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Sure wish I would have found this board a few months ago. Seems like at that time many folks were successful in getting there PR0s removed.
We were one of the sites to be PR0d in the first Google roundup of the old Buddy Links and LinkTopics programs. I've gone through many of the past posts on how to get PR0 removed and can't really find a consensus.
Really don't want to get a new domain as we still get plenty of traffic from other SEs and our 'brand,' though kind of weird, seems popular with some folks. Don't believe restricting Google from the site for a couple of cycles would be effective since this is a?manually applied? penalty.
I guess that leaves the Google support forum or help@google. Has anybody had any recent success through these two avenues?
Thanks much,
Jim
Good luck!
If they are new sites and you aren't doing anything dodgy you shouldn't have anything to worry about. Give Google a couple of update cycles as you build some solid incoming links and see what happens.
What I'm referring to is a couple of years old. Back then when 'Link Popularity' was the new buzz word there were quite a few site interlinking programs around. Both Buddy Links and LinkTopics were built to try to get around SE restrictions of a bunch of indiscriminate links coming in and going out of a group of sites. No matter how well each program was designed it was all to no avail as the folks at Google decided they didn't like it and slapped penalties on all involved.
Edit spelling
The equation is simple;
If penalty is less than 12 months old it will be worth hanging on to the domain.
12 months plus, get a new one.
Of course that's not what I wanted to hear. One reason for hanging on to the old domain is that, Google aside, it's still pulling well over 100,000 page views each month. That's a lot of traffic to give up.
We do have another related domain, some of the same content but formatted and presented totall differenty, that I might put more work into while pursuing getting the main domain un-pr0d.
What if I block Google from the first domain and block all other SEs from the second domain? Oooh, that's getting into playing bad games with the SEs again!
I have to mull this one quite a bit.
If the first domain is getting good traffic, let it do it's thing. Diversify, divide and conquer, however you want to look at it.
It must be different content though.
I'll let you know in a few days when the new dance begins.
We were hit with PR0 last December, bumped back to PR3 on the main page in April (previous PR5-6), and have been stuck there ever since (buried on serps we should rank top 5 on). This, in spite of re-working virtually the whole site to a squeeky clean finish.
I can confirm that it IS a manual penalty. More than anything, it "kills" your incoming links. Google doesn't recognize them, thus your rankings suffer greatly.
Frustrated, I asked GoogleGuy to check the site for us. He did and replied asking my assurance that we never again get involved in a link exchange. It takes two cycles for the lift to clear, so we're still waiting.
GG's comments finally confirmed one of my hunches as to what we did wrong. Like you, we were a LinkTopics member. I remember all so well raising concerns about Google to the LinkTopics owner and his insistance that Google had told him *personally* that they viewed his service as a directory.... I should have followed my gut and pulled the links off our pages earlier. I did before the aforementioned LT owner sent out a frantic "drop `em!" email, but alas, not soon enough.
Keeping my fingers crossed for the new dance to set us free!
The moto, of which GG told me to spread, is this: DO NOT under any circumstance join ANYTHING that remotely looks or smells like a link farm.
[edited by: Shoestring at 9:55 pm (utc) on Nov. 21, 2002]
Jim, sounds like a good plan.
Shoestring, do I take then from your post that you last saw GG around about two months ago?
What I'm going to do (I think!):
Use other domain to build new site. I can either only allow Google to this site or, by wrapping simpler navigation around my "content well," make page look dramatically different to all SEs. Might do a "phased rollout." Allow Google, then AV, see what happens, then Ink, etc.
And while building above give shot at a post on Google support group (have not seen any Google folks around there for awhile) and also Google help desk.
Ya' never know. Thanks again folks,
Jim
LinkTopics owner and his insistance that Google had told him *personally* that they viewed his service as a directory.... I should have followed my gut and pulled the links off our pages earlier.
I too was caught up in the LinkTopics directory and followed my gut and yanked it a couple of months before Google went on their witch hunt. Then (duh) I found a stray tag referencing LT that I didn't realize was there. I got rid of that, emailed Google several times begging their forgiveness, and after four months was given PR3 to my home page (previously PR5). All internal pages were (and still are PR0).
Last month, the home page went to PR4 (chased down more links), but internal pages are still PR0.
But, on a happier note, we do get the fresh bot dropping by quite often. It's just real frustrating trying to build all of the keywords off of the front page and not step over their boundry. And, trying to snif out the "bad neighborhoods." There are so many sites requesting reciprocal links that should be a natural choice, but then you find out they're using Zeus or some other potentially unethcial means.
Give me back the idea of the Internet (links)!
So, to make a long story short. My fingers are crossed that we continue to rise (and we're eventually forgiven). I'm not doing anything dodgy, just trying to run a little mom & pop store that had a very successful run in the catalog business.
What kind of link exchange were you in? I thought link exchanges with other high quality, non-spammy, on-theme sites were OK?
This worries me a lot now! :)
What kind of link exchange were you in? I thought link exchanges with other high quality, non-spammy, on-theme sites were OK?
He was in LinkTopics Directory (as was I at the time). This thing doesn't exist anymore, but you have to be really careful about who you are LINKING TO. There are still a bunch of link farms out there and other folks that have generated links using programs such as Zeus (and I'm sure there are others that I'm not aware of).
Sticky mail me if you want some examples.
Glad to hear Google removed the penalty. Was that recently or some time ago?
Am drafting e-mail to Google in my mind. So far, subject line reads "Penalized Web Site Repents." S'okay?
Also glad to see that a lot of folks are still in business from the LinkTopics days. Just checked my e-mail files and earliest "Hallway Links" message I have is from November 99 and thats after we were into it for a couple of cycles. And we were discussing it on the MarketPosition board for about a month before Gregg started it. That about 100 years ago in real time!
Jim
Our penalty began last December (I think) and lasted for 4 months until April.
Just wanted you to know that there is hope.
With the new update we've returned to our full PR on the main page and the internal (formerly) all white PR bars are now showing lots of green hue again!
The incoming link count is low, but I'll be darned if I'm going complain about that. 1/2 of them showing beats the last year of zero's no matter how you slice it.
My hat is off to GoogleGuy!
Your best bet is to pop your URL in your profile, at least for awhile, and ask him to check it out.
Best of luck to you!
