Businesses Scramble To Stay Out of Google Hell

whoever57 writes "Forbes has up an article on the consequences of being dumped into a claimed 'supplemental index', also known as 'Google Hell'. It uses the example of Skyfacet, a site selling diamonds rings and other jewelery, which has dropped in Google's rankings and saw a $500,000 drop in revenue in only three months after the site owner paid a marketing consultant to improve the sites. The article claims that sites in the supposed 'supplemental index' may be visited by Google's spiders as infrequently as once per year. The problem? Google's cache shows that Google's spiders visited the site ss recently as late April. 'Google Hell is the worst fear of the untold numbers of companies that depend on search results to keep their business visible online. Getting stuck there means most users will never see the site, or at least many of the site's pages, when they enter certain keywords. And getting out can be next to impossible--because site operators often don't know what they did to get placed there.'"

My tips on Google penalties

My tips for staying out of Google Hell.

• Keep using the same domain name. Right now changing your domain name incurs a huge penalty from Google. You will lose 90% of your traffic for 8 months.
• Use unique titles and meta descriptions for each of your pages. If the titles and meta descriptions on two of your pages are the same, one or both of the pages will likely go into Google Hell
• Don't buy links to your site to boost your pagerank from unrelated sites. If Google sees links to your site on the same page as links to Viagra sites, you will likely get a spam penalty.
• Ensure that your content is original and unique. If you use syndicated content, or syndicate your content to other sites, Google will realize that the content exists in two places and put one of them into Google hell.

If you do get into Google hell:

• There is nobody at Google you can talk to.
• Fix any issues that you can find.
• Contemplate. Google hell is designed as a penalty box. However it can whack the white hat folks just the same. You may be in it because you did something wrong, you may just have gotten hit by friendly fire. It happens from time to time to most large sites that depend on Google for traffic.
• Wait. You will generally get out of Google hell. In my experience it can be as little as one to two months for most things, but up to a year for domain name changes
• Get the PR machine going. Google doesn't want a bad image. If you get artitles like this one in places that Google engineers are likely to see them, the problems may get fixed for you faster. Google will still never admit that there ever was a problem though.

Re:My tips on Google penalties

Add to this:
do not hire idiot consultants to raise your pagerank.

  Which is not technical advice but should cover whatever fool stuff someone might try.

  I have to say, I don't have a lot of sympathy for the guy. He tried to cheat, and when it backfired, he goes crying because he can't get un-blacklisted. Well, sucks to be him, but it certainly serves google's purposes (and the health of the internet as a whole) well.

  Pre-emptive strike: I believe, in principle, on strong public oversight of corporate decision-making.

  The *exception* is anything that might be considered an editorial decision, the dispensation of advice, etc. If it's not a tortious lie, they have a right to say (to recommend, to blacklist) whatever/whomever they want, because I have a right to choose to whom I will listen.

  If you don't like what google does, you don't have to use it - but you can't force them to change what-they-say because you don't like it that other people listen to them.

Re:My tips on Google penalties

Actually there is one comment above that I have to disagree with. If you don't like what Google does, you may not want to do business with them, but you don't really have a choice--if you are depending on your site for revenue, then you absolutely MUST be concerned with Google, even if you never purchase advertising from them. In other words, you can't ignore Google, even if you absolutely despise them.

If someone comes up with a better search engine that also gains equal or near-equal footing with Google, then you can worry less about them, but I think it will be a VERY long time before anyone doing business on the internet can afford to ignore Google.

So while a business as a whole might decide not to purchase advertising via Google, and may not use Adsense, very few businesses can afford to ignore the monster that is Google.

Re:My tips on Google penalties

I never said that businesses could afford to ignore Google. Restaurants here in NYC can't afford to ignore what the Zagat says about them.

  What I'm saying is that this should not open Google (or Zagat) to any requirement for editorial transparency. If people trust information source A, and information source A doesn't recommend you, well, that may suck, but you should not have any recourse to demand an explanation - because your *potential customers* have the right to go to any source of information they want for advice, and your *potential customers* are not forced to use google.

  This may in turn force businesses to do all sorts of things, but that's capitalism for you - your business does not have a right to succeed.

Re:My tips on Google penalties

I never said that businesses could afford to ignore Google. Restaurants here in NYC can't afford to ignore what the Zagat says about them.

    What I'm saying is that this should not open Google (or Zagat) to any requirement for editorial transparency. If people trust information source A, and information source A doesn't recommend you, well, that may suck, but you should not have any recourse to demand an explanation - because your *potential customers* have the right to go to any source of information they want for advice, and your *potential customers* are not forced to use google.

    This may in turn force businesses to do all sorts of things, but that's capitalism for you - your business does not have a right to succeed.

Outstandingly well put. It's a shame that more people seem to fail to grasp this, particularly the last point -- that freedom to succeed also implies freedom to fail; and that nobody has a right to any measure of success, only the attempt at it.

When businesses whine about Google, who they're really whining about is their customers, because their customers are the ones deciding to go to Google (or Zagat, or the New York Times theater reviews, or whatever) and use that as part of their decision-making.

Re:That's not what google is for

I didn't see a smiley, so I'll assume you're not being sarcastic.

Google search is a tool for selling ads. That's it. It has everything to do with Google getting paid by businesses in return for consideration.

Google AdWords is a tool for extorting money from businesses who are trapped into only having one kind of promotion available. If you don't pony up some cash, you're invisible.

And then it's just a race to see who can pony up the most cash. It'll certainly made Google's job easier when they're just a portal for WalMart.

Re:My tips on Google penalties

Google reached their position through complete and utter competence. They didn't advertise their site. "Google" as a verb spread through word of mouth alone. If pagerank is really being that unfair to a lot of legit sites, the same market forces that created the Google behemoth will bring it down. If somebody can show that Google's algorithms are really being unfair to Google's customers, Google will be compelled to change those algorithms or lose market share.

Re:My tips on Google penalties

"everyone on the first page of every google search you do that could possibly lead to a sale of any kind has paid a consultant to be there"

I haven't. Nor has Rene who does the other big farmers gripe site.
In my case I had a malformed robots.txt file that excluded google for nearly the entire site (oops). Fixed that and front page here I come.

To be fair, there is not a lot of competition for the sucks sites, and none of us will pay for SEO, thus the field is level.
-nB

Re:My tips on Google penalties

Does this also mean that you can "game" the sites of your competitors to get them into Google hell?

<Mr. Burns voice> Excelent. </Mr. Burns voice>

Must have happened already, right?

Does this also mean that you can "game" the sites of your competitors to get them into Google hell?

Exactly -- I'm surprised this hasn't come up more.

It seems that if I want to deep-six your site, which might mean your entire business and/or livelihood, all I need to do is find the most inept link spammer I can, and pay him a pittance to whore your site's URL all over the place, on tons of spamblogs and Viagra pages. All of a sudden, Google will notice, can your page off of the search results, and you're hosed.

I've got to imagine that this has already happened; heck it seems like a fairly good extortion scheme: pay us or we'll linkfarm you until Google notices and your competition slaughters you. It's like SEO, only in reverse.

Re:Must have happened already, right?

It would be getting Joegled.

I doubt it

If you have a lot of high quality backlinks then I think Google would be smart enough to ignore the low quality backlinks that don't affect your score much. They don't have to punish you for links. They can ignore them. If you have few to no quality backlinks then a bunch of spam sites linking to you would maybe have more of an affect. Google would assume then that your site sucks and you're trying to game the system.

I was highly backlinked by spam sites after a bunch of bots ran through the fields of my DMOZ mirror. My rank in Google went way up.

I got into Google Hell for not doing a proper redirect from an old domain. I basically flooded the new domain with traffic from old unrelated sites that had gone under from a server crash. About 6 months later I was back out. I don't have nearly the traffic but I still rank decently.

Google is not stupid. They're going to take a lot of factors in before punishing you. I imagine this clown did a cocktail of stupid things and rightfully ended up hosed.

Google Official Response

The chief anti spam engineer of Google is Matt Cutts [mattcutts.com] he says:

As a reminder, supplemental results aren't something to be afraid of; I've got pages from my site in the supplemental results, for example ... That statement still holds. It's perfectly normal for a website to have pages in our main web index and our supplemental index

MySolitaire.com, another online diamond business, spent January to June of 2006 in the supplemental index. Amit Jhalani, the site's vice president of search marketing, says he figures that cost his business $250,000 ... Okay, so the VP of SEM for this site mentions that they tried buying links; maybe those links started to count for less. I decided to check into mysolitaire.com and see if I could find any other links that might have started counting for less. I did find a spam report where someone forwarded an email that appeared to be from mysolitaire.com ... I checked out http://www.mysolitaire.com/resources/ [mysolitaire.com] and by my count saw 329 different categories offered for link exchanging:

And the fix:

The approach I'd recommend in that case is to use solid white-hat SEO to get high-quality links (e.g. editorially given by other sites on the basis of merit).

Re:Google Official Response

So basically, be good and don't try to mess up our search engine and we'll keep giving you free advertising.

Re:Google Official Response

Spam or spamming the search engine.

I read all these articles about companies who think it's their right to have a high ranking in Google's search. Google is supposed to be helping ME find things I'm looking for. Kudos to them for tossing "search engine optimized" sites into hell. If they don't like it, they can go pay for legitimate ads somewhere.

Hey Google, we really need a button to exclude all sites selling stuff from searches. I hate having to wade through a pile of e-commerce sites when I'm looking for INFORMATION.

Re:Google Official Response

Matt Cutts maintains a blog where he responds.
Here is the link to this particular response:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/google-hell/ [mattcutts.com]

Re:My tips on Google penalties

If you do get into Google hell:

A player gets out of Google Hell by...

(1) Throwing doubles on any of your next three turns. If you succeed in doing this you immediately move forward the number of PageRank ratings shown by your doubles throw.

(2) Using the "Get Out of Google Hell Free Card"

(3) Purchasing the "Get Out of Google Hell Free Card" from another e-business and playing it.

(4) Paying a fine of $50 before you roll the dice on either of your next two turns. If you do not throw doubles by your third turn, you must pay the $50 fine. You then get out of Google Hell and immediately move forward the number of PageRank rankings shown by your throw.

Even though you are in Google Hell, you may buy and sell on e-Bay, buy and sell houses and hotels (in Second Life) and collect revenues.

Re:My tips on Google penalties

We usually play that the $50 goes under the Free Domain Parking space, and you get all that money if you land there (but you also have to punch the monkey first).

Re:My tips on Google penalties

If your site isn't coming up in google the keywords you want and it's losing you $500,000 then you should probably buy some ads from google to get yourself back in there.
It's sort of an obvious solution.

Re:My tips on Google penalties

If your site isn't coming up in google the keywords you want and it's losing you $500,000 then you should probably buy some ads from google to get yourself back in there.
It's sort of an obvious solution.

Agreed. Perhaps more to the point, maybe they shouldn't have been depending on the free advertising provided by Google in the search results as their primary source of customers.

Seems that the real lesson here is that you shouldn't build a business on shaky marketing, and search results -- which are basically the internet equivalent of word-of-mouth advertising -- are pretty shaky. It might get you started and off the ground, but you shoudn't depend on them always being there, and you need to have a plan for staying in business if they suddenly go away. Otherwise, you probably don't deserve to be in business, and they'll be plenty of other sites to take up the customer eyeballs.

Sounds like the system works just fine to me

So these guys tried to game the system with high-priced "search consultants" and now they're whining that Google caught them?!?!? Even more embarrassing is Forbes giving a voice to these lowlifes as if they're the victims.

Google's obligation is to serve the consumer doing the search with the most accurate and fair results possible, not to ensure that sleezy companies paying big $ to "consultants" who game the system maintain their sales.

For shame, Forbes!

Re:Sounds like the system works just fine to me

Actually, I suspect that these guys knew EXACTLY what they were doing. You don't pay a guy $35,000 to tell you "I can't game the system, or make any promises. I can only give you some advice that you can find for free on Google's own site." I suspect this "consultant" went to them with promises of insider information on how to game Google to get them a higher page ranking than they deserved.

Re:Sounds like the system works just fine to me

Harsh? No. If you're going to game the system, you might get burnt. Boo hoo.

Let's not get started on relying on a third party (Google) whom you have no contract with for a large percentage of your business. That's got to rank up there with Stupid Business Models 101 in my view.

That's 35 grand poorly spent

When you hire a consultant specifically to improve your Google page rank, I guess you are opening yourself up to stuff like this. It sounds to me like this guy hired someone who thought they knew how to game the system, and the system gamed him back.

Marketing Consultant

after the site owner paid a marketing consultant to improve the sites

Sounds to me like they should have hired a more professional consultant, it seems to me thats who the company should immediately be blaming rather than Google.

*Caring*

"Forbes has up an article on the consequences of being dumped into a claimed 'spam index', also known as 'Mail Hell'. It uses the example of e360, a site selling mortgage refis and anatomical enlargement, which has dropped in graylist rankings and saw a $500,000 drop in revenue in only three months after the company paid a marketing consultant to improve the emails. The article claims that sites in the supposed 'spam index' may be re-evaluated as infrequently as once per year. The problem? The site was reevaluated as recently as late April. 'Mail Hell is the worst fear of the untold numbers of spammers that depend on breaking spam filters to keep their business visible online. Getting stuck there means most users will never see their emails. And getting out can be next to impossible--because spammers often don't know what they did to get placed there.'"

Dante

I suppose this is Dante's 9th ring.

Business model relying on free service?

Unfortunately that is the price you pay for basing your business on the assumption that a FREE SERVICE (namely Google's ranking system) will continue to work in your favor. Many businesses are getting their "advertising" for free by being ranked highly by Google, and prominently displayed in search results. Maybe they should consider paying for strategically placed ads like everybody else.

So..

So basicly a guy paid a "consultant" to abuse how Google works and then when Google changed the system to stop this happening he complains that he got punished for it?

At what point is this guy any sort of victim when he knowingly exploited the system for his own gain and got caught with his hand in the cookie jar?

New Business Model

1) Go into business
2) Gather home pages of major competitors
3) Add links to these home pages on disreputable web sites
4) Watch their traffic go down.
5) Watch your traffic go up.
6) Profit

Just cant figure out where the "..." fits into this one.

Play By The Rules

I am by no means an SEO expert... but I've had VERY good luck with google indexes for the small sites I build for people. I've even gotten some business from it, because people some how think I'm some sort of genius. So what's my secret?

I READ THE INSTRUCTIONS AT GOOGLE FOR WHAT TO DO AND WHAT NOT TO DO AND I FOLLOWED THE RULES

If you simply follow the rules that google lays out, you won't get sucked into google hell. If you try and game the system by paying for consultants to "juice" your site, you gambled and lost. Bottom line: Don't be evil, and google will not punish you

Re:Play By The Rules

Yup - Agree 100%.

My personal check-list for this kind of thing is..

1) Make sure that the site design is sensible and contains valid html + valid css. (if used)
2) Make sure that all the text is relevant and not overly complex for the sake of it. (nice clear simple language..)
3) Have a site map. (A normal one - I don't know if google sitemaps, i.e. the xml stuff you can add to your site are useful)
4) Use all the useful meta information, (description, abstract etc..) ...But don't duplicate content or meta information for no reason (500 random key words really wont help you)
5) Make sure that the links on site (internal and external) are valid and go where you think they should ...But don't have link page upon link page to random sites
6) If you use a CMS or any content generation (i.e. data driven sites) make sure that the generated page addresses are neat, rewrite them if neccessary (possible). www.whatever.com/about.html is better than www.whatever.com/generated/pages/index.php?page=ab out&theme=pretty&data=-1&uid=14568681.
7) Update the content on your site on a regular(ish) basis.

8) Never ever let an SEO company that claims it an get you X hits per day/month anywhere near it, most SEO techniques involve gaming search engines in one way or another, whether through comment spam, blog spam, dodgy link farms or other nefarious methods. If an SEO company comes to you and says it will look at the layout/content of your site to optimise it to your sites demographic (by cleaning up the language or the code) you should be golden, anything else is a disaster waiting to happen. You should launch your site expect a few visitors and if it is a useful and usable site, then your user base will find it, as they find it, the links and traffic will come naturally.

One quirk that I noticed a while back whilst writing a company site that listed news headlines from a couple of news agencies, was that the site was appearing in conjunction with some weird search terms, like "$companyname terrorists" and "$companyname organised crime". Its not just the search terms you want to be associated with that will work - but anything that is available on your site, dynamic content and all.

Push vs Pull and Demand Density

I think this is evidence of a couple phenomena in modern business:

The first is what I guess I'll call push vs pull, and that's the difference between business that cater to people who have a specific need "Hey, I need food, so I'm going to look for a place where I can get it" and businesses that create things they try to sell that people don't necessarily need but will buy on impulse - for instance, those businesses that are always sending fliers in the mail to get you to buy things you might not otherwise need.

The other issue here is what I would call demand density - if a business has to be online to reach people across the globe, that means that demand density is very low. However, a grocery store has very high demand density - advertising is only necessary (if at all) over a very small geographic location because the market is local.

Now, I'm not sure if I fully understand all the pros and cons of trying to support businesses with very low demand density - is society as a whole better off with the mechanism to provide goods and service to very disperse locations, or is the effort required to distribute the goods / services over such a large location really worse than not supplying that demand and eliminating the transportation / communications infrastructure overhead?

More to the article's point, though, if I had to depend on a search service to get my business revenue, I would rethink my business plan. While I understand the ideas behind 'global economy' I am still a bit conservative in my belief in the merits of self-sufficiency; relying on a search service means that my business would be at the mercy of that service which I may not be able to control. Control is fairly important in businesses, I would think.

Re:Push vs Pull and Demand Density

There is another aspect to your evaluation here to consider:

The "low demand density" type of businesses may be hyper-specialists: They produce something that is so unique that while few people will buy it, those that do need it are willing to pay very good prices for that sort of product.

Armoured cars are an example of a product like this. An average person is not going to buy one of these products, and it is likely that you will only find a very small number of businesses who even sell these kind of vehicles, which are all custom manufactured as well.

Or to be highly specalized, a manufacturer of aviation-grade O-rings. If you have developed a process that improves the operating environment that these products can work in, you have something that is indeed very valuable.

The problem as illustrated in this article is that the businessman who is the focus of the article does not sell a product which is on the leading edge of technology, nor is it unique from the thousands of jewelry stores that you can find in small towns. While gemstones and jewelry have enough value that shipping these items anywhere in the world is trivial compared to the cost, the competition for such a product is so large that there really isn't any substantial value gained by going with any particular jeweler, especially for an on-line purchase.

This is exactly why he ended up in Google's "link hell". There is nothing that he is doing which is unique.

If this jewelry business specalized in something which is of a regional flavor, such as south-western USA jewelry (heavy in silver and turquoise) or set up some legitimate information pages that would add value for somebody coming to visit his website, such as original content describing the process of making jewelry and obtaining the gemstones, there may be some reason to have people link to this website. And push up the rankings in a legitimate fashion. But as just another place to buy gemstones and jewelry, there is nothing remarkable that can't be done directly by DeBeers or genuine gemstone wholesalers.

This businessman was also ripped off by this so-called internet consultant who tried to game the system without doing any real good to the content of the website. The $35,000 that was spent on the consultant could have been better spent in so many ways that it boggles the mind. Hiring a recent college graduate with an English degree (aka somebody who supposedly can actually write reasonable prose, and not some geek who can't use grammar worth a damn) to do some genuine scholarly research and fill up a website full of content about the jewelry industry would have been something very worth while. There are so many things that can be done to enhance a website to legitimately improve page rankings and make you stand out that you have to wonder why people engage in spamlinking at all.

Insequitir

Here's a summary of the article (which I incidentally read yesterday):

Why sites go in Google hell is a total mystery.

Story 1: A guy sold diamonds on his site. One day he went to Google hell, but he had no idea why. Why is Google not telling him? He had no idea why this happened... ok... ok... so he paid 35 grand to a SEO "expert" who filled his pages with trash. He removed the trash and few months later he went out of Google hell. To this day he doesn't know how he went out of Google hell.

Story 2: A guy had a site with lots of visits from Google. One day, he went to Google hell, but he had no idea why. Why is Google not telling? Ok... ok... so he had paid for a ton of links from spam sites, and he had to email each of the sites to get the links removed. Few months later he went out of Google hell, and this guy also has no clue what helped him.

Summary: It's a total mystery, that Google hell, I tell you.

Uh Duh?!

So they list two cases of people whining that they paid "consultants" to optimize their sites but got caught. And then make Google out to be the bad guy?

Both of the "businesses" seem shady to me anyways, and their practices on optimization only appear to confirm that. They got caught, Google did what it's supposed to do. Now they're being punished.

Sure, they may have reversed any of said optimization, but as the article even says, it can take 6 months to a year to be indexed again anyways. So take two of these and call us in a year...

Inverse

Skyfacet's consultant didn't improve their rankings at all, instead causing them to plummet. One wonders just how lucrative this sort of thing is? After all, if this consultant has done this for them, perchance he/she/they have done it to others? Perchance it would be a good idea to a) sue them, b) report them to BBB, and c) begin a this-google-consultant-sucks.com website.

From Google's Webmaster Help Section

For those that think perhaps that Google didn't warn people about disreputable SEO services...

Don't feel obligated to purchase a search engine optimization service. Some companies claim to "guarantee" high ranking for your site in Google's search results. While legitimate consulting firms can improve your site's flow and content, others employ deceptive tactics in an attempt to fool search engines. Be careful; if your domain is affiliated with one of these deceptive services, it could be banned from our index.

Spending money the wrong way

After reading the article, I typed "diamonds" and "engagement ring" into Google, then looked at the sponsored links. No sign of skyfacet.com, Mr. Sanar's company. I find it hilarious that Sanar would pay $35,000 to some slimball "consultant" to try to distort the Google search rankings, but not spend one penny on Google sponsored links, which would put him on the first page every time.

I have zero sympathy for unscrupulous businessmen who try to game the system, get caught, and then whine about it. Kudos to Google for playing hardball and fighting to keeping their search engine useful and relevant instead of letting the spammers ruin it.

As a Webmaster

This kind of thing has always baffled me. It is quite possible to conduct business online without relying solely on search engine traffic. While search engine traffic is valuable, if your business strategy is relying on that then you're placing your entire business in the hands of an independent party with it's own interests.

Google can do whatever the hell they want with their search index. Why on earth any company would place themselves entirely in someone else's hands, particularly someone else who doesn't have the slightest care in the world what happens to your business is really beyond me.

Any sane business person should enjoy search engine traffic when they have it, but place themselves primarily in the position where they don't need it. Relying entirely on an independent company with it's own interests for your business survival is beyond stupid.

Terrible business model

Why would you create a business around your rankings on search engines which everyone knows can change from day to day depending on other sites and ever changing ranking algorithms? Even when you're not paying some SEO guy ridiculous amounts of money to scam the system and get you stuck in Google Hell that's a rather obvious huge risk to be taking.

I understand that proper advertising is expensive, I've got a failed business of my own due to not being able to put the necessary money into it, but guess what? That's business. You pick the risks you're willing to take and deal with the results. Basing the majority of your business on search result ranking is low cost (unless you pay an SEO expert $35k which would have been better spent elsewhere, like real advertising, or a new car, or a 35,000 cheeseburgers from a fast food value menu) but high risk due to the constant changes.

Been in Google's shoes, threw in the towel.

I used to have a site reviewing free web page hosting, back in the '90s when that was a relatively new idea. I had a form where people could suggest sites, and every weekend or so I'd go check them out, try setting up a sample page, and add the results to the list.

All of a sudden, over a period of a couple of months or so, the "request" page started getting flooded with suggestions for "new" free web hosting sites that seemed awfully similar, and offers to exchange links, and what in retrospect were obviously the work of the kinds of parasites that Google's been fighting. Pretty soon maintaining the page wasn't fun any more, and I quit updating it and eventually took it down.

Given that Google has to automate this process, I think they're doing a pretty good job.

Mystery Solved

Your site is crap. Here are some names selected at random:

P'ianka P'ianoi P'khchin P'rfurii P'san P'struch P'yurecs P'zaz P-Bear P-Cat P-Chan P-dawg P-J P-Jay P-Kitty P-nar P-Nut P Pa'ahana Pa-ka Pa-Kay Pa-ku Pa-neru Pa-shingu Pa-Siamun Pa-ueru Pa Paadrig Paai Paakkiyam Paakzaad Paal Paalaniswamy Paale Paandu Paandurang Paania Paaninee Paanini Paankhenamun Paanu Paap Paapaka Paarai Paaray Paarbrahm Paaree Paaresh Paari Paarick Paarig Paarindra Paaritosha Paarsa Paarshada Paarth Paartha Paarthav Paarthiv Paarush Paarusjit Paashavimochaka

Do I really have to explain any further why your website doesn't show up?

Waaaaaa, he tried to game the system

Looks like google's search algorithms worked perfectly, he tried to game the search engine results and
got sent to the black hole.....

No sympathy here!

Google is becoming irrelevant

It's true. They are in a losing battle with the web spammers who are developing an artificial intelligence based system that will make it so Googlebot won't be able to tell the good stuff from the bad, and if that weren't enough they ignore spam reports, and bury the reporting mechanism so deep that nobody wants to be bothered to report it anyway.

What this will mean is that we'll be on a user-ranking system like Digg or the like since the users can vote a topic down if it's spam and it gets buried almost immediately(well within a couple hours as compared to days/months/years) but since Google isn't prepared for that type of system, they will soon find themselves overwhelmed with spam.

I have at least one site that was permanently delisted by Google for some unknown violation and yet I get just as much traffic without them as I did with them. I don't think they're evil nor am I against them but if they don't wake up soon they're going to lose this game, not to Yahoo or other search engines, but to the spammers themselves.

profit?

1) Create automated system which 'accidentally' blacklists honest sites obstensibly to relieve load on Google spider 2) ??? 3) 'Google Professional Services' analyzes 'honest' site for problem areas, provides personalized recommendations to 'honest' site's webmaster about what changes are necessary to stay out of blacklist. 'GPS' marks 'honest' site for immediate 'reindexing.' Assuming GPS recommendations were followed, site moves out of blacklist quickly. 4) Profit!

Forbes is the real story

Forbes, being one of the 'premier' business 'rags, the real story isn't what Google's actions. It's the spin that Forbes is trying to create. The real thing to learn from this is that Google is still unpopular in the Forbes reading circle.
Forbes is just trying to put some negative publicity onto Google any way they can. As many have already pointed out, no sane business model relies entirely on the search results from another business that has no vested interest. Anybody working at Forbes knows as much, and yet we have an article talking about "Google's gulag".
The real information here is from in between the lines. A power struggle behind the scenes, currently Google is the target of some negative image campaigning. What I'm interested in is, where that pushing originates. Who 'owns' Forbes and is pushing for bad press for Google?

Re:Forbes is the real story

currently Google is the target of some negative image campaigning. What I'm interested in is, where that pushing originates.
The whole financial community hates Google.
The feeling started when Google snobed them for the IPO (they went with a public auction, preventing the financial institution to get their hands on the first dibs). Google even kicked them by selling shares with a voting power 10x less than the founder's shares.
It went worse when Google refused to post any indication of their growth or results past what the stock exchange require (no analyst hint, no prevision). And to compound all that, Google has exceeded the analyst expectations everytime, making them miss the best sale date.

Basically, Google has shown over the year it does not need the financial community as much as they need it and they still resent that.

Too bad--Search engines should be neutral

There's a lot more philosophy at stake here than people may realise. Ask yourself this: When you use a search engine, what results do you want to see? That is a complex question, partly because the answer changes from search to search.

If I want to buy some fly fishing gear, I might search for "fly fishing equipment." Pretty straightforward, but the search engine has to decide whether I want to learn about the equipment, read reviews of specific items, or find retailers to buy from. If I then search for "Berkley fly rods," the engine has to make the same decision, and also has to throw in the possibility of the manufacturer's website. The trick is that I'm more likely to be looking for retailers with the second search than the first, so they should be given more prominence in the results.

All well and good, but (a) trying to build this logic is tricky, and (b) companies benefit greatly by landing high on the list for any and every remotely relevant (and in some cases, even totally irrelevant) search. Therefore, companies try hard to get their name up on the list as often as possible, and google (and other search engines) try to present a useful set of results.

The question comes down to this: Who is the search engine company beholden to? They're making money by selling advertising to companies, so they don't want to deliberately censure them; however, advertising is only as effective as the number of potential customers, so they want to maximise exposure--by providing the best results to the customer. Ultimately, companies and consumers are at odds about what constitutes the "best" results, and google has to sit in the middle, acting as gatekeeper.

Having a neutral algorithm that tries to minimise companies' attempts at gaming the system is a good system. They can use it to back their 'useful results' ideal, and avoid having to beat down companies directly, risking revenue.

In short, this guy paid too much money to a scammer masquerading as a consultant, and is paying the penalty for it.

Re:Business meets technology

I don't think you understand what "free market" means. Google owns the index, Google decides how it works. The searcher is their customer, NOT the "small business owner".

If they please their customers with the best possible results they will make more money. If they allow themselves to be gamed, searchers will go elsewhere and Google will lose money.

If you don't like that, go start your own search engine.

BTW, they have been sued over this kind of thing and they have always won. The ranking is their opinion and they are entitled to it.

Re:Business meets technology

The searcher is their customer, NOT the "small business owner".

That's not even close to true. Your customers are, without fail, the people that pay you (or at least, the people you're trying to convince to pay you). Searchers are Google's product; advertisers are Google's customers.

This is no different (in this respect) than radio and ad-supported television: your listeners/viewers are the product you sell to your advertisers.

Don't ever think that Google wants to make you, the searcher, happy - they want to make their advertisers happy. If the best way to do that is by making you happy (and so far, it pretty much has been), then lucky for you. If it isn't, tough cookies: you're not the one keeping the cooling on.