Is the Coop effecting Google indexing?

Maybe try moving the entire site to a new domain and see what happens. You can probably try a javascript redirect from the old site - I would not do a 301 as you may carry the penality with you.

 

Could you elaborate on this, please?

 

A 301 redirect will tell google you you have just moved the site - so it will presumably move the penalty with it. However google will not follow the javascript redirect, so will see it as a new site - and hopefully no penality.

 

Thanks.

Anyway, Google deindexed 95% of the pages (from 400,000 to 15,000), so from their point of view those pages do not exist anymore. Maybe just redirecting the old URL to a 404 error page with a link to the new URL would have the same effect.

Both options drop the site age, though. You will have a brand new site. It is a pitty.

 

yes - I guess you learned an important lesson though

 

Actually, I do not know. I do not consider a bad thing the use of the Co-op. But yes, if you ask me, I prefer to be properly indexed by Google than receiving any other benefit from the co-op.

By the way, every day there are new topics in the Google section of these forums talking about sites being penalized (deindexed and losing ranks in the SERPs). I checked a couple of those sites and apparently they do not use co-op or link-vault. Is there any chance we are facing a buggy or funny algorithm instead of a formal penalization? I found hard to believe mrconstantine for instance was penalized for using the co-op just a week. I think that is not even a significant period of time to verify if the change in a site is permanent.

 

Well, I have just found a site of mine that had never run co-op (nor any link exchange nor anything 'strange') hit by the same kind of penalty (I find the site in the second page searching for the domain without the .com and scrappers appear before it in SERPs for unique content).

Definitively, now I think there is no direct connection between penalties and the co-op.

Does anyone know what is going on with Google?

 

One of my sites that was deindexed as many of ours from the 1.5M indexed pages to 600 with loosing SERP possitions was restored on one of the G datacenter to 128K indexed pages. Could you check yours?

PS I hope it's a good sign.

 

No changes for me.

 

I noticed this too. Nearly all my pages were de-indexed after I was displayed co-op ads on them.

So I removed the ads, and now in 2 weeks back up to 25K+ pages.

 

Better yet... Put a 301 to a competitors site...

 

So how have things been goign for those that have removed the coop ads, I just removed mine, is there any chance of seeing an improve in SERPs with out current domains, or is it a lost cause?

 

Removal of coop ads and a re-inclusion request has result in the reinstatement of my site's rankings, or at least the beginning of them - I'm now ranking top 10 again for a number of keywords and terms and Google is once again my primary referrer to my site... YAY!

 

Burta,

I lost my SERP around June 21. I removed co-op ads the same day, sent in an re-inclusion request. No SERP improvement thus far, few keywords still around the 4th page or 40th position. I use to be top 5 on most of my keywords.

What did you say in your re-inclusion letter?

 

Basically that I thought that the coop was a legitimate webmaster tool and that I wasn't using it very long and that I regret using it and I didn't see many results from it anyway and that I have no intention of using such tools in the future...

My rankings aren't quite back to where they were, I used to be top 5 for lots of terms, but the majority of the terms are back "close" to where they were, which for me is great news and it has only been back to normal for a couple of hours so you may still see some results in the next day or two...

 

After you filed the reinclusion request how long did it take to get where you are now with rankings returning?

 

4-5 days at most a week. I filed the re-inclusions request definitely after the 13th... but I'm not sure when exactly.

 

odd I also filed one around that time and have not returned. I might file another soon.

 

Burta,

When did you loose your SERP, June 21 or June 27?

Did you mention to Google that you remove Co-op in your reinclusion letter?

 

June 21 and yes i did.