Have your sites ever been penalized by Google?

[MichaelCorfman]

Recently Google made a decision to penalize the Google Chrome home page for 60 days after reports that a marketing company working for Google encouraged bloggers to write about Google Chrome for compensation.

The following two stories report on the Chrome pagerank controversy:

PC World: Google Disciplines Itself in Chrome Browser PageRank Controversy
Search Engine Land: Google: Yes, Sponsored Post Campaign Was Ours But Not What We Signed-Up For

So, for this week's question I thought it would be interesting to ask about the extent to which webmaster's here have even fallen afoul of Google's various "rules" and had their sites penalized. Not that this is an exact science - it is not always easy to know whether there is a penalty involved or whether Google just views your content as not being the best for entirely different reasons.

And if you do view that you've been penalized at one time or another, share with us what happened to the best of your knowledge, and what was involved in recovering from the situation (assuming you were able to recover).

Michael

[F-L-C]

I voted no, I try and keep myself informed of all their latest 'rules' and stick to them!

[grem]

Google only penalized themselves so they could avoid the backlash from the seo communities and giving themselves only 60 days is nothing when they give other sites 1 year.

It is a good poll but I don't think the webmasters that are here that have penalties in the past want to admit they had problems.

[universal4]

I did not read all the responses, but this one seemed appropriate to quote.

So if I understand this correctly, it was only 1 sponsored post (out of 400) that was passing pagerank that was against the guidelines? Since the writer was being paid to write an article about Google Chrome they decided to insert the link editorially and that's what has generated this penalty? Would there have been a penalty applied if that 1 post had not linked to Chrome and it was just 400 paid spammy posts? The whole thing seems strange. Polluting the internet with poor content and spamming the video is ok but one link (which the author deemed relevant in this case) is not? I don't get it someone please clarify.

Inmyopinion, the only reason google gave themselves a manual penalty is because if they didn't do something it would have been exposed that the criteria they use for penalties is not without flaws....and even with the penalty the flaws have been exposed so they probably feel this is the lessor of the two.

So, your allowed to buy ads as long as you don't get a link....unless the ad is on Googles network.....

Rick
Universal4

[thebookiesoffers]

google have done this as a big publicity stunt

as to the original post. I think at one point I did get a penalty but couldn't be sure. It was when I first started out with an old domain and I was shafted by a dodgy SEO firm. In the end I scrapped the domain and started again, which was the best move I ever made

[lots0]

lol... funny you should ask Michael.

I was just talking to someone about when my site was penalized way back in 2001 by Google as part of Google's crushing of Searchking.

My site lots0cash.com was hosted by Searchking back then and my site was included in the collateral damage that google caused when it went after Bob Massa and Searchking.

Google dropped Searchking's PageRank from a PR8 to a PR0 for using a NEW technology(new in 2000) That Bob Massa(owner of SK) paid to develop, he called it "Keyword Delivery"... Keyword Delivery was the precursor to and idea that became adwords.

Google penalized Searchking and every site hosted by SearchKing, no matter if it was involved in Searchking's Keyword Delivery or not. I was involved with marketing Keyword Delivery...lol

Bob then tried to sue Google for Google dropping his PageRank (remember this was 2000/2002, a lot has changed since that time)...

I actually submitted testimony and a statement to the Federal Court in defense/support of SearchKing. I should note that Google kicked the crap out of SK in court, it wasn't even close.

Google finally relented after about six months and removed the penalty from most all of the sites that were hosted by Searchking, including mine.

However, google holds a grudge for a long long time... It has only been in the last year or so that google has allowed Searchking back into their SERP at all, and they still appear to be under a hand penalization for a lot of keywords.

http://searchenginewatch.com/article...eRank-Decrease

[FictionNet]

It is a good poll but I don't think the webmasters that are here that have penalties in the past want to admit they had problems.

I'm up for it. I got hit with a penalty for cross-linking between sites on the same host. This was back in 2003, I think. I had something like ten sites, I think, and I was learning about the value of reciprocal links. So I linked between my sites, as a footer, on every page of every site - linking to the index page of the other sites in the 'network'. All sites were hosted at the same place but whilst I knew I was 'gaming' the system by cross linking, I honestly had no idea that Google would hit me with a penalty for it. My sites literally disappeared from Google, unless you were searching for the site by exact domain. Almost instantly, traffic and new player revenue dropped by more than 90%. Webmasters I was exchanging links with were contacting me, having seen what had happened, asking me to remove links to their site. It was bad times.

This was back when Google would 'dance' once a month. I'd be checking every month, watching the data servers flick around, waiting for it to land on the real results. Crapping my pants because I'd gone from earning great money to worrying about the rent. All because of a stupid mistake that I made because I hadn't done my research. And no amount of e-mailing Google to plead my ignorance and apologising would do anything, or get a reply.

I don't know if Google listened or had set a specific time period to the penalty but after 12 months, all the sites came back. I can tell you that I got very drunk that day. I was so relieved. I'd spent the year building things up but I was far from back to normal.

I learned alot. I still send links from some of my sites to others I operate, but I'm alot more sensible with it, hosting all over the world links go in the right direction. I might still bend the rules a bit now and again but I won't blatantly take the piss again.

[mattsgame]

I voted yes.

When I first started this affiliate game I made the horrible mistake of using SEO companies that were cheap and would put links anywhere, and I would also try link to any site I could Myself.

This hurt bad and for 8 months or more I was hardly getting any traffic regardless of content and the extra work I put in. This almost made me want to give up the game, but after some research and a lot of reading I dumped that site and started all over again and glad I gave it another shot, this time I am doing everything myself and doing it a lot slower but I am already seeing better results than my first site.

[lots0]

I should also add that I, like a lot of webmasters I know, have had a good ranking page drop completely out of the SERP for a good keyword, after 'over-optimizing' it...
Only to watch the page jump back up to #1 after going back and 'de-optimizing' the page...

[usaonlinecasino]

A Giant can do everything easily as they want. It is always dangerous (may harmful to many) if the world was controlled by one big guy.

Google may penalty one site simply by taking away the links to that site. The numbers of links before and after the penalty may be more than 95% of difference. They may drop off your indexed pages as well if needed.

[Madabout Media]

I honestly think it is a publicity stunt by google to make it look like they arent above the law when in fact they are and as grem points out 60day penalty is nothing.

I have had penalties before to some of our inner pages for progressive link building etc, but like alot of other on here i think its trail and error and we all learn pretty quickly not to do it again etc when its our livelyhood that The Google gods are playing with.

[ocreditor]

The problem is mainly with YouTube, where a warning can be issued, and a ban incurred even, with no apparent reason and no proper way to appeal. Could be discouraging, but keeps us all on our toes to follow the rules!