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Q: google rankings ( Answered 4 out of 5 stars,   0 Comments )
Question  
Subject: google rankings
Category: Miscellaneous
Asked by: angelik-ga
List Price: $20.00
Posted: 11 Feb 2003 09:01 PST
Expires: 13 Mar 2003 09:01 PST
Question ID: 159974
I used to have a 4/10 google ranking back last year through September.
Suddenly i received a 0/0 ranking. as far as i know i have never used
spam methods or anything illegal; i have been patiently waiting since
october for my site to assume its proper ranking...but still 0, now in
February. What may i have done wrong? have i been penalized ...and for
what? I use the Zeus linking feature and was assured that would not
harm my site. so what happened?  and how to remedy the situation?
Thank you for your consideration

Clarification of Question by angelik-ga on 11 Feb 2003 09:24 PST
the website in question is  http://www.star-seer.com
Answer  
Subject: Re: google rankings
Answered By: aceresearcher-ga on 11 Feb 2003 11:08 PST
Rated:4 out of 5 stars
 
Greetings, angelik!

I first ran your site through the Search Engine Spider Simulator at
SearchEngineWorld.
http://www.searchengineworld.com/cgi-bin/sim_spider.cgi

It looks like you have done a great job of setting up meta search
keywords (although Google pretty much ignores meta keywords these
days, several other major Search Engines still look at them).

You have a fair amount of descriptive text ("content") on your front
page; this is good, because this is how Search Engine bots determine
whether you have any "content" on your site.

You have links on your front page to several of your sub-pages; this
is also good, because these are what Search Engine bots follow to
index all the pages in your site (and to determine whether you have
any "content" on your site).

You also have links on your site to other Astrology-related sites;
this is good, too; especially if you have persuaded those sites to
reverse-link to you (something which the Googlebot really uses to
determine Page Ranking).

Then I plugged your site into the Google Search Engine at
://www.google.com

Your site comes up immediately, under the heading "StarSeer Astrology
Numerology Tarot Counseling Reports". This is good, because it means
that Google has indexed your site.

Below that, I clicked on "Find web pages that link to
www.star-seer.com" (the same as entering   link:www.star-seer.com  
into the Google Search box).
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=link:He2filyGmi4C:www.star-seer.com

No Reverse Links are returned. This is NOT good.

Then I click my browser's "Back" button to go back to the previous
page, where I click on "Find web pages that contain the term
'www.star-seer.com'"
://www.google.com/search?q=%22%2Bwww.star-seer.%2Bcom%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&filter=0

Google finds 201 pages which contain the name of your website.

A ray of light begins to dawn.

Notice how the headings of all of the Results on this page begin
"are9.php3" where 9 is a number between 1 and 10, followed by
something like "Helpful Sources Page", "Resource Center Page", and
"Useful Sites Page"?

This is a good indication that all of the webpages listed on this page
came from the same source. Further, clicking through the rest of the
201 pages reveals that almost ALL of the Search Results are either
your site's own pages, or are headed "are9.php3" -- and those are
almost all Real Estate sites, which have no "theme" relation to your
site.

These pages look very much like the result of a "link farm". Google
has been programmed to "Zero-rank" (essentially blacklist) websites
that participate in link farms.

I am sorry to say that I think you have been "had".

A Google Search on   Zeus link farm   
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Zeus+link+farm&btnG=Google+Search
returns as its first result a webforum page from Cyber-Robotics.com
entitled "Re: Problems with Link Farm".
http://www.cyber-robotics.com/support/messageboard/messages/4240.html

The link farm identified as the culprit here is www.linkstoyou.com ,
and the person posting this question to Zeus says that one of the
sites to which they have linked participates in a "link farm".

I encourage you to read this page fully, as it contains some
information that is helpful to your predicament. Peter from Zeus gives
the instructions to identify the site that is the link farm
participant and:
": : What you can do is this.
 : : Put Zeus in Pause mode. If you type in the word deleteurl into
the URL box and then press enter on your keyboard, a box will pop up
that will let you enter in a URL. This will delete all referance to it
in the database including any related links."

However, because your site is listed on all those "are9.php3" pages,
it doesn't look like your problem is the same as that described on
that forum posting; it looks to me as if you were somehow persuaded to
participate in LinksToYou.

You need to get the URL link to your site removed from ALL of those
pages. Hopefully, you can do this by following the instructions in
LinksToYou's "Cancel Your Membership" section:
http://www.linkstoyou.com/linksfaq.htm#membership

I don't know how long it will take to get LinksToYou to remove your
site links. It may take only a couple of weeks, or it may take months.
If they are not gone within a month, you will need to contact
LinksToYou again and pester them to remove you.

Once this is done, you will need to submit your site again to Google
at:
://www.google.com/addurl.html

In case your site has been added to a "blacklist" database, you should
also e-mail Google at help@google.com, explain the situation to them,
and tell them that you have removed all connections from your site to
the link farm, and ask to be reinstated. See this FAQs page:
://www.google.com/contact/search.html


Before Rating my Answer, if you have any questions about this
information, please post a Request for Clarification, and I will be
glad to see what I can do for you.

Best Wishes on getting your website back on track as quickly as
possible!

Regards,

aceresearcher

Request for Answer Clarification by angelik-ga on 12 Feb 2003 09:26 PST
I have no knowledge of some of the sites/and or linkfarms you suggest.
My question:if somebody links me up or submits my url to such a
blacklisted  site  without my knowledge, that apparently hurts my
site...? That means in fact, any one can use and submit urls of their
competitors and get their domains blacklisted by google? or create
"sinkhole domains" and link all the sites one wants to be penalized?
That seems terribly unfair, and a liability breach  in the system...is
Google aware of this and how can one remedy this situation.
thank you

Clarification of Answer by aceresearcher-ga on 12 Feb 2003 11:56 PST
angelik,

Can you give me the URL of your Zeus links directory?

Thanks,

aceresearcher

Request for Answer Clarification by angelik-ga on 12 Feb 2003 16:07 PST
the links directory page for Zeus:

http://www.star-seer.com/links/AstrologyIndex.html
thanks for tackling this!

Clarification of Answer by aceresearcher-ga on 12 Feb 2003 20:16 PST
Thanks for the additional information, angelik.

Please give me a couple of days. I'm going to try and track down the
source of all those pages linking to you.

Thanks,

aceresearcher

Request for Answer Clarification by angelik-ga on 19 Feb 2003 19:26 PST
Hello ace researcher,
have you found anything else that will help me explain why i might
have been banned and how to go about getting re- instated?

Clarification of Answer by aceresearcher-ga on 19 Feb 2003 23:59 PST
angelik,

Can you check your website directories for me? Do you have a folder named
http://www.star-seer.com/wpfolder?

Thanks,

aceresearcher

Request for Answer Clarification by angelik-ga on 21 Feb 2003 08:56 PST
Yes i have such a folder but it is empty. A webmarketing firm created
this to promote my site, but i cancelled the contract several months
ago.

Clarification of Answer by aceresearcher-ga on 23 Feb 2003 22:01 PST
angelik,

This "web marketing firm" is a link farm. They may be less malignant
than most, since they apparently concentrate on the real estate
industry, and Google should not have problems with links that are on
related themes. Unfortunately, as yours is not a real estate site, all
their links did not do you any good, and possibly did you harm.

You need to contact them and explain that your website address is
showing up on Google on links pages created by them. Give them this
link:
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22%2Bwww.star-seer.%2Bcom%22&filter=0
and tell them that you want your address removed from these pages
immediately.

Regards,

aceresearcher
angelik-ga rated this answer:4 out of 5 stars
Very helpful. Thank you.

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