(Unfair) Removal from Google's Index

(Unfair) Removal from Google's Index

This is the very unfair email that I received today:

Dear site owner or webmaster of ....com,

While we were indexing your webpages, we detected that some of your pages were using techniques that were outside our quality guidelines, which can be found here: http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html

In order to preserve the quality of our search engine, we have temporarily removed some webpages from our search results. Currently pages from single2.com are scheduled to be removed for at least 30 days.

Specifically, we detected the following practices on your webpages:

* The following hidden text on ....com:

e.g.

+keywords removed by me+,

[...]

We would prefer to have your pages in Google's index. If you wish to be reincluded, please correct or remove all pages that are outside our quality guidelines. When you are ready, please visit:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools ... sion?hl=en

to learn more and request a reconsideration request.

Sincerely,
Google Search Quality Team

=============================================

My comments continued:

1. My site does not have any hidden text
2. Google did not provide me with any offending URL, only with some keywords of "some" page. I checked the suspected page and I found that the keywords in that page are NOT hidden, but are of the same colour as the other text on that page and is not white, but dark blue, while the background is light blue. The text is very well readable, just like black on white.
3. Google email has NO contact info whatsoever. Only noreply@google.com email as "from".
4. When I went to the following page provided by Google's email: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools ... sion?hl=en I found that there's NO WAY I can resubmit my site for reinclusion because of the following reasons:

a. The "Requesting reconsideration of:" drop-down box with "Choose site" has NO sites listed. Nothing, just "Choose site" itself.

b. Reconsideration statement

(checkbox) By submitting this form, I acknowledge that:

* I believe this site has violated Google's quality guidelines in the past.
* This site no longer violates Google's quality guidelines.
* I have read and agree to abide by Google's quality guidelines.

Now tell me please HOW can I check that box if my site by my best opinion and knowledge HAS NOT violated Google's guidelines. Google thinks (mistakingly?) that it did, but I think it did not. So how can they force me to check that boxin this case? That is unfair!

c. "Request reconsideration" button on the bottom of that page is disabled even if I logged in with my Google account. Something is "unclean" there. I'm afraid that Google is bullying me into some kind of weird submission.

I've been thinking a lot lately and there's no other way just to contact a lawyer about Google's unfair SEO practices. In this case the only "contact" I'm presented is that "reconsideration" form which DOES NOT WORK! Which leaves me with NO way out!

Please share your thoughts, suggestions and opinions with me. Thank you.

Well if you believe your site(s) adhere to their quality standards, just wait the 30 days & see what happens.

Technically Google is not obligated to include your pages in their index, so contacting a lawyer is a waste of your time.

I agree with Joebert on this one. There is NO obligation on Googles part to index Nor provide a SERP's listing to anyone.

It may be an error on googles part, though you failed to include the reasons list with the keywords in question.

It may also be that the keywords refered to are stuffed in Image Attributes, Title Attribute, & or Css stylesheets, in which case (If there was allot of duplicates used) it would be Keyword spam & punished by an undisclosed amount of time being banned from the index.

I am Glad to see that Google is taking measures against some of the more unethical black Hat techniques used in order to provide a Viable & Trusted services benefiting those that earned it the right way rather than mass spam campaigns.

At any rate, all you can do now is double check your css / attributes / & Tags to make sure there is no un-necessary stuffing (This is also considered Hidden). Wait the 30 days & your site WILL be re-indexed, though if google finds the same technique used the pages will be banned again!

I wish you luck.

First of all I'm not any kind of spammer or rule-breaker. Am not a programmer or even a coder. I am an amateur computer user using simple Front Page to create my pages. In fact the abovementioned site was created for me by a web developer programmer. I can't even change or update it much without paying him. I have no idea about any SEO techniques. I create my sites accordingly to requirements. They "found" that I had keywords listed on my page as "hidden" (same color as background), which is not true. I do not have anything like that. It must be their automatical crawler whatever it is called mistake or error. I'm glad to find out that I should not see a lawyer, at least now I know what NOT to do

What's your website address? Post it for me & i'll take a look at the styles, tags, & attributes to see if I can see anything excessive.

I just looked at your site (single2.com) and you absolutely have hidden text on the bottom of your site:



That code on the bottom of your page is only visible to people viewing your source, thus it is hidden and is a bannable offense by google and most search engines. All of the keywords are enclosed by this tag:



That tag will not render any of the text to the screen, thus it is invisible.

The only purpose for having such text is to trick the search engines. You need to remove this from all of your pages asap and then file a reinclusion request admitting your mistake (unknowlingly or not, if your designer did it without your permission).

I must have skimmed his original post too fast & missed the URL. I figured it was in a tag or attribute.

Nice Catch!

Above may be the reason for removal from index of google. using same background color and same color of text is violation of guidelines however it is readable but search engines see webpage differently than a user. Remove this one and then may be very early google will index it.

There may be also other reasons for removal from google's index. And also google has rights to remove any page of any website from its index.

Thanks all for the help. I had this site build by someone and they abandoned the project by keeping my money. Then I had someone else work on it. They did a SEO for me including keywords which they said are necessary for the header or something like that. I never even thought of spamming any search engines. The problem is that the webmaster who built this site has sold his domain and disappeared. I'm stuck being unable to change anything on the site. In fact I'm same as you, a user that thought if I spent $10K and provide a truly free dating site it would help some people who can't pay for dating. Instead I got many problems. I would gladly remove those keywords since they are now called spamming. I remember in early 2000's the Front Page and all kinds of website garages were advising to add keywords and a meta tag description. That's what I thought I did. The site brings me expenses, no profit at all. There is no big deal if it will stay off the Google, in fact it will be a relief to me, since I won't have to delete thousands of west african fake profiles. Still, I'd like to comply to the Google and web rules since I don't like an idea to be called any kind of "spammer" so if someone could help remove those keywords by digging into the code I'll appreciate that and I'll put their website link on the links page as thanks for the help.

P.S. I already (on the same day) removed the keywords text in the links page since I have a limited possibility of changing some texts of the site using a CMS, but I can't change headers, footers or the PHP code. So your help would be great.

This is the problem with Google. The whole world uses it but it is actually a proprietary business. Google does what it like. Changes rules whenever they like. Worst part is that we can do nothing about it.

really, if that so happen.. trust with their opinion there's nothing to do with it.. too bad for you.