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Q: Got Off listed!! Help!! ( Answered 5 out of 5 stars,   0 Comments )
Question  
Subject: Got Off listed!! Help!!
Category: Miscellaneous
Asked by: homesalediy-ga
List Price: $15.00
Posted: 20 Jun 2003 01:31 PDT
Expires: 20 Jul 2003 01:31 PDT
Question ID: 219578
My website, www.homesalediy.com, was previously listed on Google yet
suddenly taken off. The site is not a redirect page or 'under
construction'. I resubmitted to Google couple of times (don't want to
submit too much...) but no reply and no result. What happened?? Could
you tell me how to improve my website and how I can get my listing
back on Google?? Do I need to include <h1> Heading & title in every
page in the website to get listed?

Request for Question Clarification by aceresearcher-ga on 20 Jun 2003 12:58 PDT
Greetings, homesalediya!

I've taken a quick look at your site, and the cause is not immediately
apparent.

Have you:
- had lots of server downtime problems with your site hosting company?
- used invisible / clear / 0-point font to include extra keywords on
your page(s)?
- used Automated Site-Submittal or Automated Search Results Rank
Checking software?
- participated in "link farms"?
- included a page with many links to other sites on your own site?
- created more than one site with nearly identical information on
both/all of the sites?

If the answer to any of these Questions is "yes", I would probably be
able to help you with methods to try to redeem your Page Rank and your
listing in the Google Index.

Regards,

aceresearcher

Clarification of Question by homesalediy-ga on 20 Jun 2003 15:45 PDT
The server didn't have much of downtime except maybe due to DSL
connection sometimes seem to be disturbed for some reason and the
server got shutdown. It hasn't happened again for at least a month.
None of the activities listed below I had done except I ordered
service from a websited called WorldSubmit to have my site submit to
various search engine. Would that be considered the automated site
submittal problem? To bring in another thing, I did purchase a
software called Web Position Gold 2 a couple weeks ago. I didn't use
it to submit to search engine but did use it to check my ranking for
particular key words listed on various popular search engines like:
Yahoo!, Alta Vista, Google, Lycos, MSN and etc. I just read an review
and the researcher told not to use that software and if caught by
Google the site will be banned. But my site was already kicked off by
Google before I bought the software. The site was listed on Google for
about a month or two and just suddenly dissapeared. Was that caused by
the so-called Google Dance? When will it become normal & relist my
site for good? Is there other ways to get listed permanently?
Answer  
Subject: Re: Got Off listed!! Help!!
Answered By: mcfly-ga on 21 Jun 2003 11:05 PDT
Rated:5 out of 5 stars
 
Hi Homesalediy!

I hope I am the bearer of good news in telling you that
www.homesalediy.com *is* actually listed on Google, but is currently
not returned in the search results for the terms 'homesalediy' or
'home sale diy'.  You can verify the existence of your site in the
listings by searching for 'www.homesalediy.com' or clicking on the
link below:

Google Search: www.homesalediy.com
://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=www.homesalediy.com&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

The title and description on the Google listing are

"Free Real Estate For Sale By Owner Listing Site
HomeSaleDIY. " Welcome for sale by owner (FSBO), business
professionals, and real
estate agents!", FREE Elephants Zoobook! FREE Tiger Poster! Welcome,
Guest ! ... "

which would seem not to be the most up to date version of your site. 
This slightly odd behaviour can largely be explained by the complex
interactions within the index during the 'Google Dance', a term which
I will discuss further later in this answer.


Addressing a few of the points raised in your question and
clarification, of primary importance to your continued existence in
the Google listings, is NOT to use services such as Web Position Gold.
 Google specifically address this in their guidelines for webmasters:


"Quality Guidelines - Basic principles:

* Make pages for users, not for search engines. Don't deceive your
users, or present different content to search engines than you display
to users.
* Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule
of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done
to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask,
"Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't
exist?"
* Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's
ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or
"bad neighborhoods" on the web as your own ranking may be affected
adversely by those links.
* Don't use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check
rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate
our terms of service. Google does not recommend the use of products
such as WebPosition Gold that send automatic or programmatic queries
to Google. "

Google Information for Webmasters
://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html


Referring to the latter of the four points above, by using Web
Position Gold 2 to check your keyword rankings you were contravening
Google's guidelines, an action Google may penalize by exclusion from
the index.  However, it would appear that your site is still in the
index and you have not been penalized on this occasion.  I must stress
though that continued use of such services is not at all advisable.


A second point with respect to 'Search Engine Optimization' software,
is that some automated submission software is also frowned upon by
search engines, and you would be better off submitting manually using
the links below:

AllTheWeb
http://www.alltheweb.com/add_url.php    
  
AltaVista   
http://addurl.altavista.com/addurl/new    

Google    
://www.google.com/addurl.html   

HotBot
http://www.hotbot.lycos.co.uk/submit.html

Open Directory Project: Add a site 
http://dmoz.org/add.html 

Yahoo
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest 


The third point in the webmaster guidelines in the quote above
mentions link schemes and 'bad neighbourhoods', a term used to
describe sites with illegal content or of 'ill repute'.  Using
www.alltheweb.com to determine incoming links to www.homesalediy.com,
I discovered links from:

Post Employees Wanted Link Free / Technology / Free Link Page
http://www.applegate-emall.com/jobpost/technology.html

AMAZING Free For All Links -= [Version 3] =- Spider Your Site Today!
http://www.jimmyrocker.net/amazing/links.html

Although these sites are not necessarily 'bad neighbourhoods', I would
describe them as potentially borderline cases of link schemes.  While
there is probably no need to request the removal of your site from
either, I would not encourage the procurement of further links from
similar sites.  You are much safer requesting links from sites of
specific relevance to your own.



Now, back to the Google Dance, the 'affectionate' term used to
describe the period when Google renew the information in their site
index.  The exact details of the Google search algorithms are kept
very secret and Google Answers researchers are not party to such
information, however there are a large number of resources where
anecdotal information is available.

Google collect information about web sites with a piece of software
called a 'spider'.  The spider jumps between sites through the same
links a human browser would use and records the details of any pages
it comes across.  Because there are many tens of billions of links
within the Internet it is not possible to guarantee that every link
will be followed or that every site will be indexed straight away. 
Many fledgling sites find that their inclusion in the Google index is
erratic until they have become more established either through
inclusion in the Google Directory or having a larger (eg.>10) number
of links to their site.  It is very likely that your disappearance and
re-appearance in the Google index is down to the monthly passing of
the Google Dance.

To become more firmly established, and increase your PageRank, you
could work to increase the number of sites linking to your own. 
(PageRank is Google's search results ranking system; a full analysis
is outside the scope of this question.)  Additionally, gaining a
presence in the Google Directory, based upon the Open Directory
Project whose link I included above, would be likely to guarantee a
place in the Google listings.

The odd behaviour relating to www.homesalesdiy.com not appearing for
'home', 'sale' and 'diy' keywords is also likely to be linked to the
disruption caused by the Google Dance.  An approximate time scale for
the effects of the Google dance to wear off would be one week.


To answer some of your specific sub-queries and comments:

Q: "I resubmitted to Google couple of times (don't want to submit too
much...) but no reply and no result."

A: Submitting to Google multiple times will not harm your chances of
being listed, but will not necessarily be beneficial either.  Google
do not reply to webmasters to inform them of their site status; we
just have to try and figure it out ourselves!

Q: "Do I need to include <h1> Heading & title in every page in the
website to get listed?"

A:  No, not at all.  The Google spider will pay extra attention to
words enclosed in <h1>, <b>, <strong> etc. tags but their use is by no
means compulsory.

Q: "Is there other ways to get listed permanently?"
A: Unfortunately not for free. Google's adwords advertising scheme
displays a link to your site for certain keywords
(://www.google.com/ads/), but this is closest anyone can get to a
guaranteed listing.


If you have a further interest in search engine optimization, you may
find the links below useful:


Search Engine Watch    
http://searchenginewatch.com/     

Search Engine World   
http://www.searchengineworld.com/   
   
Webmaster World    
http://www.webmasterworld.com/    

 
I hope you have found my answer to be both interesting and
informative; if you would like clarification of any area please do not
hesitate to ask before rating my answer.


Kind regards,


mcfly-ga :)



**Search Strategy** 

google webmaster guidelines
home sale diy site:www.homesalediy.com
www.homesalediy.com
lycos hotbot
google adwords

Request for Answer Clarification by homesalediy-ga on 21 Jun 2003 16:17 PDT
You mentioned 'the odd behaviour relating to www.homesalesdiy.com not
appearing for 'home', 'sale' and 'diy' keywords' causing my site
effected by Google Dance. Do you mean by because Google couldn't
locate those words in my website & thinking it could be a fraud?? I do
have 'HomeSaleDIY' as one word several times in my web content? Would
that be enough?

I tried submit to DMOZ many times before but kept getting 'internal
error' or some sort. Is there another way? Would submit to Inktomi be
the same??

Clarification of Answer by mcfly-ga on 22 Jun 2003 03:00 PDT
Hi again Homesalediy,

To get an idea of what the Google spider sees when it views your page,
I submitted www.homesalediy.com to the spider simulator at:

Spider Simulator
http://www.searchengineworld.com/cgi-bin/sim_spider.cgi

The following content was gleaned by the spider, and would be used by
Google to assess the site's relevance to certain keywords:

"Home Sale DIY HomeSaleDIY: For Sale By Owner (FSBO) site        "
Welcome for sale by owner (FSBO), business professionals, and real
estate agents! "                FREE Elephants Zoobook! FREE Tiger
Poster!  Welcome, Guest ! Log In New? Register here! Quick Search  
Listing No.              State :             AL AK AZ AR CA CO CT DE
DC FL GA HI ID IL IN IA KS KY LA ME MD MA MI MN MS MO MT NE NV NH NJ
NM NY NC ND OH OK OR PA RI SC SD TN TX UT VT VA WA WV WI WY Advanced
Search Feature your home For Sale By Owner (FSBO) FSBO Info   Buyer
Tips   Seller Tips Research Info   Home Value   Road Map  
Neighborhood Info Service Info   Mortgage Center   Credit Reports  
Home Services   Calculators   Escrow & Title Question?   Agents  
Contact Us Search for Foreclosures Nationwide. Amazon.com Platinum
Visa Card Welcome to Home Sale DIY , where home for sale by owner
(FSBO) is our No.1 mission! Would you be interested in listing your
home for free ? Click here ! Feature Home Sell your own home is no
mystery. Home Sale DIY is dedicated to help all for sale by owner
(FSBO) and those who would like to become part of for sale by owner
group. Home Sale DIY has step-by-step procedure, including research
your home value to qualify home buyers, to help all for sale by owner
to sell their homes. Give it a try by posting your home pictures,
inputing and updating your home description, and learning all you want
to know about selling your home. Home Sale DIY is here to help! How
can we better list your home? Let us know! Featured Home 3 BR, 2 BH
with Finished Bonus Rm for additional BR or office w/ walk-in access
to attic storage. Master has Dbl Trey... Detail Beautiful mature Oak
Trees that shade this quiet hill country home made of Rock and Stucco
exterior with 2 water well... Detail Spacious home built by Pulte, on
a more than half acre lot with a wooden backyard. Also has full
finished walk out b... Detail --> --> Home Finance --> $Quick-Refi
Online$   Name :       Address :       City :       State :       ZIP
:       Phone :       Email :       Loan Amt :       Income : (M)    
--> Refinance at 40-year low rate!! Apply Now!! Consolidate your debt
into one low monthly payment!! --> Log In User Name :  Password : 
Home Value Home Value Neighborhood Info Neighborhood Information *This
page is best viewed at 1024 x 768"
 
By analysing the frequency of use of each word, and removing the
unnecessary terms such as 'and' and 'the', Google determines a set of
keywords with which to describe the site.  So there should be no
problem with Google detecting the keywords 'home sale diy' from the
content of your page.  However, because you use HTML tags to change of
the color of each word within the term 'homesalediy', search spiders
will view them as separate words.  There is therefore a much lower
frequency of occurrence of the keyword 'homesalediy' within the page,
and you could not necessarily expect to appear under a keyword search
for this at the moment.

So in summary, although there is potentially a problem optimizing for
the term 'homesalediy', the content of your site accurately reflects
your aims and there is no reason for you not to appear for keywords
'home sale diy' once the Google Dance is complete.

When I have referred to keywords throughout my answer, I have meant
the words which Google's spider selects from the content of your site
as opposed to the keywords you have specified in your meta tags. 
Google and most of the other top search engines no longer look at the
keyword meta tag because in the past many webmasters have abused the
system.  Therefore, you need have no worry about Google thinking your
site "could be a fraud".


I have checked the logs for your site within the Open Directory
Project, and note that it was deleted from 
Shopping->Classifieds->Homes-FSBO on 11 May 2003 and 06 June 2003.  I
also notice your submission of the site to Regional->North
America->United States->California->Business and Economy->Real
Estate->For Sale By Owner.  It would appear that your site was moved
from this category to California->Localities->C->Chino Hills->Business
and Economy->Real Estate but has not yet been published in the
directory.

I hope you do not mind me taking the liberty of resubmitting the site
to:
Regional->North America->United States->California->Business and
Economy->Real Estate

Hopefully www.homesalediy.com will appear in the directory sometime
over the next month or two.  The only other way to appear in DMOZ is
for an editor of a category to spot your site and decide it is
appropriate for their category, but you could have no control over
this.


Inktomi and the Open Directory Project are completely separate
entities which provide results to different search engines (Yahoo and
Google respectively).  Therefore inclusion in one will not necessarily
lead to inclusion in the other.  Inktomi is generally a paid
submission service, whereas DMOZ is free, so I would be inclined to
take the free option.  If you would like more information regarding
site submission at Inktomi, it is available here:

Inktomi Flat-Fee Search Engine Submission
http://www.inktomi.com/products/web_search/submit.html


If you have any further concerns regarding your site's inclusion in
Google, it may be worthwhile referring to:

Google Information for Webmasters
://www.google.com/webmasters/

Any problems caused by contravening the guidelines expressed in the
above pages can be rectified by removing the offending features from
the site, and emailing help@google.com to ask for re-inclusion.  While
your site is still in the index this is not a step you need to take.


I hope this has clarified my answer suitably.  If any area is still
not clear, please feel free to ask for additional clarification before
making your rating.


Good luck with homesalediy.com!


mcfly-ga :)
homesalediy-ga rated this answer:5 out of 5 stars
Professional service & very helpful!! Highly recommend to all!

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