Banned From Google! Careful, This May Happen to You

[Crew Chief]

Originally Posted by djbory

Thank you very much! One last question; do you think I should keep building backlinks?

Yep, but just a notation, you should be using something like SearchStatus | Firefox SEO Toolbar Extension to check your competition's backlinks.

Let's say you have a keyword phrase and the top four competitors on the SERPs are averaging about 270 backlinks each. If you put out 400 backlinks on that keyword phrase; THAT'S OVERKILL!

Not to mention a waste of valuable, time, money and resources. Once your sites come out of the sandbox and you notice a drop in the ranking, just ad a FEW more backlinks and you should be OK!

P.S. If you stick around the Warrior Forum, you could master this stuff by the end of the year or sooner! It's like getting a college education for free!

Much success to you!!!

The Crew Chief

[djbory]

Originally Posted by Crew Chief

Yep, but just a notation, you should be using something like SearchStatus | Firefox SEO Toolbar Extension to check your competition's backlinks.

Let's say you have a keyword phrase and the top four competitors on the SERPs are averaging about 270 backlinks each. If you put out 400 backlinks on that keyword phrase; THAT'S OVERKILL!

Not to mention a waste of valuable, time, money and resources. Once your sites come out of the sandbox and you notice a drop in the ranking, just ad a FEW more backlinks and you should be OK!

P.S. If you stick around the Warrior Forum, you could master this stuff by the end of the year or sooner! It's like getting a college education for free!

Much success to you!!!

The Crew Chief

Thanks again for taking te time to help out. This is the reason I love this forum. Experienced guys like you willing to help those in need...

Djbory

[djbory]

Originally Posted by Crew Chief

You have not been banned...

You have not been de-indexed...

You have not experienced the Google dance...

You are experiencing the Google Sandbox due to your linkbuilding program.

At this point as captivereef has already pointed out, you have to wait the sandbox out. The great news is, once the Google gods decide its time, you are going to come back stronger than ever!

The most important lesson to learn from this event is understand what puts you on Google's radar.

You probably had one site that set things off, but because those sites were on the same Class C IP address, Google erred on the side of caution and pulled all three in the sandbox.

I advise all IMers to either get a reseller web hosting account so that each website can have a separate IP address. Or, order a separate IP for each domain. Secondly, think your linkbuilding campaign through. If you are just starting out with a backlink building campaign with a site that has little to no links and hasn't been online for any length of time and you sign up for a linkbuilding service - plus, put articles out there for backlinks, plus build your own backlinks, you are most likely going to come under the Google radar.

The key in this situation would have been to star slowly, (i.e., naturally) building links and once you're site is established, you can open up the backlink building floodgates!

Hope that helps.

Hey crew chief, I will insist….

I appreciate you're taking time from your sure busy schedule to sort out this situation not only for me but for all of us here at this forum, since this may happen to somebody else…

It is about the conclusion that the sites have been sandboxed. I'm, just not 100% convinced this is the case. Here is why:

First; about one of your questions: The sites are on a different IP address since I have a reseller account at Hostgator. (sorry, my mistake)

If you see my sites they are not new. They're about a year old. I started slowly, about a year ago and I have been building backlinks very slowly for about a year now, using different strategies. 3WAYLINKING was just one of them. They have about the same amount of backlinks or less than the sites in the first 5 position on Google.

I post in blogs, forums, a lot of social bookmarks, article backlinks, profile baklinks, my own blogs, web 2.0 sites, etc… The whole 9 yards…

And what baffles me the most is that the site that disappeared 4 months ago is not indexed anymore.

If I search mydomain.com or site:mydomain.com nothing shows.

Could they have been penalized? I heard, sometimes sites are not banned or de-indexed, but suffer some kind of Google penalty for violating Google guidelines…

Maybe they were just penalized first and now Google has started to ban them, because one is not indexed anymore, I'm afraid this could happen to the rest of them... Just a thought

Let me know if you still think they are sandboxed. Thanks for helping out.

Djbory.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by Crew Chief

Once you understand Google's position on this subject, it will become a non-issue for you. Always remember - never guess at IM. Be clear on what the rules are and you'll be just fine!

Maybe you should rephrase that because it leaves the impression that duplicate content is never an issue. It very well can be

"In the rare cases in which Google perceives that duplicate content may be shown with intent to manipulate our rankings and deceive our users, we'll also make appropriate adjustments in the indexing and ranking of the sites involved. As a result, the ranking of the site may suffer, or the site might be removed entirely from the Google index, in which case it will no longer appear in search results."

We might debate what Google means by "rare" but it seems pretty clear from the way Google operates that they have parameters in place for detection of "suspicious" duplicate content.

I would agree that generally duplicate content is not quite the problem alot of people make it out to be but it really isn't a complete non issue.

[Crew Chief]

Originally Posted by djbory

Yes to both questions for the last two sites...
The website that desapeared 4 months ago is not in Webmaster. I didn't have webmaster by that time, so for that site I wouldn't know.

Let me know if you want to take a look at my sites.

If I'm understanding you clearly the site that "disappeared" was not ever in your GWT account?

Next question, have you put it in your GWT acct and verified it yet?

I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. - Michael Jordan

[Steven Carl Kelly]

Originally Posted by LIndaB

Steven, one thing I've always wondered about webmaster tools is whether it is wise to put all your sites into one account. Is it really wise to let Google know every single site you own? I've heard people say they open an account for every site, but that sounds like an awful lot of work. But on the flip side of that, if one site gets penalized for some reason, do you want Google closely scrutinizing all your other sites as well?

All of my own sites are all in one big account. If I'm doing things properly, what Google penalty should I fear? If any of my sites get penalized, I probably deserve it.

I have nothing to hide from Google.

[djbory]

Originally Posted by Crew Chief

If I'm understanding you clearly the site that "disappeared" was not ever in your GWT account?

Next question, have you put it in your GWT acct and verified it yet?

I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. - Michael Jordan

No I haven't.

[Crew Chief]

Originally Posted by djbory

No I haven't.

@ djbory,

How about putting that site in your GWT acct and verify it and then we'll go from there. Before you do that, do you have a Google approved sitemap?

If so, let's go! Get in there so we can take a Starbucks brrrreak! My team has been chompin at the bits on this one...

[djbory]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Maybe you should rephrase that because it leaves the impression that duplicate content is never an issue. It very well can be

"In the rare cases in which Google perceives that duplicate content may be shown with intent to manipulate our rankings and deceive our users, we'll also make appropriate adjustments in the indexing and ranking of the sites involved. As a result, the ranking of the site may suffer, or the site might be removed entirely from the Google index, in which case it will no longer appear in search results."

We might debate what Google means by "rare" but it seems pretty clear from the way Google operates that they have parameters in place for detection of "suspicious" duplicate content.

I would agree that generally duplicate content is not quite the problem alot of people make it out to be but it really isn't a complete non issue.

Originally Posted by Orator

You said you outsource your content, is there a chance someone has mislead you about the originality of it?

It appears like duplicate content may be an issue in some cases…

Orator, I didn’t pay attention to you before and maybe I should’ve….

I was advised by a very experienced guy from this forum named Don to check the paragraphs from my websites for duplicate content, and guess what? My exactly same paragraphs are in many websites all over the net.

'Google don’t penalize or ban sites with duplicate content, but will filter out all the sites with multiple duplicate paragraphs but one. The rest of the sites will not appear in the search results anymore'.

I’m not saying this is it! But it may well be. I’ll re-write the content from all my sites and I start a very aggressive backlinking campaign and will report to you guys in a few days to see what happen.

[djbory]

Originally Posted by Crew Chief

@ djbory,

How about putting that site in your GWT acct and verify it and then we'll go from there. Before you do that, do you have a Google approved sitemap?

If so, let's go! Get in there so we can take a Starbucks brrrreak! My team has been chompin at the bits on this one...

Ok, Chief, I did it. I'll let you know when google approves the site map and verifies the site, if it ever does it...

Thanks again chief...

[Crew Chief]

Originally Posted by djbory

Ok, Chief, I did it. I'll let you know when google approves the site map and verifies the site, if it ever does it...

Thanks again chief...

Good deal, keep me posted.

[InternetMarketingIQ]

Quite simply Google has picked up on your artificial linking scheme. And you are NOT banned, you are just being filtered.

[TristanPerry]

Originally Posted by Franco Mocke

Any idea when Google will start using their new algorithm? I'm a bit scared because my main money site does not show up in the new Google, but in the old one I'm 4th

Sorry, I honestly don't know. I couldn't find out either by Googling "When is google caffeine being released?".

I wouldn't worry too much though; it's still a WIP. I greatly doubt they're going to exclude any good sites with the new one.

[djbory]

Originally Posted by InternetMarketingIQ

Quite simply Google has picked up on your artificial linking scheme. And you are NOT banned, you are just being filtered.

You don’t think some duplicate paragraph could get you penalized? Some IMers say that’s not a reason to lose google rankings… Others say the opposite….
You don't have much control over that, since people will always copy content from you.

[cienik]

i suggest you to try some site to test whether you get banned or not. you still have the pagerank right ? if yes then you don't get banned

[dburk]

Originally Posted by djbory

You don’t think some duplicate paragraph could get you penalized? Some IMers say that’s not a reason to lose google rankings… Others say the opposite….
You don't have much control over that, since people will always copy content from you.

Your absolutely right that there is no duplicate content penalty. There is however, a filter that prevents the SERP from showing multiple instances of the same content. Searchers would quickly abandon any search engine that did not filter the massive amount of duplicate pages from their SERP.

Usually the page with the highest PR will win out and avoid the filter. So you could have content that is not original and still get it to rank, but you are going to have to build more authority and trust than all those other pages with the same content.

For example, if you have unique content and your ranking score is just slightly below the page at position #3 on the SERP you would still appear on page one at position #4 of the SERP. However, if your page contains content that is a duplicate of the page at position #3 then you will not appear anywhere at all on the SERP, not even position #1000.

Yes, you can still rank a page with duplicate content, but if you fail to win a better position then all other copies of the same content you will be not be found anywhere on the SERP.

[Crew Chief]

@ Franco Mocke

This is the recently released google caffeine: >>>>>>> Google The URL looks like this: http : // www 2. sandbox. google . com / The spaces are to override the WF automated link converter.

@ TristanPerry

Google changes it's algorithims at least once week, probably more! They have to because Internet Marketing noobies are at the bottom of their game clogging the Internet Highways with junk. And Web Spammers, BlueFartters and Cybercrooks are on top of their game trying to rip off and harm the masses! Moments right after story broke about the ESPN reporter Erin Andrews being videotaped in the buff, BlueFartters had the #2, #3 positions on the Google SERPs for people searching for the video. They beat out ALL of the news agencies and gossip sites and everyone else. But when a surfer clicked on either link, they found themselves dab smack in the middle of an automated .exe file that ruined their hard drive. Bet you’d like to know how they got ranked so high so fast wouldn’t you??? Hahaha! The SEO Pros know! Hint, Hint, there's a way to perform a "Backwards Analysis."

Worrying about Google’s algorithm changes or its impact is like worrying about the weather. Why worry? Why not just have ways to monitor the weather and then have an umbrella, raincoat, some sunscreen, a parka, flashlight, windbreaker, generator, swim suit, gloves, boots, tennis shoes, etc.? In other words BE PREPARED! The best way to be prepared. Learn SEO and proper backlinking strategies, NOW! Not tomorrow! Not after you launch another site. Not after you get BANNED, suffer a Google Slap or get dumped in the Google Sandbox.

@ djbory

You checked your GWT for that site yet?

A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory.
- Arthur Golden

[djbory]

Originally Posted by Crew Chief

@ djbory

You checked your GWT for that site yet?

A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory.

- Arthur Golden

Yes, The one that doesn't appeared to be indexed, indeed, shows at GWT as "site no indexed", the sitemap status shows a greenmark though.

[Steve Crooks]

Djbory, all answers that you receive about this problem should be treated with caution. It is virtually impossible to know for real why a site's pages disapear from the indexes, we can speculate and reason but that is all. Google will never disclose why they deindex, ban, sandbox etc because by doing that it is a short step to working out their algo.

However, there are a few points that you can be absolutely certain about when it comes to Google.

1. They look for relevancy of content to keywords.
2. They punish sites that are trying to manipulate their algos.
3. They trust sites more that have backlinks from current highly trusted sites.
4. They are putting a lot more emphasis on visitor experience with your sites.

It could be argued that just by attempting to ask for backlinks from various websites you are trying to manipulate Google's algo but thankfully they don't penalise all attempts at getting backlinks just ones that are trying to deceive. 3-way links are definitely designed to deceive Google. Why else do we do it? They are supposed to look like 1 way links which Google like so naturally they are going to be pi**ed when they decipher any 3 way link network.

2 way links are fine so long as you don't overdo it because you are not deliberately setting out to deceive. Google can easily see reciprocal links and as such don't mind them so long as they are not part of a scheme.

Keep everything as natural and transparant as possible, article marketing is fine, commenting on blogs is fine, syndicating articles is fine and contextual links are also fine. They work because you are not trying to do anything deceptive.

I guess the bottom line is, if you are doing anything that can be perceived as trying to deceive Google then don't be suprised to be punished by deindexing or worse.. banning.

Can you get your site's pages back in? Yes, but don't hold your breath. Remove all the dodgy backlinks to your site and request a reinclusion through your webmaster tools account.. Also, check this out for more information.
Requesting reconsideration of your site - Webmasters/Site owners Help

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by dburk

Yes, you can still rank a page with duplicate content, but if you fail to win a better position then all other copies of the same content you will be not be found anywhere on the SERP.

Yep and as far as that content goes its not all that different from a penalty.

[Carl Pruitt]

Originally Posted by dburk

Yes, you can still rank a page with duplicate content, but if you fail to win a better position then all other copies of the same content you will be not be found anywhere on the SERP.

I don't know my behind from third base as far as SEO. I just try to cover the basics and build links without resorting to linking services. So this next question is just out of real curiosity.

I often see this particular information about duplicate content ranking on forums and seo blogs, but yet when I do a search "in real life" (not as marketing research) I frequently see multiple results on the first page which have the exact same content. The only difference may be some design elements on the page, or different headers/footers/etc. In fact, when this happens to me, I do understand why Google would try to prevent it. It makes my own search frustrating.

[djbory]

Originally Posted by Steve Crooks

Djbory, all answers that you receive about this problem should be treated with caution. It is virtually impossible to know for real why a site's pages disapear from the indexes, we can speculate and reason but that is all. Google will never disclose why they deindex, ban, sandbox etc because by doing that it is a short step to working out their algo.

However, there are a few points that you can be absolutely certain about when it comes to Google.

1. They look for relevancy of content to keywords.
2. They punish sites that are trying to manipulate their algos.
3. They trust sites more that have backlinks from current highly trusted sites.
4. They are putting a lot more emphasis on visitor experience with your sites.

It could be argued that just by attempting to ask for backlinks from various websites you are trying to manipulate Google's algo but thankfully they don't penalise all attempts at getting backlinks just ones that are trying to deceive. 3-way links are definitely designed to deceive Google. Why else do we do it? They are supposed to look like 1 way links which Google like so naturally they are going to be pi**ed when they decipher any 3 way link network.

2 way links are fine so long as you don't overdo it because you are not deliberately setting out to deceive. Google can easily see reciprocal links and as such don't mind them so long as they are not part of a scheme.

Keep everything as natural and transparant as possible, article marketing is fine, commenting on blogs is fine, syndicating articles is fine and contextual links are also fine. They work because you are not trying to do anything deceptive.

I guess the bottom line is, if you are doing anything that can be perceived as trying to deceive Google then don't be suprised to be punished by deindexing or worse.. banning.

Can you get your site's pages back in? Yes, but don't hold your breath. Remove all the dodgy backlinks to your site and request a reinclusion through your webmaster tools account.. Also, check this out for more information.
Requesting reconsideration of your site - Webmasters/Site owners Help

Thanks Steve. I will try to find out what is the reason that this has happened, so me and the folks that have been following this post can benefit in the future:

I will do 3 steps and I’ll keep a post of my progress:

1.- Today I will remove and re-write every paragraph that have been duplicated from my sites and will implement an aggressive backlinking campaign; bookmarking, blog posting, articles, the whole 9 yards… I will go with this for a week to see if I can improve ranking…

2.- If the above doesn’t work, I will remove myself from the 3 WAY LINKING Service and will stop linking from my own websites…

3.- If the 2 steps above alone don’t make the trick, I will resubmit the sites to Google for consideration…

I will keep updating my progress….

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Yep and as far as that content goes its not all that different from a penalty.

I agree.

Originally Posted by Carl Pruitt

I don't know my behind from third base as far as SEO. I just try to cover the basics and build links without resorting to linking services. So this next question is just out of real curiosity.

I often see this particular information about duplicate content ranking on forums and seo blogs, but yet when I do a search "in real life" (not as marketing research) I frequently see multiple results on the first page which have the exact same content. The only difference may be some design elements on the page, or different headers/footers/etc. In fact, when this happens to me, I do understand why Google would try to prevent it. It makes my own search frustrating.

That’s exactly my point. And I just checked and the last site which lost ranking has unique content.

Another point is that the sites that had duplicated content were in the first page of Google for months, one of them #1 for 3 keywords, even with duplicated content and it was PR4.

If duplicated content was the issue in this site, the others sites with duplicated content should’ve been filter out, not the one that was #1 and PR4 (that site was de-indexed completely).

Maybe Google algo takes time to detect duplicate content, if that’s the case… Or in fact was the 3WAY LINK scheme…

[djbory]

Hey guys, just an update; another one of my sites that had keywords ranking in page 1 and 2 of Google is not ranking anymore. Now the casualty # is 4 sites dead!

With the exception of one keyword that was in page #1 in google is now #59, I assume that is going to keep dropping....This is not good! They are dropping like flies, and I feel like my hands are tied....

Any advise would be welcome...

[Steve Crooks]

It could just be the Google dance and it might bounce back again but it does appear to be some sort of pattern with your sites. It could be that all 4 of your sites are just going through the normal ups and downs but if not then there is something in your promotional activities that is not to Google's likeing. Ditch the 3 way links scheme immediately in my opinion.

Originally Posted by djbory

Hey guys, just an update; another one of my sites that had keywords ranking in page 1 and 2 of Google is not ranking anymore. Now the casualty # is 4 sites dead!

With the exception of one keyword that was in page #1 in google is now #59, I assume that is going to keep dropping....This is not good! They are dropping like flies, and I feel like my hands are tied....

Any advise would be welcome...

[djbory]

Originally Posted by Steve Crooks

It could just be the Google dance and it might bounce back again but it does appear to be some sort of pattern with your sites. It could be that all 4 of your sites are just going through the normal ups and downs but if not then there is something in your promotional activities that is not to Google's likeing. Ditch the 3 way links scheme immediately in my opinion.

It's not the google dance Steve, because the first site that was penalized is now de-indexed. And it was over 4 months ago...

I'm going to check the sites that are linking to that site to see if I can find some patern...

[Crew Chief]

Originally Posted by Steve Crooks

Djbory, all answers that you receive about this problem should be treated with caution. It is virtually impossible to know for real why a site's pages disapear from the indexes, we can speculate and reason but that is all. Google will never disclose why they deindex, ban, sandbox etc because by doing that it is a short step to working out their algo.

There’s a Lot To Be Learned From This Thread! Much Thanks To Djbory For Starting It!


Hello Steve Crooks, you made some very valid points to which I wholeheartedly concur. Especially the four points; you were right on track! However, there is one statement we MUST reflect upon to glean some nuggets that will be beneficial to all. I have no way of knowing how your business model is set up or what IM means to you specifically, but with me, I do this FULL TIME with no back up plan in case it doesn’t work! It does work and it will continue to work - failure (not even for one website) is not an option and will never be! I do this for myself and for clients. My background is in Electronic Intelligence and I’ve assembled a team, we call the “Brainstorm Team” each with various backgrounds, (IT, Military, Physics, Marketing, etc.)

Between us, we track Google like the military and Homeland Security tracks threats and potential threats. We (talking about members of our tram) all have a lot at stake; therefore we cannot afford to be slackers about IM. You could say that we run radar and sonar on the Big G day and night. We keep Matt Cutts, Adam Lasnik, and other G brain trusts and the algorithm changes on DEFCON 3 at all times. If we detect anything out of the ordinary with the Big G, we go to DEFCON 4 and evaluate the site in question! I’m sharing this to make this point resounding, irrefutable and overwhelmingly clear; WE MEAN BUSINESS!

For certain people, IM is a dream that will soon fade. For others it’s a roll of the dice. For others is a part time gig that doesn’t hold a high significance on their to do list. Still for others, it’s one of the many “Get Rich Quick” fantasies they will engage to see if it is going to be THE ONE. And finally, there is the group of IMers who half-heartedly work the business with nominal results. When you have people as we do - with a lot at stake; YOU LEAVE NOTHING TO CHANGE! Others may, but we DO NOT guess at IM! We DO NOT guess at our Web Properties! And, we DO NOT guess at our client's Web Properties!

Having shared that, you made this statement, “It is virtually impossible to know for real why a site's pages disapear from the indexes.” Actually, Steve, you can KNOW and you can know each and every single solitary time! When a person gets banned, dropped from the index, gets sand boxed, etc., and they send an inquiry to Google. They receive an email stating the reason(s) why.

Inexperienced IMs, look at that email response and say, “Google didn’t say much, as a matter of fact – they were quite vague!” Wrong answer people! The Big G pinpointed the problem; THAT PERSON was simply operating in a lack of knowledge about Google’s TOS, other parameters and what stays under the radar and what makes Google’s radars go: RED ALERT! RED ALERT Repeat RED ALERT!

For all of you who really desire to succeed at IM, I strongly urge you to quickly get past the point of guessing about Google and worrying about getting banned, de-indexed, sand boxed or Google slapped. If you develop a proactive IM business model that includes aggressively staying on top of the Big G and the other three, you’ll be fine. PLUS, if you want to get above the $10K, $15k, $18k per month and higher range, this will be required! Anytime an IMer succeeds at SEO, PPC, CPA or AFF Marketing, the competition gets fierce! The people who stumble upon IM success are the ones who are subject to waking up one morning and seeing their dreams and aspirations the same place Google put BMW in 2006.

*************************

OK, got that out of the way, now here’s a quick update, Djbory PM’ed me the website in question and we are putting it through an analysis. We’ll post the results, if not late tonight, the first thing tomorrow morning - so don’t forget to keep track of this thread! You’ll learn something!

What we WILL NOT be posting are the actual URLs of the website and advise Djbory not to post them and not to PM them either. Until then…

~ Where the determination is, the way can be found. ~
George S. Claso

~ A determined soul will do more with a rusty monkey wrench than a loafer will accomplish with all the tools in a machine shop. ~
Robert Hughes

[Steve Crooks]

okay... Wow.. Just like the A-Team!

Originally Posted by Crew Chief

There’s a Lot To Be Learned From This Thread! Much Thanks To Djbory For Starting It!


Hello Steve Crooks, you made some very valid points to which I wholeheartedly concur. Especially the four points; you were right on track! However, there is one statement we MUST reflect upon to glean some nuggets that will be beneficial to all. I have no way of knowing how your business model is set up or what IM means to you specifically, but with me, I do this FULL TIME with no back up plan in case it doesn’t work! It does work and it will continue to work - failure (not even for one website) is not an option and will never be! I do this for myself and for clients. My background is in Electronic Intelligence and I’ve assembled a team, we call the “Brainstorm Team” each with various backgrounds, (IT, Military, Physics, Marketing, etc.)

Between us, we track Google like the military and Homeland Security tracks threats and potential threats. We (talking about members of our tram) all have a lot at stake; therefore we cannot afford to be slackers about IM. You could say that we run radar and sonar on the Big G day and night. We keep Matt Cutts, Adam Lasnik, and other G brain trusts and the algorithm changes on DEFCON 3 at all times. If we detect anything out of the ordinary with the Big G, we go to DEFCON 4 and evaluate the site in question! I’m sharing this to make this point resounding, irrefutable and overwhelmingly clear; WE MEAN BUSINESS!

For certain people, IM is a dream that will soon fade. For others it’s a roll of the dice. For others is a part time gig that doesn’t hold a high significance on their to do list. Still for others, it’s one of the many “Get Rich Quick” fantasies they will engage to see if it is going to be THE ONE. And finally, there is the group of IMers who half-heartedly work the business with nominal results. When you have people as we do - with a lot at stake; YOU LEAVE NOTHING TO CHANGE! Others may, but we DO NOT guess at IM! We DO NOT guess at our Web Properties! And, we DO NOT guess at our client's Web Properties!

Having shared that, you made this statement, “It is virtually impossible to know for real why a site's pages disapear from the indexes.” Actually, Steve, you can KNOW and you can know each and every single solitary time! When a person gets banned, dropped from the index, gets sand boxed, etc., and they send an inquiry to Google. They receive an email stating the reason(s) why.

Inexperienced IMs, look at that email response and say, “Google didn’t say much, as a matter of fact – they were quite vague!” Wrong answer people! The Big G pinpointed the problem; THAT PERSON was simply operating in a lack of knowledge about Google’s TOS, other parameters and what stays under the radar and what makes Google’s radars go: RED ALERT! RED ALERT Repeat RED ALERT!

For all of you who really desire to succeed at IM, I strongly urge you to quickly get past the point of guessing about Google and worrying about getting banned, de-indexed, sand boxed or Google slapped. If you develop a proactive IM business model that includes aggressively staying on top of the Big G and the other three, you’ll be fine. PLUS, if you want to get above the $10K, $15k, $18k per month and higher range, this will be required! Anytime an IMer succeeds at SEO, PPC, CPA or AFF Marketing, the competition gets fierce! The people who stumble upon IM success are the ones who are subject to waking up one morning and seeing their dreams and aspirations the same place Google put BMW in 2006.

*************************

OK, got that out of the way, now here’s a quick update, Djbory PM’ed me the website in question and we are putting it through an analysis. We’ll post the results, if not late tonight, the first thing tomorrow morning - so don’t forget to keep track of this thread! You’ll learn something!

What we WILL NOT be posting are the actual URLs of the website and advise Djbory not to post them and not to PM them either. Until then…

~ Where the determination is, the way can be found. ~
George S. Claso

~ A determined soul will do more with a rusty monkey wrench than a loafer will accomplish with all the tools in a machine shop. ~
Robert Hughes

[djbory]

Originally Posted by Crew Chief

There’s a Lot To Be Learned From This Thread! Much Thanks To Djbory For Starting It!


Hello Steve Crooks, you made some very valid points to which I wholeheartedly concur. Especially the four points; you were right on track! However, there is one statement we MUST reflect upon to glean some nuggets that will be beneficial to all. I have no way of knowing how your business model is set up or what IM means to you specifically, but with me, I do this FULL TIME with no back up plan in case it doesn’t work! It does work and it will continue to work - failure (not even for one website) is not an option and will never be! I do this for myself and for clients. My background is in Electronic Intelligence and I’ve assembled a team, we call the “Brainstorm Team” each with various backgrounds, (IT, Military, Physics, Marketing, etc.)

Between us, we track Google like the military and Homeland Security tracks threats and potential threats. We (talking about members of our tram) all have a lot at stake; therefore we cannot afford to be slackers about IM. You could say that we run radar and sonar on the Big G day and night. We keep Matt Cutts, Adam Lasnik, and other G brain trusts and the algorithm changes on DEFCON 3 at all times. If we detect anything out of the ordinary with the Big G, we go to DEFCON 4 and evaluate the site in question! I’m sharing this to make this point resounding, irrefutable and overwhelmingly clear; WE MEAN BUSINESS!

For certain people, IM is a dream that will soon fade. For others it’s a roll of the dice. For others is a part time gig that doesn’t hold a high significance on their to do list. Still for others, it’s one of the many “Get Rich Quick” fantasies they will engage to see if it is going to be THE ONE. And finally, there is the group of IMers who half-heartedly work the business with nominal results. When you have people as we do - with a lot at stake; YOU LEAVE NOTHING TO CHANGE! Others may, but we DO NOT guess at IM! We DO NOT guess at our Web Properties! And, we DO NOT guess at our client's Web Properties!

Having shared that, you made this statement, “It is virtually impossible to know for real why a site's pages disapear from the indexes.” Actually, Steve, you can KNOW and you can know each and every single solitary time! When a person gets banned, dropped from the index, gets sand boxed, etc., and they send an inquiry to Google. They receive an email stating the reason(s) why.

Inexperienced IMs, look at that email response and say, “Google didn’t say much, as a matter of fact – they were quite vague!” Wrong answer people! The Big G pinpointed the problem; THAT PERSON was simply operating in a lack of knowledge about Google’s TOS, other parameters and what stays under the radar and what makes Google’s radars go: RED ALERT! RED ALERT Repeat RED ALERT!

For all of you who really desire to succeed at IM, I strongly urge you to quickly get past the point of guessing about Google and worrying about getting banned, de-indexed, sand boxed or Google slapped. If you develop a proactive IM business model that includes aggressively staying on top of the Big G and the other three, you’ll be fine. PLUS, if you want to get above the $10K, $15k, $18k per month and higher range, this will be required! Anytime an IMer succeeds at SEO, PPC, CPA or AFF Marketing, the competition gets fierce! The people who stumble upon IM success are the ones who are subject to waking up one morning and seeing their dreams and aspirations the same place Google put BMW in 2006.

*************************

OK, got that out of the way, now here’s a quick update, Djbory PM’ed me the website in question and we are putting it through an analysis. We’ll post the results, if not late tonight, the first thing tomorrow morning - so don’t forget to keep track of this thread! You’ll learn something!

What we WILL NOT be posting are the actual URLs of the website and advise Djbory not to post them and not to PM them either. Until then…

~ Where the determination is, the way can be found. ~
George S. Claso

~ A determined soul will do more with a rusty monkey wrench than a loafer will accomplish with all the tools in a machine shop. ~
Robert Hughes

Great post men!!! I admire your courage, your determination and your way of thinking!!!! With a mindset like that it is impossible to fail...

I hope we all learn from you...

Keep it up...

DJBory

[dburk]

Wow! I just learned something from this thread too!!!

Apparently the more you SHOUT, use EXCLAMTION MARKS!!!! and BOAST about about how GREAT you ARE, the MORE people LIKE your POST!!!!

Let's ALL of START doing this so that WE can all DO OUR PART in making this a BETTER forum!!!!!!!!!!! YOU can COUNT on ME to DO MY PART as soon as I figure out HOW to make my FONTS BIG BOLD and RED!!!!!!

I AM SOOOO DAMN GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!

<LOL> Tongue pressed firmly in cheek </LOL>

[djbory]

Originally Posted by bossaway

How does your site do in Google Caffeine search results? Maybe it will pop back up once they implement their new search engine.

Let me know how to use Google caffeine to see what happen...

Djbory

[banker0679]

wow i can't believe how anyone is giving out advice w/out knowing the sites!

Here are some general rules....


1. If one site is penalized....and 2 other sites LINK to the penalized site then those 2 sites will be penalized by DEFAULT. Linking to a penalized site WILL hurt your site.

2. This is NOT THE SANDBOX. Can't even believe that someone wrote that. According to the OP the whole site is GONE from Google. That is NOT THE SANDBOX!

3. More than likely...if you have ANY DUPLICATE CONTENT Google may FILTER out ALL of your sites except for the originating source. Chances are that they may just put the most authoritative site, and FILTER OUT the rest.

If you copy/pasted your site to many other sites....then you better believe that Google will take sites out of their index. Best way of checking this is COPY/PASTE the first line of a paragraph in your site, and google it in quotations. If you see it on another website then you better change that website or your own. YOUR SITE SHOULD ALWAYS BE ORIGINAL CONTENT!

4. If you have 10 pages on your site...and they ALL basically contain the same content then you better believe Google will FILTER YOU out. It's not a penalty...it's a filter. As soon as you change it...you may see a change within 1 week. You can file a reinclusion request to maybe have it done faster

5. If you have 10 pages...but only link to the homepage......looks spammy. Build links to the homepage AND to every individual content page on your site.

Submitting your site to google webmaster tools is not going to help.
Google may reindex you...but will take your site out again after it sees that you're offering duplicate content.

You HAVE to change all the content on all of your pages and/or sites. That is your problem.

[banker0679]

also

3way linking is

a-b, b-c

link wheel is
a-b, b-c, c-a

3way linking is harder to spot as it is open ended
Link wheel is a circle and will always circle back to the 1st link

[kkchoon]

Originally Posted by djbory

Just an update; the website that desapeared from Google rankins 4 months ago for all the keywords, but that I still could find when I did the domain.com search now is completely gone. I can't not find it in Google in any way or form. I guess we're talking about 'banned from Google' As I mentioned before. It's not going to be good if that happens to the rest of my sites...

So my advise is; stay away fro 3WAY LINK guys...

This advise is not true at all!

I've 3 way links on my sites and no problem at all, so definitely not the case.

Check your Google webmaster tool, it will show you all the on page problems, fix it before going further...

If your site is not ranking for a particular keyword, check your on page factor, did you over optimize for that keyword? If Google starts to filter you, did you immediately modify / optimize your page (If you do that, you are scr*w!)

Where did you get the links? Did you try Angela & Paul packet? Did you spin / vary your keyword a bit?

See this post for more information:
How I Generated **2,000++ Visitors / Day in 3 months...

[kkchoon]

Originally Posted by banker0679

3. More than likely...if you have ANY DUPLICATE CONTENT Google may FILTER out ALL of your sites except for the originating source. Chances are that they may just put the most authoritative site, and FILTER OUT the rest.

Nope, duplicate content only apply in 2 ways:

1. Google "TRY NOT TO" show duplicate content in the top 10 result for a particular keyword.

2. Google will ignore one of your article that post twice or more on your own site.

If you are referring duplicate content scrap from other website or article directories, you are WRONG!

If this kind of duplicate content filter exists, many news sites and auto blog will be filtered! But my experience tells me otherwise.

It all depends on your backlinks, as long as you have a lot of backlinks, you can outrank original poster for the same article!

It doesn't make sense to filter duplicate articles, may be that article just too good not to spread it? If Google filter website based on this rule, many innocent sites will be gone! And that is very bad for Google, because Google is trying hard to provide as much useful information as possible, filtering those sites will limit Google data source.

- Kok Choon

[kkchoon]

Originally Posted by banker0679

also

3way linking is

a-b, b-c

link wheel is
a-b, b-c, c-a

3way linking is harder to spot as it is open ended
Link wheel is a circle and will always circle back to the 1st link

Link Wheel is just a concept.

There are no limit to implementing link wheel, in fact, the more mix up your links between the properties, the better!

[Paxton]

There is one other option to consider as the basis of your problems. Human review.

Websites will go through a human review (obviously not all websites - that would be impossible) but websites that the search engines think are moving up the rankings too quickly, can be flagged for a review by human checkers.

This is actually a very good thing if you're prepared for it. Can be pretty bad if you're not ready though.

Have a look at your websites. Presumably these are monetized somehow. Are you using raw data feeds? What is the status of any images you might have used? Right click an image on your site and check the properties. Where does the image originate?

What is the status of the links to the merchant's sites? Do these include all the images for example.

Duplicate content checks by Google serve for more then simply determining if a particular site deserves to outrank another site. When somebody does a search for a particular term, obviously the search engines want to serve up the most relevant, informative and original versions of anything to do with the search term.

If you're an affiliate for Product X for example, which page has the most relevant, informative and original version of anything to do with Product X? Most probably it's the Merchant site. Any affiliate sites will use the same images and content as the merchant site, immediately flagging the site as an affiliate.

Some will argue that Google hates affiliate sites. All my sites are affiliate sites and Google seems to like them pretty good, so I would disagree with the "hates" bit. Certainly gives us a hard time, but not hate.

There is a lot of discussion on minimizing link-building footprints. It might be wise to look at your "affiliate footprint" as well.

Just my opinon of course.

[banker0679]

uhhh no.

I'm telling you with dealing with multiple sites from different clients that had this problem

I'm not telling you from what i think is correct or my theories

I'm basing this on experience

You tell me what articles/press releases/websites show up in the top 100 placements that all have the SAME CONTENT, and have been there for over 1 month?

It isn't in just the 'top 10'

You're obviously not aware of the recent Google filters for duplicate content

You need to read what I wrote...

If you write something on your website and it's scraped by hundreds of sites...YOUR site will APPEAR at the top IF your site is MORE AUTHORITATIVE THAN THE OTHER SITES.

If NY Times reposts your article then your site will be pushed down the rankings while NY Time will rank AND stay there.

You're thinking of 'what makes sense' but I'm telling you from experience.
HUGE DIFFERENCE!

You also state that it depends on backlinks if you want to outrank the original article lol
Then you say that many innocent sites would be gone. So which one is it?

Go get some experience and stop posting 'what you think' may happen

Originally Posted by kkchoon

Nope, duplicate content only apply in 2 ways:

1. Google "TRY NOT TO" show duplicate content in the top 10 result for a particular keyword.

2. Google will ignore one of your article that post twice or more on your own site.

If you are referring duplicate content scrap from other website or article directories, you are WRONG!

If this kind of duplicate content filter exists, many news sites and auto blog will be filtered! But my experience tells me otherwise.

It all depends on your backlinks, as long as you have a lot of backlinks, you can outrank original poster for the same article!

It doesn't make sense to filter duplicate articles, may be that article just too good not to spread it? If Google filter website based on this rule, many innocent sites will be gone! And that is very bad for Google, because Google is trying hard to provide as much useful information as possible, filtering those sites will limit Google data source.

- Kok Choon

[banker0679]

where in the world are you getting this?

GWT does NOT show you ALL the ON PAGE issues....you state that they do lol
If Google starts to filter you..and you immediately modify...the person is now messed up? ...Where in the world did you get this gold nugget? lol

Is this amateur night at the Apollo?

Originally Posted by kkchoon

This advise is not true at all!

I've 3 way links on my sites and no problem at all, so definitely not the case.

Check your Google webmaster tool, it will show you all the on page problems, fix it before going further...

If your site is not ranking for a particular keyword, check your on page factor, did you over optimize for that keyword? If Google starts to filter you, did you immediately modify / optimize your page (If you do that, you are scr*w!)

Where did you get the links? Did you try Angela & Paul packet? Did you spin / vary your keyword a bit?

See this post for more information:
How I Generated **2,000++ Visitors / Day in 3 months...

[Steve Crooks]

(Groan...) Before this thread degenerates into the usual, "My SEO knowledge is bigger than yours.." nonsense or "SEO envy" as it is otherwise known, everyone has put some good points forward here.

There are no hard and fast answers as Google will always guard that info, there is speculation based on our own experiences of course but that is all it is. The bottom line is, if you feel that your backlinking is trying to manipulate the Google algo then it probably is.. Will you get some success using these backlinking techniques? Yes, of course you can, but just don't be suprised when pages slip from the SERPS as that is also a probability of using link schemes.

[banker0679]

Google or find the recent articles that were speaking about Affiliate sites dropping

You can add all the backlinks you want.....Google doesn't like duplicate content

then read it from the horse's mouth

YouTube - Can product descriptions be considered...

[djbory]

Originally Posted by banker0679

wow i can't believe how anyone is giving out advice w/out knowing the sites!

Here are some general rules....


If one site is penalized....and 2 other sites LINK to the penalized site then those 2 sites will be penalized by DEFAULT. Linking to a penalized site WILL hurt your site.

'WRONG-WRONG-WRONG'. I have to STRONGLY DISAGREE with this statement.

I always heard this before and I was convinced this was true. However, last night I conducted a backward investigation. I checked about 50% from all sites that link to my site that was banned & de-indexed over 4 months ago (in this case this is a very bad neighbor), and guess what? Those sites are ROCKING!!!! Most of the sites that link to me in the 3 WAY LINK SERVICE are on first page of google, impressively, many of them, first page - #1, if that was true, then those sites would've been penalized some way, but obviously this is not the case.

I agree with you in everything else.

Originally Posted by banker0679

If you have 10 pages...but only link to the homepage......looks spammy. Build links to the homepage AND to every individual content page on your site.

Here I may have screwed up! I've been building links to my homepage only… If this is a very big issue then I may have a problem here…

Djbory

[djbory]

[QUOTE=banker0679;1146589]where in the world are you getting this?

GWT does NOT show you ALL the ON PAGE issues....you state that they do lol
QUOTE]

I have to agree. I have GWT and google doesn't show me any problems at all, and obviously I have some serious problems.

[banker0679]

ehhh do you want me to find the video Matt Cutts gave?
He specifically stated that if you link OUT to a penalized site then your site will be penalized.

I had this issue with a few clients linking out to a bad directory or link farm sites. Removing the links, and filling out a reinclusion request got the rankings back (after a few months being down) within 1 week.

Your current sites ARE NOT PENALIZED but filtered out due to duplicate content so it wouldnt apply to your current situation.

Originally Posted by djbory

'WRONG-WRONG-WRONG'. I have to STRONGLY DISAGREE with this statement.

I always heard this before and I was convinced this was true. However, last night I conducted a backward investigation. I checked about 50% from all sites that link to my site that was banned & de-indexed over 4 months ago (in this case this is a very bad neighbor), and guess what? Those sites are ROCKING!!!! Most of the sites that link to me in the 3 WAY LINK SERVICE are on first page of google, impressively, many of them, first page - #1, if that was true, then those sites would've been penalized some way, but obviously this is not the case.

I agree with you in everything else.



Here I may have screwed up! I've been building links to my homepage only… If this is a very big issue then I may have a problem here…

Djbory

[djbory]

Originally Posted by Steve Crooks

(Groan...) Before this thread degenerates into the usual, "My SEO knowledge is bigger than yours.." nonsense or "SEO envy" as it is otherwise known, everyone has put some good points forward here.

There are no hard and fast answers as Google will always guard that info, there is speculation based on our own experiences of course but that is all it is. The bottom line is, if you feel that your backlinking is trying to manipulate the Google algo then it probably is.. Will you get some success using these backlinking techniques? Yes, of course you can, but just don't be suprised when pages slip from the SERPS as that is also a probability of using link schemes.

Well said Steve. You're right! However, the rest of the sites liking to me are doing very good on google. Including the ones linking to the site that was banned 4 months ago..

Djbory

[banker0679]

here are some common myths

duplicate content is NOT a google penalty

going from PR7 to PR2 is NOT a google penalty

going from PR2 to Greybar may not be a google penalty


Google will ban you or penalize you when you're doing stuff ON YOUR SITE that is bad. Cloaking, doorway pages, hidden content, linking to bad neighborhoods, etc

[banker0679]

banned or did it have duplicate content and fell into Google's duplicate content filter?

Press Releases or articles with the same content will rank on Google for a few days/weeks...but you will see almost all drop off the index PERIOD.

Does this mean that the article link was banned or did it fall into the filter?

if the homepage contained duplicate content then Google will do the same thing it does to those extra press releases or articles.....it will take them off the index..

that is not a ban or penalty

Originally Posted by djbory

Well said Steve. You're right! However, the rest of the sites liking to me are doing very good on google. Including the ones linking to the site that was banned 4 months ago..

Djbory

[djbory]

Originally Posted by banker0679

ehhh do you want me to find the video Matt Cutts gave?
He specifically stated that if you link OUT to a penalized site then your site will be penalized.

I had this issue with a few clients linking out to a bad directory or link farm sites. Removing the links, and filling out a reinclusion request got the rankings back (after a few months being down) within 1 week.

Your current sites ARE NOT PENALIZED but filtered out due to duplicate content so it wouldnt apply to your current situation.

Banker, when I said this, I said it because the site is indeed PENALIZED. Is not even indexed any more. GWT shows site is not indexed. It has been gone for about 4 months; however, the sites that link to that site are still doing pretty good in google... Strange isn't it?

Djbory

[banker0679]

why is it gone from the index? does it have duplicate content?

I have seen whole sites gone from the index....from affiliate sites to sites that had 1 part of it scraping info. I changed the content on all, and the whole site was back to normal.

Another thing is that just because people are doing it, and not being penalized doesnt mean that google wont catch on.
I see a few sites that rank on page 1 that has hidden content on the homepage.
They have been there a while.....but I bet nobody has reported them.

Once somebody reports them...I'm pretty sure Google will take a closer look and slap them

Originally Posted by djbory

Banker, when I said this, I said it because the site is indeed PENALIZED. Is not even indexed any more. GWT shows site is not indexed. It has been gone for about 4 months; however, the sites that link to that site are still doing pretty good in google... Strange isn't it?

Djbory

[Steve Crooks]

I don't doubt it Djbory and that success may continue forever but for every story of success using these sorts of linking schemes there are others that will see their rankings disappear in a flash.

For those that haven't read it then check out Google's own quality guidelines especially the bit about not participating in link schemes.
Webmaster guidelines - Webmasters/Site owners Help

I am not being puritanical or anything as I have participated in many link schemes and techniques before. I am just saying, that it is a probability that one day your rankings will drop as a result.

Originally Posted by djbory

Well said Steve. You're right! However, the rest of the sites liking to me are doing very good on google. Including the ones linking to the site that was banned 4 months ago..

Djbory

[djbory]

Originally Posted by Paxton

There is one other option to consider as the basis of your problems. Human review.

Websites will go through a human review (obviously not all websites - that would be impossible) but websites that the search engines think are moving up the rankings too quickly, can be flagged for a review by human checkers.

Have a look at your websites. Presumably these are monetized somehow. Are you using raw data feeds? What is the status of any images you might have used? Right click an image on your site and check the properties. Where does the image originate?

Google states itself that googlebots can't read images, so they encourage webmasters to use self explanatory alternate text. So I don't think this may be an issue.

Djbory