I got Penalized by Google..

WM-Scott · 01-27-2009, 01:11 PM

I got Penalized by Google..I got complaciant. I got bumped way back, I think its because I was using the GotLinks linking service, and linking to bad neighborhoods. I cleaned up my website, now, I will see how long it takes to recover. Just an FYI, if you get sloppy, it does happen.

PHP_Adam · 01-27-2009, 03:06 PM

Well, it seems google has decided to give you a holiday. Take advantage of being penalised and have a few more beers.

Its interesting, that google penalises for link farms. Yet DMOZ Directory is a organised link farm, is it not.

fromthe5 · 01-27-2009, 04:22 PM

Quote:

I think its because I was using the GotLinks linking service, and linking to bad neighborhoods.

Even if GotLinks got busted (again) I don't believe that it would get you a penalty. The links just wouldn't count. As far as linking to "bad neighborhoods", possible. How many points did you drop on average?

WM-Scott · 01-31-2009, 05:56 AM

I got bumped from Page 1 , Rank 1, to 50th.. still ok at Yahoo and MSN...and its going on a month or so

Jeremy80 · 01-27-2009, 04:34 PM

I think there is a extremely high chance that the problem was caused by using GotLinks. Google states on their webmaster guidelines to not participate in such link schemes. So this is directly conflicting with what Google recommends.

fromthe5 · 01-27-2009, 05:03 PM

Quote:

I think there is a extremely high chance that the problem was caused by using GotLinks.

So what you're saying is that in order to get all my competitors penalized all I would have to do is point a bunch of GotLinks links to their sites? What a mess that would make of the Google search engine. That's NOT going to happen. At worst the links won't count.

Jeremy80 · 01-27-2009, 05:07 PM

Geez...people are a little slow on the forums today. With gotlinks you have to post their script to your website, correct? That makes it extremely obvious that you are participating in a link scheme. I never said it has anything to do with the links pointing to his website. You can get penalized for any outgoing links on your website.

fromthe5 · 01-27-2009, 05:24 PM

Quote:

Geez...people are a little slow on the forums today. With gotlinks you have to post their script to your website, correct?

Yup, if you allow links to be posted on your site, but if you're just renting links and not participating by posting links on your site you won't have any script on your pages. I just assumed that was what was being referred to. I guess there ARE people who are naive enough to put a script on their page. In reality I believe most of the site owners in their program could care less, and noobs with just enough knowledge to get themselves in trouble get sucked in every day.

mabel01 · 01-28-2009, 06:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WM-Scott

I got Penalized by Google..I got complaciant. I got bumped way back, I think its because I was using the GotLinks linking service, and linking to bad neighborhoods. I cleaned up my website, now, I will see how long it takes to recover. Just an FYI, if you get sloppy, it does happen.

can I see your website?

TigerStance · 01-28-2009, 11:16 AM

the more relavant the links are to ur content then the better seo score u will have

ultimatehandyman · 01-28-2009, 03:14 PM

I used to be with gotlinks and it never seemed to do me any harm, but since removing the script my site has sky rocketed in Google!

SEOWebHelp · 01-28-2009, 05:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WM-Scott

I got Penalized by Google..I got complaciant.

Before you panic, let's think about all this. How do you know you were penalized? You said you dropped down on the SERP, but sometimes things happen and not because you got sand boxed by Google.

I try and check my analytics and see if there's any strange activity on the site. If that's not it I clean up things I might believe are the issue and then I wait 1-2 weeks and see if there's any movement on the SERP.

If they did penalize you and you cleaned up your site, you can contact Google along with your apology letter and they will usually reinstate your site into the rotation and send a crawler out to read your changes and update your site in their system and you're on the way back up the rankings.

fearmydesign · 01-30-2009, 10:15 PM

wow! there is a lot of good information in all these posts! I have a question on this topic, how do you guys know where you rank at? I have seen alexa and its ranking, but I saw some people talking about 'dropping points' how do you guys check this kind of stuff? I would like to stay on top of websites ranking, points or however this is done.

Also, how can you tell if there are any links pointing back to your website? any how can you tell if they are good links?
And how come Alexa doesn't reflect the links that point back to my site, I know for a fact I have many? does it consider them bad links? Please advice.

Thanks in advance,
Regards,

deanpowel71 · 10-01-2009, 10:53 PM

Thats really sad, but you can take this as a time to develop your site in a better manner and may be this time you will make more profit from it.

Loridori4 · 10-02-2009, 07:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by deanpowel71

Thats really sad, but you can take this as a time to develop your site in a better manner and may be this time you will make more profit from it.

Oh..it's all good now. Bumped up the PPC campaign and worked our way back up to page 3 for our most popular keywords.

However...I'm LOVING ME SOME BING!! They have us on page 1 for our most popular keyword.

fromthe5 · 01-30-2009, 10:28 PM

Quote:

If they did penalize you and you cleaned up your site, you can contact Google along with your apology letter and they will usually reinstate your site into the rotation and send a crawler out to read your changes and update your site in their system and you're on the way back up the rankings.

That can take a bit of time actually, but if you ARE penalized it's your only recourse if you want to save the site.

Another question I would have for WM-Scott, just to eliminate another possibility is: How old is the site?

Quote:

I have seen alexa and its ranking

Forget that. It has no impact on how well your site ranks for any given search term.

alemcherry · 01-31-2009, 02:36 AM

Unfortunate, good luck with reinclusion, M-Scott. It can take some time, but you must get back. Always safer not to participate in any kind of link exchange program at all.

pinkfluffybunny · 01-31-2009, 03:41 AM

Relax.

I've taken on some clients who were completely banned from google, and major ISP's. You can bring it back. The search engine gods grind slow but the grind fine. Start correcting your errors of the past.

Although Google doesn't admit to penalizing, correct what you can.... if you have a Google rep (they will tell you they have no input) but tell them what a dab boy you have been and tell them you corrected it. then correct it.

Is there an offense that you can't come back from - I've had some pretty bad offenders in my time. They always come back with corrective actions.

Traffic-Bug · 01-31-2009, 05:03 AM

I know Google has a way to report sites that "Buy" or "Sell" links. It is in the Webmaster Tools section. I cant figure out a reason they would put it there, as anybody can abuse the program simply by pointing out competitors that may not actually be engaged in buying or selling links and those links may have been ethical. I think that is so un-Google.

I would say, if G finds you have been running link exchange programs then those links should not count rather than incurring a penalty just because you used them. But I am not Google and I dont know what is really behind the scenes. I always use Google for I find their search results are very well organized and fast to load. Compare with Yahoo with all those graphics taking up too much bandwidth even for search results.

kanchan · 01-31-2009, 05:50 AM

Well,

Its interesting, that google penalises for link farms.