June saw a reply
We had been blocked because we didn't meet quality standards necessary for accurate PageRank. There followed generic details of what types of things were naughty including cloaking, hidden text etc. the stuff we read about on Webmaster World.
I looked again at our site and there was a mass of hidden white text, put there originally by our designers "in case javascript didn't work" plus "for optimization purposes". One rocket to the rear later, then followed removal of the offending items. Finally on 18/7 another e-mail to Google explaining I was wrong, I'd fixed it to which I got a response that they appreciated my efforts and had sent me on to the engineering team. If I was OK, they'd then let me back in within a few months.
The point of this message?
Today we're back in the index. PR4 from our original PR7 but hey - we got redemption.
There's a moral of the story here but I'm done moralising!
I guess it depends on who yanks it, what mood they're in, how much authority he or she has, and how naughty the offender. I still think the hidden text filter is 100% human, for now at least.
It's a strange one too as the site in question offered everything that Google wants, my designers just tried a bit too hard to impress it!
Why ban a site that's good on content?
Because it tried to manipulate the results? Only Google is allowed to determine what is good for the general public. Try too hard to get a great site in front of them and Google will fall on you like a ton of bricks.
The map is an integral part of navigation but of course is irrelevant as far as search engines is concerned.
My argument is and always will be that designers should not have to build sites for Google, they should be allowed to build sites for surfers. To get in front of surfers, we need Google, but they need to understand this and show common sense in their bans. I'm all for banning the no content, hidden text merchants but what I am against is arbitrary banning for anyone defying the Google view of the world.
An admirable ideal.
Of course, what got the site banned is ... building that page for Google, and not for users. Oh, and being stupidly blatant about it.
I trust that rocket was large, heavy, and packed chock-full with little pointed bits of metal and large chunks of incendiaries.
My argument is and always will be that designers should not have to build sites for Google, they should be allowed to build sites for surfers.
Google guidelines: [google.com]
Make pages for users, not for search engines.
I'm all for banning the no content, hidden text merchants but what I am against is arbitrary banning for anyone defying the Google view of the world.
I think you have that the wrong way around. Google is trying to offer users the ability to find *your* view of the world.
Hence the penalties, which are quite rightly there, arbitarily.
TJ
Google...show common sense in their bans
I've yet to see one instance where they didn't, your story included. I don't think they're harsh enough; I have to spend time & money to beat hidden text losers when their 30-day slap on the wrist expires.
Congratulations on your return.
However, IMHO if you don't want to risk a further ban, I would think about culling or entirely removing the family of other (largely duplicate content, multiple-keyword-URL, so called "localised", all linking back to one service) variants that still look as though each of them was designed specifically to target particular key phrases in SERPS.
Taking the links off your main site may make it look clean, but running parallel "minisites" in the form keyword1-keyword2.net alongside keyword1-keyword2.com and keyword2-keyword1.com, or kw3-kw4.com and kw3-kw4.co.uk (five of more than 30 apparently very similar sites) hardly looks like the action of a repentant, and inadvertent sinner!
You may want to dig a little deeper with your designers, and refuel that rocket, as some of those other tactics are likely to get you into more trouble in the future.
hope that helps...
Thanks for the feedback - herein lies my problem.
The mini-sites have been built for various UK government agencies, local media companies etc. who want a small site local only to them. Digging around on the original site will demonstrate some. We are able to offer them a ready built site to host within their own site that features its own pictures, search engine etc. albeit largely with duplicate content from our main site.
To the casual surfer it 'looks' local and that's what matters to the third party sites.
To remove the sites to please Google ruins part of our business model, removing the list of all sites from the about us page makes it harder when pitching to national bodies with local sub-sites and sub-groups.
In an ideal world I could continue without worry with this strategy, but in real terms I have to worry about the effect this strategy has on Google results and possibly my overall Google ranking. In the short term, I'm king, in the medium term I get banned.
I'm actually sitting on 120 domain names following the mini-site strategy but am too scared to release the sites to the world in case of a further ban!
(At this point I noted the main site was in my profile and have removed it due to Google paranoia)
I would suggest that when running minisites, you need to have unique local content, and to avoid falling foul of penalties you need to avoid duplicate content.
I personally had problems with inadvertently running parallel sites on two URLs. One got banned, I worked out what was going on, 301'd it, told google what had happened and the main site got back in.
What I would do with your minisites is to ensure that they have genuinely local/unique content, with appropriate (rather than keyword-based) domains, and make them look a lot less like your main site. Otherwise I'd can them.
Currently they look very much like an attempt to dominate SERPS for particular terms, and no doubt they will rise again now you've got your PR back. If you find that you're getting more than your regulation 2 out of 10 in any SERPS using your minisites, then I reckon you're asking to have the rug whipped out from under you all over again...
The question of whether or not this is "fair" I will leave to others to judge. The question is whether Google thinks it is fair. Them's the rules we have to play by.
Just MHO of course.
H
