Hello Craftsman ~
It appears that you got caught in the recent spate of sites
"optimized" by Traffic Power which were all banned from Google - and
many of them were also banned from Yahoo, too.
You are more fortunate than some sites, which also lost their links listings, too.
Some of customers of Traffic Power reported they paid thousands of
dollars; and for a while their "optimization" tactics worked - until
the search engines started deleting them and their customers' sites
from their index.
Jill Whalen's High Rankings Advisor, Issue 103, dated June 30, 2004,
describes exactly what tactics they employed in the article, "Getting
Banned Due to Spam",
- http://www.highrankings.com/issue103.htm#seo
"Tons of unsuspecting site owners who had put their
faith and trust in one particular SEO company had
woken up one morning to find that their sites had
completely vanished from Google, and in some cases,
Yahoo."
Webmaster World also has an extensive discussion thread on what has
happened, "Google Pulls Plug on "onmouseover" Pages", here:
- http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/24523.htm
Of significance in the Webmaster World thread is a post from
GoogleGuy, who is an employee of Google, who gave these specific
instructions before you ask for re-inclusion to Google's index:
"First, you need to make sure that you've removed
any redirecting/spammy pages that were on your site.
Make sure that every junky page like that is
completely gone before you write, then you can send
an email to webmaster [at] google.com with the
subject line "reinclusion request" as give us as
much detail as possible about the situation...
"...Again, make sure you completely remove any
doorway pages or links to spam that an SEO convinced
you to put on your site before you write to Google
about reinclusion. It reflects badly on your site
if you write about reinclusion and then we check and
the spam pages are still live on your site."
You're lucky, in that there are pages with links to your site still showing,
- ://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=link%3A+www.realmilkpaint.com&btnG=Search
I assume it is your desire to be reinstated in Google's index.
Therefore, I suggest you take GoogleGuy's advice to heart and totally
remove anything and everything Traffic Power contributed to your pages
and site.
Since Google is taking a hard look at the types of links TO your site,
I would suggest you make sure they are sites which are relevant to
your own site's content, and not merely links which are on a page for
no other purpose but to be links. You don't want to appear to be
participating in a linking scheme, which Google specifically mentions
as a reason for being penalized or banned in its Quality Guidelines -
Basic Principles",
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
Once you have cleaned up your site, you should send an email to
webmaster@google.com, with "reinclusion request" in the subject line.
Explain ** exactly ** what happened, what you have done to clean up
the site and ask them to reinclude you in their index.
Then be prepared to wait, it could take a while, up to 12 weeks
perhaps, to be reincluded. And there is no guarantee that it will -
although there is no reason why it shouldn't, either.
Search terms used ~
* Traffic Power
In addition, I am well aware of the recent developments with regard to
Traffic Power and used resources available in my answer.
You have a good site with lots of information. It is unfortunate that
you had chosen to work with a firm that less than squeaky clean. Do
keep track of the links I've given, because there is a possibility of
a class action suite. If you're so inclined, you may qualify as a
member of the class.
I hope this helps, and and wish you the best of luck.
Regards,
Serenata
Google Answers Researcher |
