My blog got penalized and banned by Google, Yahoo, Bing…! It happens to a lot of bloggers, you get penalized or banned by the search engines. You could get penalized or banned by the search engines for things like Cloaking, Doorway Pages, Invisible Text, Keyword Stuffing, Tiny Text and many more. Of course, no matter what the reason is, nobody likes to be penalized. One of the best ways to drive traffic to your site is through search engines, and if your traffic comes primarily from search engines, getting banned or penalized could be a devastating below to all of your hard work. Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to lift the penalties and get your blog back in the search engine results.
Register with search engine’s Webmaster Tools service
Register your blog with webmaster tools services offered by the search engines themselves like Google, Yahoo! and Bing’s webmaster tools. It gives you a second chance while helping you build a little more trust between your blog and the webmaster teams.
Review your data
After registering your blog with webmaster tools, take a hard look at your data. Look for any broken pages, server errors, crawl errors, any warnings or spam alert messages. Many times, mistakes happen! A blog gets penalized for spamming, but it could simply be a matter of accessibility issues and not really spamming.
Fix the problem
Start fixing the problems. If you have done things like keyword stuffing, Doorway Pages, cloaking or any other things that might of gotten you ban or penalize, get them fixed. If you are linking to bad pages, find them on your blog and remove them. Be your own search engine spam detective. Search your blog for these kinds of things and fix or remove the problems. Make sure you do this before processing to the next step.
Send a re-consideration request
All search engine’s webmaster tools services provide a way for site owners to contact them. Its best to use engine’s Webmaster Tools service to send a request for re-considering your blog, than going through public form or what not. Contacting them directly, gives you a much greater chance of being heard and getting a response.
Be honest
Be honest! If you really have been spamming, you might want to tell them the truth. Search engines such as Google, use this detailed information for their algorithms for the future. They might appreciate your honesty and all the details, thus giving you a chance to make things right.
Inclusion is a privilege, not a right!
When requesting a re-consideration or re-inclusion, be polite and reasonable. You might not know this, but search engines aren’t responsible or obligated to lift a penalty or even list your blog in the first place. Basically you are asking search engines for a favor. How do you talk to someone when you are trying to get them to do you a favor?…
Be patient
We all have heard of search engine’s slow response to re-consideration or re-inclusion requests, and unfortunately, its true! There are many many sites that are being banned and penalized every day. Dealing with that many sites, takes a lot of time and man power. So, be patient! It could take weeks and months to get a response. Just be patient and in the mean time, keep improving your blog.
Its always best to play by the rules and avoid getting de-indexed. However, if you do get banned, following these tips will help to revers the process by lifting the ban search engines placed on your blog.
Twitter: CAWebsiteIncome
says:
That’s a great article satrap,
I didn’t even know that there is such a thing as getting banned by a Search Engine, wow its kind of scary actually especially if you get banned by an engine such as Google.
And no one knows what other impacts that might cause because if Google Engine bans you, you might get automatically banned by other search engines too (other than yahoo and Bing),
so its definitely something to watch out for.
Thanks for the post.
sayed´s recent blog post ..Another Way Of Making Money Online! MyLikes
Thanks for the comment sayed. Yeah it is a scary feeling. Getting ban by search engines can cost you a lot. Although if you do play by the rules, you will be ok. Usually there are not much errors and mistakes on the part of Google and others when they ban a website or blog.
Twitter: barbaraling
says:
This is one reason why you should never rely on Google search engine rankings – they can be toastified at a moments’ notice. Getting links out there via social networking -that can last far longer.
Good article!
Barbara Ling, Virtual Coach´s recent blog post ..How Exploiting the Spamber Alert and Heartlessly Reveling In Unethical Marketing Will Unforgivingly Burn You In The Long Run
Barbara, I agree 100% that you should never put all of your eggs in one basket. However, Google is (can be) a big player when it comes to the success of your blog, and many people rely on big G for traffic, so its always good to know what to do in the vent that you do get banned. Thanks for your comment.
Twitter: tospider
says:
I think banning from search engines happens only in extreme cases
ankurbharali´s recent blog post ..Monitor Google PageRank from WordPress dashboard
You be surprised ho many blogs and websites get banned on the regular bases. Tough if you play by the rules, you should be ok. Thanks for commenting.
I’m facing this exact problem at the moment. I haven’t been able to get listed on Google ever since I launched my blog. It’s very frustrating.
I’ve carefully checked everything and can see no problems.
I asked for a reconsideration 2 weeks ago but nothing yet. I guess I have to be patient like you mentioned above
Twitter: commentluv
says:
great article Satrap! thanks for guest posting.
Thanks for the kind words Andy. I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to guest post here. I am loving it.
Nice. there are a couple of my blogs that have been banned. But lemme see if this works.
Cesar´s recent blog post ..Watch Haven Season 1 Episode 13 Spiral 1×13 Online Info
I am sorry to hear that Cesar. I hope you get them back. Please feel free to ask any question you might have, though I am not really an expert, I will do my best to help.
Twitter: samui_art
says:
Hi Satrap, thanks for useful info.
One of my website, didn’t get banned but after 1 month on first page of Google, after that it’s always up and down, up and down from fist page. It have given me lot of headache, took me nearly half month until I can figure out that was because of hacker. They put some kind of Google analytic script on my host via telnet, but Google webmaster tool didn’t show me “malware” notification or any unusual thing.
Not sure if the same case may cause any site to be banned. But there will be SpyBye tool which you can use to check malware on your website. (just google “spybye”).
Rose´s recent blog post ..What Oil Painting Material & Equipment Are Needed for Oil Painting
Sorry to hear about your site being hacked. I am glad you got it fixed. Although, what you described about the first few weeks of your site (moving up and down on Google) is very similar to whats called the “Google dance”. It usually happens to new sites. Since Google is still trying to find out how to place your site in the ranking position, and because the data it receives constantly changes, your site gets moved up and down frequently. But after a while it will stop. It is very common for new sites to get a high page rank, but then it will drop.
satrap´s recent blog post ..RSS Submission- More backlinks- Higher Rank and More Traffic
Twitter: samui_art
says:
Hi Satrap,
Thank you for clarification. But my other site is about 1 and half year and it’s rank 1st on Yahoo, 3rd on Bing for the same keywords. However, it’s now get back its position on Google.
Rose´s recent blog post ..What Oil Painting Material amp Equipment Are Needed for Oil Painting
Twitter: nandimaan
says:
Thanks Rose for your suggestion.I was searching for this.Ya malware attacks really making headache for me.
FreeMoneyMaker´s recent blog post ..Entrecard Top Dropper List
Sounds scary… how do we check whether a blog is being banned?
Gan´s recent blog post ..30 Great Online Photo Editing Websites
If your blog has been banned, you wont find it on Google or any other search engine that has placed a ban on it. Simply enter your blog url on search engines like Google and yahoo, if the results has your blog pages in it, you are good, if not, chance are its been penalized.
However, keep in mind that if your blog is new and didn’t get indexed yet, you wont see your blog in search engines either, so keep that in mind as well.
satrap´s recent blog post ..How To Remove Dates From a WordPress Blog
cool, i like this, very2 helpfull, thank’s
Twitter: addicted2scents
says:
I had to learn the hard way about being banned. I wasn’t sure what happened, but after a bit of research realized it was most likely for having hidden keywords. Learned the hardway this was a no no. I didn’t know how to lift the ban, but shortly after correcting this error, I’m happy to say I was rotating through the search engines again.
Scentsy, I am really glad you did get your site re-indexed. It really is kind of though to get re-indexed.
satrap´s recent blog post ..4 Ways to Make Money on the Internet Selling Your Own Stuff
Thanks for providing this information. I never really understood how all this works and always appreciate material such as this to educate our minds. Also wondering at this writing why the comluv feature doesn’t allow my last post to be reflected here. Did something change as it used to work for me before? or am I penalized?
Twitter: commentluv
says:
it is worth submitting a support ticket if you get any problems with comluv. See if there is an error when you try to comment by clicking the down arrow next to the ‘no last blogs posts to return’ message and send it along with the ticket
I had never considered checking the webmaster tools console to figure out why my blog was penalized with a PR0. I just checked after reading this, but unfortunately, there was no information there.
Chris´s recent blog post ..How to Win at Kickboxing The Wrong Way
Twitter: ProSpirity
says:
Hi Satrap
I am curious, did you find ŷouyr banned “justified in 20/20 indsight of course.?
Did you have to change a few things on your Blog?
ProSpirity´s recent blog post ..2 Easy Steps to a Print Friendly page
I am afraid I am not understanding what you are exactly asking! If you are asking about my blog being banned, I never had any blog ban by Google or any other search engines. Thats not the reason for this post, I wrote this post because I have been seeing and hearing a lot lately about newbie bloggers getting ban left and right.
I hope that answered your question if not please feel free to clarify your question. Thanks.
satrap´s recent blog post ..How to Make Money With GPT Sites Without Completing Offers
Twitter: josepharch
says:
Hi Satrap, very good article and thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge!
I had one of my sites banned about 2 years ago and went through pretty much each of your suggestions with Google. They did reply, but they did not budge. My transgression was that I took someone else’s advice regards inserting a tiny bit of html coding that was supposed to enhance the ability to show the most pertinent keyword phrase for AdSense purposes. That was a mistake!
Anyhow, I eventually gave up on it because after about 6 emails back and forth it was evident that Google were not going to re-index my site. Yahoo and MSN (as it was back then) were fine, but Google was where the traffic was coming from.
As you said, being included in the search engine indexes is a privilege and not a right, but once you get de-indexed, it can be real tough to get re-indexed – providing your site ever does.
Kind regards
Joseph
Joseph Archibald´s recent blog post ..Living Life in Malaysia as an Expatriot UK Expat
Joseph, thanks for your comment. I am sorry about your ordeal. I have heard horror stories about people getting their site ban and having to work months to lift the ban. Google certainly is very though when it comes to sites menipilating the system with coding. I have learned to stay away from NO NOs and black-hat methods. Especially if you rely on search engines for your traffic. I mean, you are playing in their playground, so its best to play by their rules.
satrap´s recent blog post ..A Successful Blog Isnt Beyond Your Reach
Twitter: josepharch
says:
Hi SatRap, thanks for your reply and for your commiserations! It was my best performing site at the time too, so it was even more painful to see this happen, and then for Google not to re-index. But the thing is, I didn’t even know that this would be seen as black hat. Just presumed it was a perfectly acceptable way to get relevant AdSense ads on my site.
Little did I know at the time that Google would see this differently. And once they get something in their “head”, often times it seems like you are banging your own head against a brick wall when trying to appease them and get them to see the truth behind the matter in that I was innocent and not intent on being mischievous.
But you are right SatTrap – you live and you learn and you get on with things with the added knowledge. And that’s the main thing at the end of the day!
Kind regards
Joseph
josephar´s recent blog post ..Has My Best Performing Website Been Sandboxed What to Do
Oh god, you can tell I am really new to this, I never new that you could get banned from Google. I do not think my site is even in Google yet so I am not too worried atm.
clairecooper´s recent blog post ..The In’s and Out’s of Bingo
Twitter: josepharch
says:
Hi Claire, if its your site that your link leads to – The ins and outs of Bingo… then it is showing up in Google. In fact, you’ve got 12.5 million pages (etc) indexed in Google. Time for you to worry, I’d say lol.
josephar´s recent blog post ..Are You Aware of this WONDERFUL FREE Google Rank Checker Tool
As Joseph mentioned, your site (if the link shown as your “recent blog post” indeed is from your own site) is showing up on Google and you have a lot of pages indexed as well. Though as Joseph mentioned, you have got a lot of competition. But no worries, commit to it, work hard and be persistent and you will beat them. Good luck.
satrap´s recent blog post ..How To Remove Dates From a WordPress Blog
Twitter: vishacon
says:
Thanks buddy, one of my site was banned and i think now would be able to get this out.
Hey satrap, you are absolutely right, getting in trouble with Google is easy, way back in the good ole days, before webmaster tools, getting a high PR was pretty easy, and being one that truly tries to follow the rules, I did so, but, I failed to keep up with the changes, and that cost me!
I had read that traffic exchanges were a good thing somewhere in Google’s advice/instructions/tips or whatever it was called, then, about a year later, Google Adsense fired me for using these traffic exchanges! Not only did I get fired by Adsense, but the site I had been using it on, went from a PR4 to an N/A, I then stopped what they called SPAMMING, and about 2 years later, that site was indexed again, so, be patient, it takes time. They still won’t let me back in with Adsense.
CarpetGuy´s recent blog post ..Are you a Conservative Tea Party type
Google is very though to figure out. Thanks for sharing your experience with us. I am sure your story will help those who might be in the similar situation and give them some hope.
satrap´s recent blog post ..4 Ways to Make Money on the Internet Selling Your Own Stuff
What do you suggest to do if your blog has been penalized, but not banned? I believe it is penalized because is nowhere on google for the exact keywords from the domain name.
Any suggestions are welcome.
Alexa Stone´s recent blog post ..DenTek Comfort Fit NightGuard Review
Alexa,
I am jot sure if I understand your question correctly. If you are saying that you cant find it on goggle when you search for the keywords you optimize your site for, it could be simply because you are not ranking for that keyword yet.
Also, how long have you had this blog? Are you sure your blog is indexed om Google?…It could be simply a matter of not being indexed yet.
satrap´s recent blog post ..an Easy Way to Earn Money Online Without Investment
Hi
I have a blog that has been banned before, and sending a re-consideration request is a must. This is what I have done to “un-banned” my blog. Seriously it works but you need to wait for about 4 month if I’m not mistaken.
latestfreebies´s recent blog post ..WordPress Plugin- Samsarin PHP Widget
I am glad that you did get your blog un-banned. Yeah, the wait is sometimes too long, but worth it though.
satrap´s recent blog post ..an Easy Way to Make Money Online With Google Trends and CPA Offers