Banned In Google

LOL – So now your site has to be about *1* thing and *1* thing in an expert manner only? There goes 99% of personal blogs which are non-expert on a range of subjects from snot to brain surgery, all under the one domain (I know mine falls into that category).

In fact, going on Adam’s words, they should instantly ditch blogspot as that’s one domain full of a range of diverse subjects under the one domain. Then move on to the Tesco site. ‘Sir, would you like some beer? It’s over by our air purifiers and insurance leaflets. You can have clubcard points when you buy them off us as well!” What a crock…

Hello David

Alan here from the site in question.

This whole thing seems to be spreading far and wide and you have hit the nail on head with your post. I was tempted to reply in a similar fashion over on GWMF but then thought twice about doing so.

This site has been online for around ten years and up until two weeks ago everything was doing well in Google until somebody pulled the switch on the whole thing. I have no doubt that it was deindexed manually as opposed to a bot doing it.

It also a bit of a paradox really since I have followed advice and pointers from the Google Adsense Team to optimise the sites in the way that I have and yet the Google Search side of things seem to class the sites as having c**p content and virtually being MFA sites. If that is the case, then every site on the internet that is monetized with adsense should fall into the same category.

I do not deny for one minute that the sites are adsense based and monetized – that was and is the business model I have been following. As you say, the internet is based around information sites such as suite101.com, essortment.com and even wisegeek.com. However, my little site seems to have been singled out by somebody that considered it to be surplus to requirements, so to speak. I wonder if the same scenario will apply these other sites – I don’t think so somehow!!

Where do I go from here – Not too sure at the moment. I may shift some of the topics over to their own domains or perhaps leave them where they are but not link to them from the index page. This is uncharted territory for me at the present.

Alan

Horror story!

Brrr I hope that guy who checks sites manually for MFA footprint will not come to my site for a long time… anyway that site is usefulI do not get why they banned it. I have seen much worse crap ranking well.

Hehe, I’d agree with DaveN here. There are issues if you wham loads of random content on a page or two, but segmenting it is generally okay. Although I’d say it was canned for MFA print, there are issues with massively different topics on certain sites.

DaveN,

While the site in question show zero results using the site: operator, when searching for http://www.alkenmrs.com it shows several results and the site still has PageRank. Could it be that Google’s just preparing for it’s next TB export?

Large number of internal links per page
Almost zero external links
Full of adsense

Fits the profile of a spam site almost perfectly

Pretty easy to detect algorithmically.

I gotta agree with Alan and Dave. I don’t see how this site is any different from WiseGeek.com or About.com. If we apply Adam’s reasoning for the de-indexing to many well known informational sites, they should be de-indexed as well. I think we’re gonna need a better explanation on this one Adam…. one that explains how this site is any different from the two examples listed above.

I’m completely dumbfounded by Adam Lasnik’s explanation. Most visitors will enter Alan’s site via a deep link, say “Beers of the World” for example. What they will see is a site about beer, and the page they landed on will have information directly related to their search criteria. The fact that the beer site sits in a subdirectory of a larger site will not even be noticed by 99.99% of the visitors.

Is Adam trying to imply that it will be okay if the beer site is moved to its own domain? I think that’s absurd because usefulness, trustworthiness, and relevance should be based on the content of the landing page, not the structure of the site. When I click on search results in Google, I judge the relevance based on what is shown on the page I’m taken to. I definitely don’t analyze the site structure.

If the content of Alan’s site is undesireable in Google’s eyes, then it should be undesireable regardless of the site structure, and should be deindexed regardless of whether it’s sitting on its own niche domain or within a larger site.

Will nobody in the world ever find any benefit from any of the articles on Alan’s site? I don’t think so. It depends on what the person was searching for.

If the real reason for the deindex were the fact that it looks as if Alan’s site consists of a collection of PLR articles, then Google will greatly benefit everyone by simply saying so. Then everyone will know where they stand and will be discouraged from building similar sites.

So the question is where to go next, and how did they find this site ..

I will do it in reverse order,

My guess is it was the adsense CTR and referrer Data.

Push the content onto new Sites move away from adsense, anyway you can make more money selling links than google pays with it’s adsense program

DaveN

Alan,
I agree with DaveN It is a MFA site, just get GOOD and RELEVANT content around it and you should be back in business. I strongly believe Google wants a better targeted site for the users. If you follow that you should have no such issues.

I guess Wikipedia is going to be de-indexed next?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_purifiers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_theft

Not very [i]trustworthy[/i] doncha think?

see what you should have do is this !

http://yamaha-motorcycles.org/
http://honda-motorcycles.org/
http://www.suzuki-bikes.com/
http://www.kawasakimotorcycle.org/
http://www.kawasakiatv.org/

I want to correct my previous comment, it does appear that the site has been banned. I was in PR mode when checking this out earlier. However, I should note that there is a markup error on the site as well. Not enough to get him banned I doubt.

My,this seems to have opened a can of worms around the blogosphere as well as the GWMF!

Personally I don’t consider the site to be MFA in the true sense of the word although my interpretation of an MFA maybe different to other people. Yes it is monetised with adsense and those ads are optimised accordingly as per Adsense advice and guidelines. CTR before deindexing was around 7 to 8% over the whole site. Some of the minisites were lower whilst others were higher.

Some of the early content is rewritten PLR articles whilst some is researched and written from scratch. These days, all new content is specifically written and is unique.

There has also been a lot of content that has been ripped off (or scraped) over time but I guess that happens more than anybody realises. I have also had the added problem of a recent proxy server hijack with pages from my site being indexed on Google but under the proxy URL. In fact they are still there now even though my site isn’t!!

I can’t find a definition of the saying ‘content spam’ either. All of the articles on the site are to do with different subjects under the main topic and are certainly not the same article put through a content spinner or such. As far as I am aware they all read well and explain the subject accordingly. I don’t even bother with keyword density any longer preferring to go down the LSI route.

There are a large number of internal links per page although they are only the menu links to other pages within that particular site. The minisites are not even interlinked apart from pointing back to the root domain. I have never done much as far as external linking is concerned. According to Webmaster tools, the site as a whole has some 4000 incoming links although Yahoo show some 8000 incoming.

Eran – I am not sure regarding trying to bring this site back to life within Google as Adam Lasnik has more or less said it is not going to happen. Having said that, I am very doubtful as to the exact reasons behind this deindexing. There is too many pointers to human intervention.

I am still weighing up the options at present but I am edging towards shifting some of the content onto different domains and putting 301 redirects onto the existing site. All I do know is that it doesn’t pay to have too many eggs in one basket from a business perspective.

Alan

Thanks for the “tip” DaveN.

I am sorry for opening this can of worms Alan, it was hot out and I spent all day on the computer tracking Google employee responses. =P

Alan it’s a tough call, your problem was your footprint, rebuild with another footprint and look at other options for making money along side adsense..

DaveN

seobuzzbox (sorry don’t know your name!) – I was just commenting on how far and wide this story has gone and thankful to you for picking it up in the first place. At least I don’t feel so alone now

Dave – Without wishing to appear stupid, what do you mean by footprint. Are you referring to the way the sites are built or the site builder (Xsitepro). I stuck with the design that is because it worked. These sites have all been built one by one and are not bought in ready built.

Just out of interest, can you see any problem in putting in 301 redirects on the existing site and moving some of the minisites to different domains, perhaps with a layout change at the same time.

Alan

New comment from Adam:

Alan,

I’d like to thank you (and so many other folks here) for the
thoughtful and insightful discussion. I respect you for being open
with what you’ve done and what your goals are and so on and for taking
in constructive criticism in such a friendly manner

I do want to clarify one more thing:
I don’t think it’d be worth your time to spin stuff off to different
domains… unless you have a substantive user-centric reason for doing
so (branding, easier navigation, etc.). In general, we encourage
webmasters to stick with fewer domains, and beef up quality content/
tools within that domain.

As has been pointed out, the issue of dissimilar topics within a
domain isn’t itself a problem; lots of well-respected sites do that,
including some that have been named here and elsewhere.

It all comes down to unique and compelling content and tools; to the
extent that my teasing anecdote muddied the waters by suggesting that
thematic focus was the core issue here, mea culpa!

I think what Dave means by footprint means the website actually looks like the intent of its creation was to make money on AdSense only.

Thanks for your response Jaan. I guess that I need to find some sort of happy medium in respect of ad’s and content. Layout is only like it is now because out of all the testing I have done, this way seems to be the best in respect of CTR.
However, based on the theory that ‘first impressions count’ I guess that it may just look like just another junk MFA site which it certainly isn’t.
Back to the drawing board for me!

Richard – I have seen and responded to Adam’s posting above but thanks all the same for posting it here.

I also need to thank you Dave for accomodating my postings on your blog. You have been bookmarked!!

Alan

Alan, No problems and yes Jaan hit the nail on the head, You need to offer you visitors more than just adsense. Good luck which ever way you go

DaveN

I have a hard time finding any content on that site, and don’t understand this statement:

“it may just look like just another junk MFA site, which it certainly isn’t”.

Specifically – the beer text seems to be taken from the copyrighted site http://beer.pdqguides.com/.

Calendars are all adsense and calenders for sale.

All I can find is spam/stolen content and adsense.

Mmm… I don’t see much difference between Alan’s site and that PDQGuides site. Looks like horses of the same breed to me.

How did you determine that the beer text was taken from that site, and that the PDQGuides site was the originator of that content?

Some of the articles on the Beer site (although not all) are PLR articles which I bought in at the time. The articles were rewritten to a certain extent, whereas the site that you mention may not have done.

If you want to check any page for uniqueness, go to http://www.copyscape.com although don’t go too mad as I think they only allow ten free searches per week or month – not sure which.

The Calendars site sells calendars as an affiliate, that is why there is so many on there!!

Alan

Hi Dave,

I have question, I am working in a very big site (thousands of visitors from Google every day). We recently had some great changes to our traffic from Google, not a complete 0 traffic but about 50% less than what we have been getting in the last few months. This is the second time it has happen to us and we can’t figure out why it is happening.
This change happened last night and my question is this:
Did Google had any changes in its Algorithm or does Google changes the way it see us from time to time?
Have you heard about this before? Its just that we don’t see any reason for this to have happened since we haven’t done anything differently…

Any information will be highly appreciate,

Gerald

DaveN, I saw Alan’s site and besides having some feed pages that are duplicating the origional content I found the site really interesting and useful.

If Adam L. tells Alan that his site is a hustler on 42 nd street and lets this manidatravel dot com S… come up in the top ten results with a query for travel agent thailand, something really wrong with Google and Adam L. and the rest of search engine Evangelist team members.

manidatravel dot com is a pure MFA, no product description, no products to sell, no travel agency license, not in ODP, not in Google directory….there are some gamblin advertising pages on the site.

IMAO, I submited a Spam report but it is a waste of time…I am putting the offender on PHSDL with the rest of the dirt.

I would be extremely anxious if I got banned.

I am not sure what you guys mean by MFA I have made my pages so that they do well for adsense and they were. 2 days ago I completely dropped on every term that I use to do very well on I don’t even show up in the top hundred for my main term. I have had the site up for 7 years. I look at the Google webmaster counsel and don’t see anything that says anything negative and the PR is still on all of the pages is there anyway to find out if you have been de-listed and is there anything that I can do to try to get it back online.

Thanks
Fred

4 days ago I banned for google they say for at least 30 days. i removed the “hidden txt” )which wasn’t hidden at all and submitted a request to get the ban lifted. How long does this really take and is there anything else or anyone else i can contact about it? thanks for thoughts/suggestions

Today got a nice message from Google :While we were indexing your webpages, we detected that some of your pages were using techniques that were outside our quality guidelines, which can be found here: http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html”

I had 1 hidden sentense on my index page, because my site is flash and i needed some text.

So my question is if I corrected the error on the same day i will still be banned for 30 days?

Andrew i think you will just get the 30day ban

Do you think this messages from Google is an automatic process?

Banned In Google

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