10 replies to this topic

[jerry]

About six months ago one of my websites (www.hilton-head-island.org ) dropped from a PR of 5 down to 0. (It may have even been banned. I don't remember).

Anyway, I found what I thought was the problem (an old URL linking to the same site and a period being used as a link to the editor's area). I fixed these and did all of the usual sucking up to Google.

Gradually over about 4 months the PR came back up to 4.0 (It never got back up to it's original PR=5) and the links started showing back up. It's been there for two months at PR=4 and no changes have been made to the site.

Three days ago it went to PR=0 (It still has a white bar and not a gray bar). It still showed 28 incoming links for two days and now those are gone also. I'm not selling anything on this site, so it's no big deal.

I think Jill commented once that most of the time when a site is banned or greatly penaized the owner knows why because he is trying to get by with something. I''m not trying to do anything even remotely close to the line (that I know of). What is wrong with this site?

Jerry

Edited by jerry, 27 August 2003 - 09:12 PM.

[Jill]

Welcome, Jerry!

Right now the toolbar is still a little bit whacko, so I wouldn't worry too much -- yet. Could be just a toolbar problem. But the fact that you're not showing any backlinks, is a bit concerning. Still, my own site wasn't showing any for a few days a couple of weeks ago also.

Therefore, I'm gonna guess that it's just a glitch with Google. Give it a week or two and then check back.

Good luck!

Jill

[SearchEngineZ]

Hi Jerry,

In my opinion it would be a bit unfair, but it could be that you have been penalized by too much reciprocal linking with your other sites.

On every page (?) you have links to your other sites, which are not related by topic. Besides them, there are very few external links.

My guess is that Google looks at the ratio of links to your off-topic sites vs. links to other people's sites, and makes a call on whether the purpose of the site is purely to increase the PR of your other sites.

The ToolBar has been wonky, as has the backward links function. The best test of whether you have been penalized is the number of visitors you are getting via Google, and your ranking in the SERPs.

Rob.

[Scottie]

Another thing to realize... PR is related to the size of the index. Google just increased the size, meaning that sites that may have been PR6 are now PR5 or PR4 even... it's all relative. Don't worry about the number!

Look at your rankings. Look at your traffic. If those are dropping, then you have an issue!

[jerry]

Thanks Scottie, Rob and Jill for your comments:

First, Rob, I was in Australia for a couple of weeks last year hiking through the jungle in the northern part. I loved the laid back attitude of the people. It was fun. Now back to business.

I don't see how it could be a problem with not having enough outgoing links. I link to every restaurant, every golf course, every hotel/motel on Hilton Head Island. I also link to alligators, tide charts, hospital, airport, web cams, etc. I think there are probably a few hundred outgoing links. I link to about everything on Hilton Head.

Scottie, yes the traffic is down by about 50%. Part of this may be because of the end of the summer season.

I checked Google for keywords and I don't show up under any of my keywords now. I did have a lot of top 10 listings. The site doesn't show any of my old incoming links. DMOZ links to the site along with several other sites.

I don't offer anything for sale on this site yet, so it is no big loss. My main concern is that if I don't know what I did wrong, I'm afraid I might do it again. I'll probably scrap the website, but I dwish I knew what I did wrong.

I will just wait a month or so and see what Google does. I don't know anything to change.

Anyone who wants to know anyting about Hilton Head Island or has time to look at the site, I would welcome your comments and ideas. The site is http:www.Hilton-Head-Island.org.

Thanks again,

Jerry

Edited by jerry, 06 September 2003 - 11:54 PM.

[chrishirst]

My guess is you've been rumbled!

Google shows 0 backlinks

Alltheweb shows 116

mainly from
http://www.bizoprefund.com
seems like every page links to your site

http://www.beaverdan.com
http://www.hiltonhea...coachresort.com
these 2 have the same whois

http://www.small-claims-court.org
which just happens to have the same whois as your site

and strangly enough your site links back to these quite a lot!


Chris.

[Jill]

Yep, I'd have to agree with Chris. Definitely sounds like a penalty, and probably for linking to potentially "bad neighborhoods."

Jill

[air-dog]

Hello all,

Does this mean that if you are getting links from "bad neighbourhoods" you can have problems or does the link(s) have to reciprocal?

[Jill]

The links pointing to you don't generally matter because you have no control over them.

It's the links you put on your site to other people. You have total control over that and should (theoretically) know better than to link to sites that really don't offer value to your site visitors.

That's Google's theory, at least.

Jill

[qwerty]

You don't have any control over who links to your site, and the SEs know that. It's linking to them (and trading links with them) that causes problems.

(ooops. Jill beat me to it.)

[air-dog]

Thanks Jill & qwerty,

You've put my mind at rest. A while back I submitted a website to a reciprocal link exchange website.

I started getting exchange offers from websites that had 1000s of links like a big shopping list. I never bothered to link back but I was concerned about the harm this could do to the site.

By the way qwerty, I liked what you said about Football, in the pub , I was touched