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Businesses Scramble To Stay Out of Google Hell

Posted by Zonk on Tue May 01, 2007 08:19 AM
from the argh-my-pancreas-the-demons-poke-it-so dept.
Google Businesses The Internet
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.'"
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  • My tips on Google penalties (Score:5, Informative)

    by DeadSea (69598) * on Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:22AM (#18939585)
    (http://ostermiller.org/ | Last Journal: Friday February 17 2006, @11:59AM)
    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.

  • Sounds like the system works just fine to me (Score:5, Insightful)

    by elrous0 (869638) * on Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:23AM (#18939605)
    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!

  • That's 35 grand poorly spent (Score:5, Informative)

    by Vengeance (46019) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:23AM (#18939611)
    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 (Score:5, Informative)

    by CmdrGravy (645153) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:24AM (#18939623)
    (http://www.joe-bunting.com/club)

    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* (Score:5, Funny)

    by UbuntuDupe (970646) * on Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:25AM (#18939629)
    (Last Journal: Sunday October 22 2006, @10:27PM)
    "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 (Score:3, Funny)

    by inkedgeek (1067346) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:25AM (#18939639)
    I suppose this is Dante's 9th ring.
    • Re:Dante by aproposofwhat (Score:1) Tuesday May 01 2007, @11:13AM
    • Re:Dante by Dorceon (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @12:28PM
    • Re:Dante by jonadab (Score:1) Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:43PM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • 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.
  • Ooops I didn't know is no defense by cyberianpan (Score:1) Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:26AM
  • Shady SEO? by Yoozer (Score:1) Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:26AM

  • So.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Turn-X Alphonse (789240) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:26AM (#18939651)
    (Last Journal: Sunday September 19 2004, @10:03PM)
    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?
    • Re:So.. by zxsqkty (Score:1) Tuesday May 01 2007, @10:47PM
  • The Punchline by theRhinoceros (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:27AM

  • New Business Model (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MyLongNickName (822545) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:28AM (#18939661)
    (Last Journal: Saturday October 14 2006, @08:12AM)
    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 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by coolmoose25 (1057210) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:29AM (#18939681)

    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 (Score:5, Informative)

      by Ajehals (947354) <andyhalsall.ictsc@com> on Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:58AM (#18940033)
      (http://www.ictsc.com/ | Last Journal: Saturday December 09 2006, @10:15PM)
      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.

      [ Parent ]
    • Re:Play By The Rules by onepoint (Score:1) Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:58AM
    • Re:Play By The Rules by pvera (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @09:20AM
    • What about those not trying to game anything? by SuperBanana (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @09:41AM
    • Re:Play By The Rules by Xibby (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @11:42AM
    • Re:Play By The Rules by Kuvter (Score:1) Tuesday May 01 2007, @11:18PM

  • Push vs Pull and Demand Density (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ThosLives (686517) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:30AM (#18939695)
    (Last Journal: Friday September 21, @07:18AM)

    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.

    • 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.
      [ Parent ]
    • Re:Push vs Pull and Demand Density by Detritus (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @11:07AM
    • Re:Push vs Pull and Demand Density by khallow (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @11:39AM

  • Insequitir (Score:5, Insightful)

    by suv4x4 (956391) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:31AM (#18939705)
    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?! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ack154 (591432) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:34AM (#18939759)
    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 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Billosaur (927319) * <wgrother&optonline,net> on Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:36AM (#18939791)
    (Last Journal: Wednesday November 07, @10:09AM)

    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.

  • The time is ripe by geekoid (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:38AM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • So don't game the system by Sir Holo (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:39AM

  • From Google's Webmaster Help Section (Score:3, Informative)

    by coolmoose25 (1057210) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:39AM (#18939827)
    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 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by timholman (71886) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:40AM (#18939845)
    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.
  • Social Networking by jaavaaguru (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:45AM

  • As a Webmaster (Score:5, Interesting)

    by garett_spencley (193892) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:46AM (#18939909)
    (http://www.spencley.com/)
    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.
  • A 21 year old ... by ThirdPrize (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:47AM
  • Economic nonsense by tgv (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:51AM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.

  • Terrible business model (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Jimmy King (828214) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:59AM (#18940053)
    (http://www.bash-shell.net/)
    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.
  • reap what ya sow... by dbmasters (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @09:05AM