3 months later there is a penalty reprieve.

Everybody saw I was the first to post about the penalty I received from Google for using the Co-Op when many of us started seeing it happen to our sites. This was on June 21st 2006. It looks like it took about 3 months for the penalty to subside because as of this week (of September 21st 2006) I am finally showing up back on page one for SERPs where I belong.

When I first realized I was penalized I removed the Co-Op and of course I will never use anything like it again. I didn't even need to use it and that was my biggest mistake.

I too made sitemaps and attempted to contact Google with re-inclusion requests etc. I also tried using alternate pre-existent domains that I had. I also have since removed my sitemaps just this past week.

I hope the rest of you see some reprieve as well.

I should also point out that there are other websites that I have that suffered the same penalty and still have yet to see a reprieve. I will make another post if I see those clear up as well.

 

Could you explain, to a noob, what co op is and why google doesnt allow it?

 

the co-op is just what it sounds like, a cooperative advertising network.

more info is available here:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/ad-network/history.html
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/ad-network/faq.html

also, I've never been banned nor penalized for using the co-op network and I use it fairly extensively.

 

Two of my other websites have had the penalty lifted it seems. I have one more that hasn't been reprieved. Submitting a re-inclusion request might have helped because I did it for all but the one that is still being penalized.

 

It's a great way to get free links on other peoples sites. A great way to find people that might not normally find your site. But as with anything Google related, you are taking your chances.

 

CO-OP is great network to get links etc....It's all depends on how you manage weight etc...
Saad

 

im really not sure how my previous post got me bad rep a month ago.

 

I'm just getting into all this IM stuff but I know Google doesn't like schemes that produce Phony traffic to their paying advertisers web sites. I read anyone caught in a clickad scheme will be banned from using Google adsense. Maybe these co-op groups are considered to be Phony traffic shemes by Google.

I still have alot to learn about what's going on.

Thanks everyone!