Google Webmaster Tools account-wide penalty?

[Cyrus255]

I put 3 websites into a google webmaster account, trying it for the first time. Foolish me. Today and yesterday, ONLY MY SITES in that account have been severely penalized by google. My google traffic dropping immensely.

I follow Google's guidelines to the best of my ability, so I'm confounded. Does Google hate a webmaster who has 3 seperately, fast-growing websites in one account? All of my other sites, not in the account's traffic has stayed the same or improved slightly. I sent a reinclusion request to them, but I think if anything that's a bit risky, but I have enough other sites that I don't care if I lose those two, just I'm so angry that Google would punish people who are honest to them.

Is this the case for anyone else?

Does google explicitly say it doesn't engage in account-wide penalties? Or what? Maybe there's a 1 in 1,000,000 chance that those 3 sites all just happened to get penalized whereas my other 20 didn't..... I don't spam, I don't link-buy, I don't do anything against Google guidelines as far as I know. I just had three sites, that were consistently increasing in traffic, in Google with sitemaps, and everything was peachy, they were growing, then BAM. Only my GWT account's sites were penalized.

I guess I learned my lesson to never use Google webmaster tools. Or is there another explanation?

[azlanhussain]

I use webmaster tool for all my top sites.. no problem so far. In fact one of it is MFA site..

[malcolm1]

Hello...

This sounds a little strange to me as google would only come after you
if you did something wrong or somebody ratted you out for whatever reasons
and if your telling me that all 3 sites are about different things then im truelly lost

thx
malcolm

[lakelandprinting]

What kind of penalty did you get? Were you de-indexed? I have 6 websites on one Webmaster Tools Account and I've never had problems

[Cyrus255]

Originally Posted by lakelandprinting

What kind of penalty did you get? Were you de-indexed? I have 6 websites on one Webmaster Tools Account and I've never had problems

Well a site getting 500 to 1,500 people from google a day is now down to 20 people from google a day. Pretty significant.Another which got about 100 a day, down to none a day.

Like for keywords I was ranking #3 or #4 often, now I'm #70.

What's weird, is that it hit the 3 websites in my Webmaster Tools Account, which were all seperate topics, but my websites NOT in that account are perfectly fine. I also do not use ANY black hat methods that I'm aware of, and have read the google guidelines from front to back. I don't buy links, so there's nothing to report me on.

I'm baffled, frankly. A Google Webmaster Tools account was the only thing that connected these websites. They were constantly gaining traffic, slowly but steadily for the past few months, then BAM today.

Has anyone ever experienced a one-day drop in rankings? Otherwise this is truly a penalty. I didn't disappear from rankings, just moved from page 1 to pages 5, 6 , or 7 for most of my terms.

Is it possible google just "didn't like" me or my websites? and arbitrarily decided to penalize me, even if I never violated any google guidelines? nepotism perhaps?

[lycos]

This is pretty strange to me. Not really sure on why adding sites to webmasters tools can get yourself penalized. You ought to check with google before you come up with a conclusion saying that it results from using their webmasters tools.

[malcolm1]

Originally Posted by lycos

This is pretty strange to me. Not really sure on why adding sites to webmasters tools can get yourself penalized. You ought to check with google before you come up with a conclusion saying that it results from using their webmasters tools.

After what he described it sound like all his sites have been hit with the
page 6-7 penalty (dont know what techy name it is).

If you type in the sites "name" (without using .com or any ext) in google search
are you on the first page or on page 6-7?

If your site doesnt come up for its own name then its in the penalty box

thx
malcolm

[IEmailer.com]

Am currently using the same google account for 31 websites of mine and never faced such an issue !!!

[yousefgreat]

I have never experienced this problem before. My friend has over 10 websites on the same Google Account and everything is running smooth at his side. I guess it was just a coincidence! Are you sure you even got sandboxed?! I am experiencing a strange dance with one of my websites lately. A couple of days all my serps are on the 70th-100 page, then in less than a week I get back to Page 1. This has been happening to me since the last PR update, but since I never engage in any blackhat SEO or buying links, I guess everything will be fine and that Google Dance will be over soon.

[Cyrus255]

Originally Posted by malcolm1

After what he described it sound like all his sites have been hit with the
page 6-7 penalty (dont know what techy name it is).

If you type in the sites "name" (without using .com or any ext) in google search
are you on the first page or on page 6-7?

If your site doesnt come up for its own name then its in the penalty box

thx
malcolm

Yes, all my sites used to be number one if you type it's name, but now I can't even find them that way, so it's definitely a penalty.

Originally Posted by yousefgreat

I am experiencing a strange dance with one of my websites lately. A couple of days all my serps are on the 70th-100 page, then in less than a week I get back to Page 1. This has been happening to me since the last PR update, but since I never engage in any blackhat SEO or buying links, I guess everything will be fine and that Google Dance will be over soon.

Maybe that could be it. This "google dance" you refer to. I hope everything is restored soon, though I won't be able to tell if it is due to reinclusion or the "google dance" ending, if I do lose the penalty. I sincerely hope it is an anomaly, otherwise it truly was my google webmaster tools account.

If I was a fellow webmaster, I wouldn't put all my eggs (websites) in one basket (google webmaster tools account). I only put 3 of 20, so I'll survive this. Thank God I didn't put all of my websites in it.

[templatetuner]

you know, now that you mentioned it, i have noticed a drop in all my sites since i joined up with google webmaster tools a year ago. Actually 30-40% drop, however its hard to say if this is caused by joining the google tool or purely competition creeping up or other factors. Now that i think about it, im even suspicious with analytics.

hopefully more people comment on their experiences....

[Cyrus255]

Originally Posted by templatetuner

you know, now that you mentioned it, i have noticed a drop in all my sites since i joined up with google webmaster tools a year ago. Actually 30-40% drop, however its hard to say if this is caused by joining the google tool or purely competition creeping up or other factors. Now that i think about it, im even suspicious with analytics.

hopefully more people comment on their experiences....

Well it doesn't seem like a penalty for joining Google Webmaster Tools by itself, I actually experienced significant boosts from submitting sitemaps via their tools, quite helpful.

The problem was, I noticed the penalty on all of my websites had occurred at the same time. I figured out what caused the problem and took care of it, and the situation is improving (atleast I get *some* google traffic; nowhere near old levels tho), however the timing was strange in that ONLY the websites in that account were singled out with the penalty.

All my websites not in the account didn't get slapped. Maybe it's just a bizarre coincidence, but I think not...

In your case, perhaps if there is something Google doesn't like on one of your sites, Google looked at your others and discovered the same thing so it slapped all of them with the penalty. It could simply provide a convenient way for Google to look at all of your websites and easily penalize them all in quick succession. That's what I'm starting to think.

[tkimsey]

I've got about 20 sites that were submitted in webmaster tools. I haven't seen a drop in position, if anything these sites have actually gone up in ranking.

Just an FYI

[tootricky]

Were you linking to all three sites from each other? That along with the 3 sites being in the same WMT account would probably explain the penalty as that kind of check is easily automated.

[anteck]

I've experienced this as well.

I believe google puts you in a temporary sandbox or for some reason all your previous rankings get re-evaulated. I've escaped it by renaming my urls (wordpress blog), and the new pages get ranking again.

Funny thing thou... i found on sites if i waited till google indexed them without being in web master central, then added they, they weren't effected.

A lot of Pro's say to verify your site, but don't add the sitemap.

A.

[jinnnguyen]

Originally Posted by Cyrus255

I figured out what caused the problem and took care of it, and the situation is improving (atleast I get *some* google traffic; nowhere near old levels tho), however the timing was strange in that ONLY the websites in that account were singled out with the penalty.

I've experienced the same thing as you mentioned, traffic dropped dramatically for all sites in GWT. Seem like you were able to fixed it. Can you share that magic fix? Thanks

[mdamin76]

You should continue using Google webmaster tools. From there you will know of any problems with your sites, and correct the mistake.

[Cyrus255]

Originally Posted by tootricky

Were you linking to all three sites from each other? That along with the 3 sites being in the same WMT account would probably explain the penalty as that kind of check is easily automated.

No, they never link to each other. That's why it's so odd that ONLY they were hit with a penalty, not any sites outside of it.

Originally Posted by jinnnguyen

I've experienced the same thing as you mentioned, traffic dropped dramatically for all sites in GWT. Seem like you were able to fixed it. Can you share that magic fix? Thanks

Well, I did delete and re-add each website to the account, and submit a reinclusion request, as well as delete my websites from the index completely to start from scratch, but I can't make any promises on how well the methods work. Back up to about 10% of prior traffic levels. I assume it may take a few weeks for a full recovery.

[jinnnguyen]

Originally Posted by Cyrus255

Well, I did delete and re-add each website to the account, and submit a reinclusion request, as well as delete my websites from the index completely to start from scratch, but I can't make any promises on how well the methods work. Back up to about 10% of prior traffic levels. I assume it may take a few weeks for a full recovery.

Thanks for your tip Cyrus. Well, last night I was so mad that I went to the GWT and delete all the accounts in there, the only part that I did not do like in your tip was to submit a reinclusion. I'll wait and see if the situation improve or not before try the reinclusion.

Really, I'm starting to hate all of Google's services, even their search results. Just like I began to hate AOL in 2001.

[SeoGrr]

I have never come across this with some of my sites I added to my webmaster account.