Banned by Google. No idea why.

Susan: Banned by Google. No idea why. It’s been banned for nearly a year.
I’ve owned … since about 2000. I did a few pet events and advertised mostly through traditional advertising “not online”. The site was indexed then. Then I stopped doing anything with … and it parked for about a year (with Sedo or some other 3rd party company – can’t really remember which one).

I brought it back online and made it an affiliate sales type of site, and it was still indexed in Google. But out of the blue it became unindexed. I then changed the site layout by making it a blog with all of the affiliate type stuff on the back pages.

My only SEO efforts have been to have it submitted to directories. Other than that, I really haven’t done anything with it. Which is why I’m so puzzled as to why it became unindexed.

Any ideas?

Thanks for your help.

Martin: Hi Susan,

I have checked your site, and indeed you’re banned from Google but not from MSN and not from Yahoo!
You did few mistakes causing to have poor ranking on MSN & Yahoo though and to not be forgivable by Google as they’re just too tough.

Please tell me:
When exactly did you “brought it back online”?

• When and where did you submit (big mistake, submission died few years ago, RIP)?
• What kind of “an affiliate sales” have you did. When it started and when it ended?

Susan: Hi Martin,

I know I’m banned, I just don’t know why.

I’m not exactly sure when I made the site active again. Probably about 2 years ago.
I did a lot of directory listings. I know these type of links don’t add a lot to a web site but I didn’t think they would negatively effect the domain. According to Google I have about 179 links that go to …com.

Here are some of the directories I submitted to ( if you type search …com on google you will see a lot of them):

seo-friend.com
aaawebdirectory.com
directory.searchwarp.com
viesearch.com
hlnk.com
abigdir.com

The affiliate sites were all pet related sites that I joined in Commission Junction. Sites like animalden.com, petsmart.com, and sitstay.com.

Thanks for your help.

Sincerely, Susan

Martin: Susan,
These days Google very much care on your SEO tempo (one day, I will write a blog post about this…). You can’t get hundreds of links out of the blur especially from sites that are banned themselves (!) or sites that are related to SEO. Google is not stupid.

CJ is the best affiliate program, no problem with them.

Okay. I can try to take you out of banning if it worth you 4 hours of my time. It can take something from 3 weeks to 3 months to put you back on Google.

Yes, take this free tip: Ask the directories above to move your listing out right away.

Hope it helps.

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