WORSE than a pornographer?!
Today I learned that I'm actually much worse than being a pornographer. (If you haven't been following this porn story, go here first)
It turns out that www.vjournal.com used to be what Google calls a "link farm", Google's sworn enemy. Link farms are websites that allow other websites to link to them for the sole purpose of trying to improve their search engine optimization (SEO). There is generally no reputable content on these types of websites, they have no legitimate purpose. They are the underworld of search engine optimization (SEO) as link farms by their very nature are trying manipulate Google's search results in illegitimate ways. When Google finds them they "black-list" the website so it no longer shows up in search results. This is a LOT worse than I thought. It's one thing not to be allowed into Ad Sense, but it's a whole other level of BAD not to show up in Google's organic search results. At least if you're looking for porn you can find it. If I can't remove the block from Vjournal.com I'm stuck looking for a new website address because I've been shut out of the largest search engine in the world.
"Black-listing" means that when someone types in your business name or key words or phrases into a search engine, your company will not show up in the search results - period. Google (and others) literally shut off indexing your website. If this happens, unless someone directly types your company website address into their browser's address bar, your company's website doesn't exist.
How do you know if you've been blacklisted? I was taught to type in site:www.vjournal.com into Google to see if any of the pages of my site were indexed. It was showing a page that said that there were no matches for the site - bad news. If this doesn't go away after you've had your site up for a month, it could be that Google bots haven't "seen" your site yet because it's so new, or it could be that you bought a "used" domain name that had an evil purpose (Google's company mantra is "do no evil").
Now how the heck is anyone supposed to know that the web address they've bought is "used" in the first place, let alone what it was used for? This information certainly doesn't show up when you go to purchase it - it's either available to buy, in which case you feel like you've won the lottery and can't wait to grab it before someone just as clever as you comes along, or darn it, more often someone got there first and the web address you wanted is gone
. There's no indication when you go to purchase a domain that it's been "returned" to the pool of available names or may be "damaged" merchandise, as is the case for domain names that have been black-listed.
How did I find out my website address was black-listed? I never did hear from anyone at Google, despite several emails. But a website developer told me about www.archive.org which is also referred to as the "Way Back Machine". This website lets you look up any domain name and see it's history, though it doesn't guarantee that every domain is there or that every instance of the website is available. By looking up Vjournal, I can see the link farm Vjournal used to be.
The combination of not having my website pages show up when Googling site:www.vjournal.com and the view of it as a list of website addresses in the Way Back Machine made me suspect it was blacklisted. OK, next step was figuring out how to get Google to realize I'm not a link farm and not a pornographer, and let people find www.vjournal.com in the search results.
Well you can imagine that the number of website addresses that turn over ownership is absolutely HUGE - millions a year are not renewed and go back into the pool of available web addresses. Google knows this and has set up a process called "reconsideration" where if you end up with a blacklisted domain name, or made some huge mistake that got your site blacklisted, you can plead your case. You set up a free account with them for their Webmaster tools, and in the dashboard you will see on the right-hand side a link to Request Reconsideration. Supposedly a real human checks out your site, and hopefully, removes the block. To help them with this process, it has also been recommended you go through the process of validating web ownership (click on the domain name and go to Tools and Manage Site Verification) and submitting a site map (found under Site Map). I needed a web developer's help with this as I don't know HTML at all, but it is worth it as if your business isn't on Google, it doesn't exist.
It took about 10 days after taking these steps for Vjournal to start to be indexed again. Again I never heard from Google, but I kept checking Google for site:www.vjournal.com and eventually saw some of my pages show up. Now, just a week after the indexing has begun, if you type www.vjournal.com into Google, the website comes up in the top 5 entries. Traffic on the site has increased as people can now find me, as so many type an address into Google instead of using their browser address bar.
It turns out that www.vjournal.com used to be what Google calls a "link farm", Google's sworn enemy. Link farms are websites that allow other websites to link to them for the sole purpose of trying to improve their search engine optimization (SEO). There is generally no reputable content on these types of websites, they have no legitimate purpose. They are the underworld of search engine optimization (SEO) as link farms by their very nature are trying manipulate Google's search results in illegitimate ways. When Google finds them they "black-list" the website so it no longer shows up in search results. This is a LOT worse than I thought. It's one thing not to be allowed into Ad Sense, but it's a whole other level of BAD not to show up in Google's organic search results. At least if you're looking for porn you can find it. If I can't remove the block from Vjournal.com I'm stuck looking for a new website address because I've been shut out of the largest search engine in the world.
"Black-listing" means that when someone types in your business name or key words or phrases into a search engine, your company will not show up in the search results - period. Google (and others) literally shut off indexing your website. If this happens, unless someone directly types your company website address into their browser's address bar, your company's website doesn't exist.
How do you know if you've been blacklisted? I was taught to type in site:www.vjournal.com into Google to see if any of the pages of my site were indexed. It was showing a page that said that there were no matches for the site - bad news. If this doesn't go away after you've had your site up for a month, it could be that Google bots haven't "seen" your site yet because it's so new, or it could be that you bought a "used" domain name that had an evil purpose (Google's company mantra is "do no evil").
Now how the heck is anyone supposed to know that the web address they've bought is "used" in the first place, let alone what it was used for? This information certainly doesn't show up when you go to purchase it - it's either available to buy, in which case you feel like you've won the lottery and can't wait to grab it before someone just as clever as you comes along, or darn it, more often someone got there first and the web address you wanted is gone
. There's no indication when you go to purchase a domain that it's been "returned" to the pool of available names or may be "damaged" merchandise, as is the case for domain names that have been black-listed.How did I find out my website address was black-listed? I never did hear from anyone at Google, despite several emails. But a website developer told me about www.archive.org which is also referred to as the "Way Back Machine". This website lets you look up any domain name and see it's history, though it doesn't guarantee that every domain is there or that every instance of the website is available. By looking up Vjournal, I can see the link farm Vjournal used to be.
The combination of not having my website pages show up when Googling site:www.vjournal.com and the view of it as a list of website addresses in the Way Back Machine made me suspect it was blacklisted. OK, next step was figuring out how to get Google to realize I'm not a link farm and not a pornographer, and let people find www.vjournal.com in the search results.
Well you can imagine that the number of website addresses that turn over ownership is absolutely HUGE - millions a year are not renewed and go back into the pool of available web addresses. Google knows this and has set up a process called "reconsideration" where if you end up with a blacklisted domain name, or made some huge mistake that got your site blacklisted, you can plead your case. You set up a free account with them for their Webmaster tools, and in the dashboard you will see on the right-hand side a link to Request Reconsideration. Supposedly a real human checks out your site, and hopefully, removes the block. To help them with this process, it has also been recommended you go through the process of validating web ownership (click on the domain name and go to Tools and Manage Site Verification) and submitting a site map (found under Site Map). I needed a web developer's help with this as I don't know HTML at all, but it is worth it as if your business isn't on Google, it doesn't exist.
It took about 10 days after taking these steps for Vjournal to start to be indexed again. Again I never heard from Google, but I kept checking Google for site:www.vjournal.com and eventually saw some of my pages show up. Now, just a week after the indexing has begun, if you type www.vjournal.com into Google, the website comes up in the top 5 entries. Traffic on the site has increased as people can now find me, as so many type an address into Google instead of using their browser address bar.
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