in reviewing the q/a database it appears that google will drop a site
based on things that can be maniuplated by a competitor and things one
has no control over - ex. say someone gets webposition and goes out of
control hitting google checking the competitor's url or they submit
the competitor's site to a bunch of link farms.  This hardly seems
fair to penalize a site for something they do not have control over a
competitor doing "on their behalf" We have had our site dropped and
from google and suspect perhaps something like this may have been
done. Any ideas on this?  Or maybe you have some ideas on why
homeplatesonline.com went from the top to nowhere?

Greetings, questioner1233!

I doubt very much that your removal from the Google Index was due to
the actions of a competitor.

Most Search Engines, especially Google, are quite secretive about
their inner workings, so it is not possible for anyone to say for sure
why your site was dropped from their index.

However, I feel that I can say with a great degree of certainty that
the reason your site was dropped from Google's Index was the fact that
you have a nearly identical site at
http://www.homeplates.net

A check of the Internet Archive Wayback Machine shows that this has
been the case since at least May 2002:
http://web.archive.org/web/20020531043055/http://www.homeplatesonline.com
http://web.archive.org/web/20020531033747/http://www.homeplates.net

According to "Google Information for Webmasters - Webmaster
Guidelines":
"- Don't employ cloaking or sneaky redirects...
 - Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with
substantially duplicate content."
://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html


So, you need to decide which URL you want to keep as your main URL.
Post a marking page on the other URL that says "Please visit our main
site at http://www.homeplateswhatever.com " with the URL as a
clickable hyperlink (DON'T make this an automatic redirect!!!). Be
sure to notify any sites that have links to that secondary URL to
change them to your primary URL.

Then, write to Google at help@google.com , admit your mistake, beg
forgiveness, and ask them to please reinstate your site. Here's a
sample groveling letter you can use if you wish:
---------------------------------------------------- 
Dear Google, 
 
I am the owner of http://www.homeplatesonline.com and
http://www.homeplates.net .
 
I did not realize that creating duplicate sites was a bad thing that
would get me banned from Google.
 
I have now seen the error of my ways, and I apologize profusely. I
have removed my duplicate site, and I promise not to make this mistake
again.
 
I am asking you to Please Consider reinstating my website,
http://<whichever you choose as your primary URL> , into Google's
Index.
 
Sincerely, 
 
<your name> 
---------------------------------------------------- 

Bear in mind that there is NO guarantee that you will be reinstated,
or how long it will take for you to be reinstated.


Before Rating my Answer, if you have any Questions about the above
information, please post a Request for Clarification, and I will see
what I can do for you.
 
Best Wishes on a speedy reinstatement to the Google Index, and
increased traffic to your website!
 
aceresearcher

---

Clarification of Answer by aceresearcher-ga on 30 Jun 2003 13:06 PDT

By the way, I see that you have now removed from your websites the
invisible text that was present on them in the versions archived in
May 2002. This was a good move, and you will not want to use invisible
text again.

"However, certain actions such as cloaking, writing text that can be
seen by search engines but not by users, or setting up pages/links
with the sole purpose of fooling search engines may result in
permanent removal from our index."
://www.google.com/webmasters/2.html#B3

"- Avoid hidden text or hidden links."
://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html

Best Wishes,

ace

---

Request for Answer Clarification by questioner1233-ga on 01 Jul 2003 16:16 PDT

this is excellent info - we are in the process of addressing the issue
right now and will follow your advice. The other domains (there
actually were two) were used on different brochures and were set up
with the host to simply point to the main one. Knew the meta refresh
was a problem but not the pointing, guess that makes sense - but they
have been around from the beginning and no problem til now. This
advice is very much appreciated.

the site was originally set up for aesthetic reasons without the text
showing but there on the page so the search engines would know what it
was about.  This was back before that became an issue.  A good catch
on your part on that too.

---

Clarification of Answer by aceresearcher-ga on 01 Jul 2003 16:26 PDT

questioner,

Thanks for the Excellent Rating and the generous tip!

I am delighted to hear that you are getting your issues resolved.

I hope to see your site bounce back up in the Search Results Rankings very soon!

Best Wishes,

ace

great answer