Hi, Simon ~
Please remember that Google Answers Researchers are private
contractors and are not privy to the inner workings of Google. We do
not have any more information than that available to the general
public about Google's closely-guarded algorithms. The best we can do
is offer some educated guesses, which may or may not be the reason.
From your question, I can see that you are familiar with Google's
Webmaster Guidelines -
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/
And possible reasons your website may not be included -
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/2.html#A1
** Links to acidfonts.com ~
Using Google's Link Tool (typing "link: www.acidfonts.com" without the
quotation marks in the Google search box) reveals 272 records of links
TO acidfonts.com; and using "http://www.acidtools.com" lists 163 links
to acidfonts.com.
In its Webmaster Guidelines, "My Page Used to Be Listed ...", Google
says this about the links to a site in Header B"
"You may want to check and see if the number of other sites linking to
your URL has decreased. This is the single biggest factor in
determining what sites are indexed by Google, as we find most pages
when our robots crawl the web and jump from page to page via
hyperlinks. To find out who links to your site, use Google's link:
tool."
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/2.html#A1
** Quality Guidelines - Specific Recommendations ~
Google specifically mentions the following as reasons you may not be
listed (and possibly delisted):
" - Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
- Don't employ cloaking or sneaky redirects.
- Don't send automated queries to Google.
- Don't load pages with irrelevant words.
- Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with
substantially duplicate content.
- Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other
"cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or
no original content."
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
In its "reasons Google may not list your site", "doorway" pages are
specifically mentioned:
"You employ doorway pages. Google does not encourage the use of
doorway pages. We want to point users to content pages, not to
doorways or splash screens."
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/2.html#A1
While not intending to be deceptive, you did say you were redirecting
acidfonts.com to acidcool.com, which "may" be the reason you aren't
listed under either of those domains at this time. (I say "may",
because I remind you that we are not privy to the reasoning of
Google's reasons for listing or delisting a site), and indeed, Google
states,
"We will not comment on the individual reasons a page was removed and
we do not offer an exhaustive list of practices that can cause
removal. However, certain actions such as cloaking, ... may result in
permanent removal from our index." (Other Reasons your site may not be
listed).
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/2.html#A1
** Google Page Rank ~
Google explains its page ranking this way:
"PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using
its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value.
In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote,
by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume
of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that
casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important"
weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important.""
- ://www.google.com/technology/index.html
** Other Reasons ~
Finally, it could just be a glitch, and Google might have had a hiccup
or your site may have had a hiccup at the time of the last indexing.
(See: No. 3 Other Reasons ...)
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/2.html#A1
*** Summary ~
You did do certain things (redirecting acidcool.com to acidfonts.com),
which Google specifically mentions as something you shouldn't do and
reasons you could be delisted (un-listed) from the Google search
engine.
No one but Google personnel can say for certain why this has happened,
but that could be one of the reasons or the reason.
*** Recommendations on how to get relisted ~
I visited your site and on occasion have downloaded a font from your
site myself. It's fairly straightforward, but there are a few things
you can do in your design to help the visitor (and Google's search
engine, too) with your site.
Google recommends that you "[c]reate a useful, information-rich site
and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content."
Your site has an "entry page" with little or no real content, and is
just one more click for a visitor to get to your site's offerings. It
is an annoyance for your visitor, to be sure, and there is little text
at all to enhance the page. Clicking on "enter" takes you to yet
another page that could be an entry page, except this one talks more
about joining a mailing list, becoming a member, the advantages of
Xara 3D and other links, and still no fonts (and a couple of the
graphics links are broken).
This could lead a visitor to wonder what exactly the site is about.
Google suggests "Use a text browser such as Lynx to examine your site,
because most search engine spiders see your site much as Lynx would.
If fancy features such as Javascript, cookies, session ID's, frames,
DHTML, or Flash keep you from seeing all of your site in a text
browser, then search engine spiders may have trouble crawling your
site."
A listen to acidfonts.com doesn't "sound" like a fonts site.
Use alt tags for the graphics. Besides a paucity of text, there are no
alt tags for the images, which makes for very little on those two
pages discussed above for Google to index.
My suggestion would be to dump the first two pages. Discuss your site,
tell the viewer what it is about and save the recommendations of other
products, etc., for something below the fold. (not your first
screenful of information).
To further help your visitors, I suggest adding a DOCTYPE Declaration
to the page. This enhances delivery and interpretation by a browser,
and you can read about the reasons for using a doctype declaration on
Web Design Group's "Choosing A Doctype", here:
- http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/validator/doctype.html
and in A List Apart's "Fixing Your Site With Doctype" here:
- http://www.alistapart.com/stories/doctype/
Put your font examples above the fold, your links to other sites,
etc., below them. These pages are about fonts, and if that's what they
are about, that should be the most important part of each page, which
should be first.
*** Summary ~
The design suggestions above are mine as a site visitor, but are also
generally acknowledged to be more user friendly by experts. I realize
that running a free font site is expensive in terms of bandwidth and
space used (especially if you are running samples of the fonts for
your visitors); and that any peripheral sources of income can be
helpful to offset the expenses. On the other hand, it does not enhance
your site's usability to wade through the ads and peripherals to get
to the fonts your visitors are going there to see, so rethinking the
layout can't hurt and may be a help.
When you have brought the site into compliance with Google's
suggestions and ensured you haven't got any of the specifically listed
prohibitions as listed above, you can write to Google and ask them to
re-list your site.
Google suggests, "If you think your site may fall into this category
...) referring to the list in "Reasons" above, "... you might try
'cleaning up' the page and sending a re-inclusion request to
help@google.com."
Although Google states, "We do not make any guarantees about if or
when we will re-include your site.", it doesn't hurt to try.
*** Search terms used ~
- Google page rank
- Google recommendations
- submitting site to Google
Hope this helps in getting re-listed, although it doesn't specifically
tell you why you were de-listed. Answering that part is something a
Google Answers Researcher cannot do with specificity; and something
Google won't do as a matter of policy.
Best of luck to you,
Serenata
Google Answers Researcher |
