Please be assured that your site is not currently banned or penalized by Google

This is really not what you want to see when your site is very clearly being penalized

This site dropped from 13k visitors on a good day to 4.4k visitors on a good day. If that ain't a penalty, I don't know what is.

It seems very clear that Google has no more clue as to how their search engine works than any of the rest of us.

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Hi Will,

Thank you for your replies. We apologize for our delayed response. Please be assured that your site is not currently banned or penalized by Google.

Please note that we searched for your site and found that it is currently included in our search results. To see the results of our search, please visit the following link:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=site%3Awww.example.com

We understand your concern regarding your site's inclusion in our search results; however, these changes are consistent with the normal fluctuations outlined in our previous email. As we add new pages and incorporate updates to existing pages, you may see changes in the ranking and inclusion of sites in our index. Because our index changes regularly, it's possible your site will regain its ranking. In the meantime, we hope that you will review the helpful tips posted on our site.

Regards,
The Google Team

Original Message Follows:
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From: "Will Spencer" <will.spencer@example.com>
Subject: RE: [#45781424] REINCLUSION REQUEST
Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 18:36:39 -0700

Dear Google:

I have checked this site over again and again and I am certain it is compliant with the Google Webmaster Guidelines.

Please review this penalty and either remove it or tell me what I am doing which is causing this penalty.

Thank you very much!

Sincerely,

Will Spencer

 

updating hiccups? I would imagine that the adsense people might not know what's going on with search results and all they'd be able to do was confirm they aren't penalizing you and that you are still in the db...

 

That wasn't the AdSense people, that was .

This "updating hiccup" is nineteen days old.

The last one (on a different site) lasted for about four months.

Google is really very badly broken.

If this site is not penalized, then Google has some very serious data integrity issues.

 

will, (warning: stupid question imminent) how do i check if google knows about my site? their bots hit my pages 20 times.

 

Will, what are you expecting the Google guys to do? I mean, they already told you that your site wasn't penalized or banned (pretty clear since you were still getting traffic), so I can't understand what you are looking for.

 

I'm not 100% certain that I understand your question, but I'll take a try at answering it.

You can determine if Google knows about your site by using the site command in Google:

site:www.example.com

Code (markup):

 

thanks!

there's a result. so i can say that my site is indexed, correct?

 

I'm not sure if you're posting this seriously, or if you're just trying to be obnoxious. I will respond as if the former is true.

First, I will define a couple of terms:

Banned: Your site is receiving no Google referrals at all.

Penalized: Your site is receiving significantly fewer Google referalls than before.

When I say "penalized", I'm not talking about a few dozen keywords dropping a few pages in the SERPS for a few days -- I'm talking hundreds of keywords dropping hundreds of places in the SERPS and staying down for weeks or months.

And then, of course, magically popping back up again at some point in the future.

That's either a penalty or it's database corruption.

It is not as if two-thirds of the inbound links on a 5+ year old site suddenly disappear. It's not as if the content of a 5+ year old site suddenly changed radically. The only real change is a sudden and massive shift in the way that this site is represented in the Google database.

And that points to either a penalty or to a data integrity issue.

If Google denies the former, the latter is strongly indicated.

 

Or at least that some of the pages on your site are indexed!

 

Any SEO knows that search engine rankings are not static and SERPS change every day. Why would you think you are penalized? Can't it be that the other sites in your theme improved their rankings and bumped you down? That doesn't mean you are penalized.

What I find amusing is that you are expecting the Google guys to "fix" this. Billions of pages on the net, I don't think you will be getting any special treatment. Best thing is to keep working on your site and get your rankings back. Happened to me once, rankings got wiped out and after some work they are now back and better than ever.

 

Clearly, two hundred sites (in each of hundreds of keywords) did not suddenly "improve" in one night.

 

Will, in all seriousness, google owes you nothing and you are not entitled to anything the way I see it. Unless I misunderstood and you have paid placement?

I think most of us would agree that we are at the mercy of google when not paying however, so I dunno what you expect them to do for you.

And if they don't do it, what can ya do about it anyway? Complain?

Don't ya think googles resources are better utilized managing data then answering the email of every webmaster that thinks they are entitled to something?

Maybe I'm missing something here, but damn, who the fuck do you think you are demanding placement and asserting their algo sucks unless your site in placed well? I mean you sound like a child man. What's up with that?

 

I just had that happen to me for about 4 months. This is my first post about it.

The thought to write google and tell them I'll hold my breath if they don't put me back on top of the SERPs again never crossed my mind though. :/

 

noppid, this is exactly what the Google Reinclusion Request form is for.

This isn't a misuse of the form -- this is the purpose of the form.

If you have a problem with this Google policy, umm... contact Google?

Actually, I believe that:

1. Any business needs feedback from people in its business environment to succeed.

2. There is something very wrong with the Google database that isn't really related to any one specific site, but this could be a good example of the problem to aid Google in troubleshooting.

 

Here's another term for those new to Google's hijinx: oblivion drop.

An oblivion drop is when a keyword suddenly drops several hundred places in the SERPS, only to return again in a few hours or days.

For example, I experienced an oblivion drop for "wireless modem" a few days ago and it magically fixed itself this morning.

The phenomena of oblivion drops highlights small and temporary bugs in the Google database. Oblivion drops are not the result of hundreds of other sites suddenly improving. Oblivion drops are bugs which are corrected fairly quickly.

The phenomena I am describing in my earlier posts to this thread in clearly not an oblivion drop. This is true because it effects hundreds of pages on a web site and because the errors are not automatically repaired in a short amount of time.

This phenomena is a different error, but is nonetheless an error.

 

A lot of my keywords recently dropped 30-50 spots too. Ones that were positions 1-5 before. Hopefully they will come back also.

 

After google banned my site from the index for absolutely no reason other than the fact that a lot of people started linking to it from Live Journal, I don't think it would be wise to expect your keywords to come back.

 

The reinclusion form is for sites that are no longer listed in google.
My understanding from your post and googles emailed response to your query is that your site is listed in google but the rankings are not as high as they used to be.

I think the issue is that google have changed the algorithm (like they are doing every day) and this change has deemed your site to be less relevant than before.

Google probably won't 'fix' it so I suggest trying to figure out what the problem is and trying to conform to what google is looking for.

Google moves the goalposts every day and its up to us to alter our stance to keep shooting in the right direction.

 

Only 30-50, I'm jealous.

Seriously though, if it was the same phenomena I have seen, they will come back, even with no action on your part.

I've seen this happen four times to three sites now. After 4-16 weeks, Google fixes the problems and life is good until they screw up again.

Your statement directly contradicts what Matt Cutts has written, "A reinclusion request asks Google to remove any potential spam penalty."

Google changes the algorithm at times, but not everyday. You will know when algorithm changes occur. This phenomena is clearly not related to algorithm changes.

Actually, Google does eventually fix these bugs. Google, although slow, does fix problems with their algorithms and their databases. This is the business that they are in -- this is important to them.

 

Great. Looking forward to seeing that. Like everyone else, I always see constantly fluctuations. However, in this instance, it was many keywords with a very large drop, just as you mentioned.