Google to tell sites why they were removed

[Larwee]

Google has started what they are calling a pilot program in which they are sending e-mail to sites that they are going to remove and telling them why they are being removed from the Google search index.

The sites will be removed for at least 30 days, but Google will tell them which guidelines they have violated and will tell them to fix those problems and then ask for reinclusion.

JavaScript redirects are the main target right now but not the only target and they will attack other things later with these e-mail messages.

This is a nice move by Google that can be really helpful to the webmaster who is an innocent victim of some SEO operator who got carried away using various tricks that the webmaster wasn't aware of and that shouldn't have been used.

Also, there are some webmasters who do things because someone has told them it is the way to get good search engine results. But these are methods they should have avoided and just didn't know better.

Of course, there are the spammers who aren't innocent and who don't really care. Maybe eventually most of them will be completely eliminated. At least we can hope for that to happen.

[James]

Wow, that's amazing. Wonder how many will actually be contacted though.

And are you sure this isn't just for something such as Adsense, which could be substancially easier for them?

[Larwee]

James, no it isn't AdSense, it is for the Google search index.

I don't see them doing anything like this with AdSense anytime soon and there are numerous reasons why they shouldn't do it with AdSense.

[Czar]

Cool. They've never responded to my inquiries about one site (which used to be the most significant property in our network) which was banned back when Google was but a wee baby. Maybe this will enable innocent victims a foot-in-the-door in being able to reach a search index rep and to resolve things amicably.

[Rivux]

Normally you post sources for your news Larwee, where is this one coming from?

[maddeningcrowds]

I'm not convinced its a good thing. Won't it help spammers to stay one step ahead of the game, giving them information about what google's algorythms detect as spam?

[Larwee]

There will be a lot more information about this coming out in the near future.

It is a pilot plan that Google is testing. But they plan to be a little selective in using it.

They want to be able to do this to help do more to get the word out that certain things aren't allowed and that if you do them, you will be removed from the Google search index.

Google has a good idea of who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. They plan to use this to help the good guys. They don't plan to contact the bad guys. They will just let them suffer.

The sites they will contact will be those that are basically solid sites with good content but that for some reason is doing something that Google doesn't like.

They haven't decided how far they will go with this and all of the things they will contact sites about. JavaScript redirects are what they have started with.

No, I haven't received an e-mail from them. But, here is the e-mail they are sending

Subject: Removal from Google's Index

Dear site owner or webmaster of (url),

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
In order to preserve the quality of our search engine, we have
temporarily removed some webpages from our search results. Currently
pages from (url) are scheduled to be removed for at least 30 days.

Specifically, we detected the following practices on your webpages:
On (url), we noticed that pages such as
(url) redirect to pages such as
(url) using JavaScript redirects.

We would prefer to have your pages in Google's index. If you wish to be
reincluded, please correct or remove all pages that are outside our
quality guidelines. When you are ready, please submit a reinclusion
request at http://www.google.com/support/bin/request.py

You can select "I'm a webmaster inquiring about my website" and
then "Why my site disappeared from the search results or dropped in
ranking," click Continue, and then make sure to type "Reinclusion
Request" in the Subject: line of the resulting form.

Sincerely,
Google Search Quality Team

[Larwee]

Google has recently made some changes because of problems associated with being able to contact the site owner by e-mail. In many cases Google wasn't able to reach them. For some there was no good contact information on the site or whois. Others didn't possibly receive, read or respond to e-mail that was sent to them.

Google has made it clear that they won't be contacting all penalized sites and they will not contact those who are clearly trying to do sneaking things in hopes of not being caught. They plan to only contact legitimate sites in which Google believes there are some honest mistakes being made, and offer them reinclusion after the problem has been corrected. Google still considers this to be an experiment.

In order to receive this service from Google now you must sign up for Sitemaps.

There are a lot of details associated with this. Here is a Google link to all of the details http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2006/04...t-more_26.html

[Kathy]

The odd thing is that this doesn't work...although it should.

I've lost search engine results and believe I was removed intentionally...(not because of Big Daddy's mistakes).... I was not contacted and in my sitemap area of Google's webmaster area there is no indication I've been penalized.

But I do not see any other explanation for what I'm dealing with in Google's search results.

I've emailed and only get canned replies back. Even submitting a reinclusion/reinstatement request I get a canned reply back so I do not know if this is what even happened to my site. I'm guessing based on results.....but can't get any answers from anyone.

This would certainly help but considering this happened to me this week, they over looked someone... me.

Didn't contact some webmasters because they aren't honest anyway? Me sneaky? Heavens...I'm an open book. I'm a legitimate site who made an honest mistake at the word of trusted big guys in the industry and guess I was penalized (although the thousands of other websites weren't penalized at all).

[Larwee]

According to various statements made by Google, this particular service is only for sites that have been completely removed from the Google index and not those which have had a few or even thousands of pages dropped.

Not all sites that have been completely removed from the Google index will be notified, even if they didn't do anything sneaky. Those that Google decides to give a confirmation and offer a reinclusion will see the following in their console

No pages from your site are currently included in Google’s index due to violations of the webmaster guidelines. Please review our webmaster guidelines and modify your site so that it meets those guidelines. Once your site meets our guidelines, you can request reinclusion and we’ll evaluate your site. Submit a reinclusion request

[Kathy]

Right, it just leaves a webmaster wondering...

1. Were they victim of the google algorithm shift and glitch and will be added back to the index shortly?

2. Were they penalized but not contacted via email nor sitemap interface?

Its frustrating trying to figure out when they remain silent....

[nitin]

Excellent. That is one of the best piece of news I recently heard. I had many of my sites getting removed and living constantly in nightmare what I did wrong. I lost lotta sleep worrying about non banned site to be punished by google. With this move at least I will be able to know my msitakes and correct them in time.

[Czar]

Yeehah!

Although I never heard from Google under this program, the one site of mine that they banned way back in 2001 has just been re-included within their index and, amazingly, it is already commanding some pretty impressive rankings against highly competitive terms.

I still don't know what I did with that site to offend Google so, but I can finally state from first-hand experience that sites that didn't deliberately break Google's listing terms can, with the benefit of time and, presumably, some element of "good behaviour", be forgiven by the mighty G.

The site in question was the biggest site in our network when it was banned and that move by Google quickly killed it off, so I'm now expecting big things. The only regret is that I still don't know the reason for the seven-year ban. Nevertheless, keeping away from bad neighbourhoods, cleaning up dead links, reducing a dependence on outbound links, adding a greater quantity of original content, rebuilding inbound link relationships and keeping META tags trimmed down is likely to help avoid a future ban.

[Fancier]

Google is decreasing my index page day by day... where is problem................

[Czar]

Unless the site has been removed altogether, Fancier, this thread probably isn't the best place to seek an answer to your SEO problem. Try posting a new thread within the Google forum here at Geek/Talk and I'm sure our members will be able to offer you some valuable tips.