The Disease of Google Banning: Are You At Risk?

Definition:

Google banning occurs when Google removes your site from its index and flags your domain as 'banned', so it won't spider your site anymore. It is actually a serious disease and may be even life threatening specially for small websites.

Etiology:

Webmasters' mistakes are almost always the leading causes of google banning; here are some of the common mistakes that will get your website banned:

1. Using small or hidden text in your web pages. Some webmasters will try to use hidden text containing certain keywords inside their site, so that the text is not visible by the human eyes, but visible by search engines.

2. Using popular keywords such as "sex, mp3, yahoo" in the meta tags when the subject of your site has nothing to do with those keywords is commonly called keyword stuffing.

3. Participating in Link farms. Link farms or Free-for-all links pages are pages that consist of links and exist solely to help listed sites gain higher search engine rankings. These pages have no unique content just links. Obviously you can't control which sites link back to you, but if you link to link farms, your site will get banned.

4. Submitting multiple versions of the exact same page or an identical page for indexing. Some webmasters try to increase their page count by having similar pages and only changing the title, subject or small word changes.

5. Using unauthorized automated software to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs violate Google's terms of service. Google does not recommend the use of products that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google. It is better to hand submit your site and only do so once a month.

6. Keyword stuffing: adding too many keywords in Meta tags or page text is called Spam and will get you banned. For example, if your website contains 400 words and the keyword phrase "website advertising" is repeated 50 times, the search engines will most likely think you are spamming them.

7. Using Doorway pages: Doorway pages are Web pages designed and built specifically to draw search engine visitors to your website. They are standalone pages designed only to act as doorways to your site. Doorway pages are a very bad idea for several reasons, though many SEO firms use them routinely.

8. Linking to a banned site, specially extensive linking as in networks.

9. Registering an already banned domain. Some webmasters, after their website becomes banned from google due to any reason, delete this domain and register another while the first domain remains banned from google. So, before you register a domain, make sure it is not banned by doing the test mentioned below in "Diagnosis".

Manifestations:

1.The earliest manifestations of google banning are usually first noticed by the webmaster as a sudden and severe drop in the number of website visitors and when the webmaster tracks the referrers of his visitors, he will not find anymore visitors coming to his site from google.

2. Sudden drop of the google PageRank of all pages of the website from any level to 0.

The combination of the above 2 symptoms is highly suspicious for google banning specially if they occur suddenly to an "old", established, high ranking website. In case of "newly born" websites, the diagnosis may be difficult depending on the above manifestations alone as these manifestations may be normal and transient for new sites which have not been indexed by google yet and so their pagerank is still 0. In this case, we need an "urgent" diagnostic test.

Diagnosis:

The diagnosis of google banning is very easy, even for new sites that have not been indexed by google yet. The diagnosis is made by a simple, accurate, and rapid test:

Test: Provided the site suspected for google banning is called www.suspected-domain.com, do a search in google for www.suspected-domain.com.

Results and interpretation: if www. suspected-domain.com is banned, google will say: "Sorry, no information is available for the URL www.suspected-domain.com" WITHOUT a direct link to www.suspected-domain.com. This sign differentiates between banned sites and new non-indexed sites. In the later case, there will be a direct link to www.suspected-domain.com, and google search results will say: "Sorry, no information is available for the URL www.suspected-domain.com" followed by "If the URL is valid, try visiting that web page by clicking on the following link: www.suspected-domain.com". This sign is absent in banned sites.

Complications:

Google banning is an infectious disease; all sites linking to the banned site are at a risk of catching the banning. So it is usual that many link partners escape and on the long run, the site will lose many of its inbound links.

Prevention:

Prevention is always easier than treatment, and fortunately, google banning is a preventable disease. Prevention is easy, you don't need to do anything to avoid banning, just don't do bad things, most of them are mentioned above.

Treatment:

Unfortunately, no curative treatment is available and the prognosis is bad, just palliative treatment:

1. Treatment of the cause. The first thing to do is to correct the cause. If you are not sure there must be some errors you suspect, correct all of them.

3. Isolation: if you have other websites linking to the banned sites, remove their links to it to avoid them catching the infection.

2. Writing to google:

After you have corrected all possible errors, email google at webmaster@google.com with an reinclusion request. The following is a template of reinclusion request letter:

Dear Google,

I am the owner of http://www.banned-domain.com/

I did not realize that (doing a mistake) was a bad thing that would get me banned from Google. Now, I understand that I have done a mistake, and I apologize profusely. I have removed (bad thing) from my site, and I promise not to make this mistake again.

I am asking you to Please Consider reinstating my website, http://www.banned-domain.com/ , into Google's Index.

Sincerely,

4. Domain transplantation: many people just ditch the former domain name and start with something new. It is much easier to build a site from a PR3 or PR4 (which most new sites are given) rather than trying to dig a banned site from the depths of PR0.

Last word:

Google banning is google's defense mechanism to keep their search results as accurate and useful as possible and it is their right, however, in my opinion, it is a very severe and even fatal punishment for webmasters' mistakes. If google has the right to ban a site from its search results, its right to take off its pagerank is questionable. Page rank is a measure of site popularity and "I am bad" does not necessarily mean that "I am not popular".

Author: Dr Wael Serag, a specialist in SEO diseases and complications. Improve your SEO health and get free articles, tools and more at: http://money-making-webmasters.com/

In The News:


pen paper and inkwell


cat break through


Search Engine Visibility - The Mantra of Corporate Profitability

The corporate fundamentals are par excellence! The product is unsurpassable... Read More

SEO, the Simplified Version

Lets get things straight. SEO is a very competitive market.... Read More

Google Rank Cake

6 cups thick content mix 1 jar word of mouth,... Read More

SEO: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

I seem to have created quite a stir, on a... Read More

SEO Made Easy!

Search engine optimization remains a minefield of old advice, outdated... Read More

Abandoned by Google! Googlebot, Wherefore Art Thou Googlebot?

As a search engine optimization specialist I often optimize existing... Read More

SEOs Relationship With Website Architecture

SEO's Relationship With Website ArchitectureSearch engine optimization for today's search... Read More

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - Fix Your OnPage!

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is something you should be aware... Read More

SEO Expert Guide - Search Engines Explained (part 1/10)

Before we explore the world of search engine optimization, it... Read More

60 Day Sandbox for Google & AskJeeves; MSN Indexes Quickest, Yahoo Next

Search engine listing delays have come to be called the... Read More

Look Out MSN Search, Here Comes Gbrowser

It is official, the search engine wars are in full... Read More

Even More Tips For Getting A Top 10 Search Engine Ranking!

I have spent some time discussing the 5 different options... Read More

Determining the Value of Your SEO Service

Every once in a while--and probably more often than we... Read More

How To Syndicate Your Content

Note: In order to preserve the proper format for the... Read More

SEO Expert Guide - Sitewide Optimization (part 4/10)

In parts 1 and 2 you learnt how to develop... Read More

How To Choose Keywords Before they Skyrocket in Popularity

Long before the days of researching phrases with the helpful... Read More

Can Google Really Deliver Country Specific Searching?

This is a serious matter, can Google really deliver top... Read More

List Building vs. Search Engine Optimization

It seems the excitement about search engine optimization fades in... Read More

Optimizing Your Website

Search Engine Optimization, optimizing your website for it to be... Read More

How I Suddenly Stumbled Onto No.1 In Google and Yahoo Without Search Engine Optimization - So What?

Sometimes, the search engines act really strange. And this story... Read More

Search Engine Indexing - 3 Strategies Guaranteed to Skyrocket Your Success

In order to design a website that performs well with... Read More

10 Things to Expect from Your SEO Copywriter

From the perspective of a business owner, webmaster, or marketing... Read More

Website Submission - What You May Not Know About Search Engine Indexing

Getting your website listed in the search engines is relatively... Read More

Writing SEO Copy ? 8 Steps to Success

We all know that the lion's share of web traffic... Read More

Writing Search Engine Friendly Webpages

In order to tap the huge stream of targeted traffic... Read More

The Fundamentals of Inbound Links

We have all heard that adding quality content to your... Read More

10 Ways to Tackle Keyword Research and Selection

You need to be extremely careful with keyword research so... Read More

Search Engine Metrics: Organic Search vs. Paid Placement

Let me preface this report by citing advertisers in 2004... Read More

Building Link Popularity with Topical Articles

One of the important factors in ranking high in search... Read More

How to Pick an SEO Firm

If you're looking for an SEO firm, we recommend that... Read More

A Link From An Ugly Duckling Website With A PR=1 Could Give You 10 to 80 Times More PageRank

Whether you want to start a business and sell on... Read More

Keyword Ownership: What It Is And Where Its Headed

Have you ever got one of those silly emails that... Read More

How to Build Massive Keyword Lists

As keyword marketing becomes more and more expensive and competitive,... Read More