Business.com Banned in Google

[bhartzer]

Business.com has a PR0 on their home page and is not in Google's index anymore. After checking the server headers, I found that they're delivering a 'HTTP/1.1·302·Object·Moved' redirect from business.com to www.business.com.

A lot of website owners are seeing their websites get banned in Google for some reason. In many cases, it's because they have more than one domain name and have redirected them all to the same content. And they're using the wrong type of redirect. Getting your website banned in a search engine because of the wrong type of redirect is more common than you think.

It's a very common scenario. You have a website and you realize that you don't like your domain name very much. Perhaps it's your company name--and for whatever reason you think it would be cool to have a different domain name. After all, they're pretty cheap nowadays. Your company sells red widgets. And, lo and behold, redwidgets.com is available, so you buy the domain name. And you contact your web hosting company, telling them that you have a new domain name and you'd like to point the new domain name to your main website.

Sound familiar? Thousands of website owners have done it, and I've done it, too. There's nothing wrong with this scenario. In fact, there are a lot of good reasons to buy some extra domain names--such as misspellings of your company name (they can be numerous). Some companies have actually bought the domain names that include their name along with the word "stinks" or "I hate", just to make sure that no disgruntled customers register those names.

Lately, search engines have started to ban websites because they're doing the wrong type of redirect from the "additionally bought" domain name to the main website's address. Web hosts, including self-service online control panels that allow you to add domain names and perform redirects, are programmed to redirect one domain name to another using what is called a "302 Temporarily Moved" redirect. A 302 redirect is the wrong type of redirect to use. The 302 Temporarily Moved" redirect should only be used if a website or web page has temporarily moved to another location for less than 24-48 hours. Any longer use of the 302 can result in a website being banned and removed from a search engine.

Improper redirects cause problems
Your first task is to look and see what the search engine sees when it visits your website. When someone (or a search engine spider) requests a web page on your website, your website server responds with server headers before the actual content of your web page is "transmitted". This includes a date, what type of server it is, and usually a '200 OK' message. If everything's fine, then the '200 OK' is transmitted and the requested web page is delivered by the web server.

If a redirect is set up, then your web server will respond with either a '302 Moved Temporarily' or '301 Moved Permanent' type of message. Search engine spiders are very picky--and they make decisions based on what your web server tells it through the server's header.

To check the web server's headers, perform a 'server header check' and view the data that your web server is transmitting. There are many online server header check tools available free, as well as applications that will watch your every move online--called a sniffer.

Fixing the Redirect/setting up the proper redirect
There are two ways to set up a 301 Permanent Redirect. If you are using a Unix web server (you can identify your type of web server through the server header check) then you can use the .htaccess file to add the redirect. You can redirect an entire domain name, all at once, to another domain name, or you can redirect one web page on your website to a new location (typically used if you change static html pages to dynamic web pages, for example). It also can be done in the DNS of the domain name, but I suggest that you don't attempt this unless you're very advanced and have set up DNS before.

If your website is using a Windows web server, then the 301 redirect can be done in the Administrator's section of the server software or through the DNS as suggested above.

[iamrussell]

I used to have fifty state specific websites. I've cancelled the hosting accounts for these sites and registered a new domain name that consolidated everything into a national website. I now use GoDaddy's "forwarding" to redirect the old state specific domain's traffic. Is this good or bad?

Also, regarding business.com, are you saying that they were banned because their host is using the wrong kind of redirect to send anyone who types in "business.com" to "www.business.com"? Is this the common way hosts perform this task? Scary to think that something you had no knowledge or control over (at least before reading this post) could get you banned.

[jbgilbert]

Business.com has a PR0 on their home page and is not in Google's index anymore

Partially right... business.com home page is not in the Google index, but 186,000 business.com internal pages (the ones people have links from) are alive and well in Google's index.

I'm not saying all is okay... this is still an issue for business.com. Without the home page to get pointers started to internal pages, they could be facing many more problems down the road.

[theiceman]

exactly where do I find these free "server header checker" software online that you mention. I'd like to see what my server is sending out myself.

thanks,
iceman

[bhartzer]

iamrussell, you'll have to check to see how Godaddy is forwarding your domain names. It's quite possible that they're doing the wrong type of redirect which could get you banned, just like business.com. I wouldn't be surprised if Godaddy isn't doing it right. After all, around last year sometime Godaddy decided to block Googlebot from accessing any sites hosted with them.

You don't have to rely on your host to do the proper redirect. It's your website and domain name, and you're responsible for whatever you do. Being in Google is a privelege, not a right.

Look here for a server header checker.

[iamrussell]

Originally Posted by bhartzer

Look here for a server header checker.

I used a server header checker on one of my redirected URLs (that GoDaddy is forwarding) and it said that it's a "200" which, according to their key, means "OK". So I guess GoDaddy is using some other way to do their domain forwarding. I did send them an email asking how they did it. Also, according to their key, 307 is the temporary redirect, not 302.

Here it is: http://www.seoconsultants.com/tools/headers.asp

[FiveGrand]

I asked GoDaddy what type of forwarding they use, and if it would work fine with Google, they replied:

That would be a question you should pose to Google. We use 302 forwarding on our servers.

[Vitaly]

business.com is back! :) but still with PR0...

By the way - I think that their new logo is so ugly :(

Vitaly.

[bhartzer]

Nope, Google still has a problem with business.com.

Redirecting to content by delivering a 200 OK can still be a problem. In fact, you would want to make sure that you don't get caught for having duplicate content.

A 307 is a "Error 307 Temporary Redirect Explained" message. That 307 is not okay, a 301 Permanent Redirect is what should be used to redirect domain names.

[jestep]

A client of mine had a site banned. Same thing, used a 302 redirect. They had no idea, and the redirect was completely legit, but google still saw it as spam.

I've emailed google several times, and they said they will review the site again, but the site still hasn't been readmitted into the index. Its been several months, so I'm not keeping my hopes up anymore.

Point being, do the right redirect in the first place. Google doesn't have any sympathy for ignorance.

[DriWashSolutions]

Originally Posted by bhartzer

Business.com has a PR0 on their home page and is not in Google's index anymore.

So if a site links to Business.com or is a merchant on Business.com does that site/merchant risk being banned as well?

[jestep]

If you link to business.com, it is a possibility, if business.com actually gets banned. But, I would say the changes of something happening are really slim. If you are just listed in the business.com directory, you dont have anything to worry about.

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by DriWashSolutions

So if a site links to Business.com or is a merchant on Business.com does that site/merchant risk being banned as well?

I doubt it, but I dont work at Google so I cant say for sure.

[bhartzer]

does that site/merchant risk being banned as well?

In this extreme case, probably not.

[dante_casablancas]

Would having just a web-page without any content, and not having an automatic re-direct but just a simple link to a website also considered bad by Google? We have secured a couple of domain names with our comapny name on it (i.e. www.example.com, www.example.net, www.example.org) There is nothing there and all we have is a link to our corporate website.

Also I am not exactly familiar with redirects, is there a website out there that can show how to setup the redirect process step by step.

Thank you,

Dante

[Canadian101]

If you do an 'allinurl' search in google, business.com shows up in the Google index....

allinurl:www.business.com

That lead me to try the keyword search 'business' and www.business.com came up #1 for me.

[arpecop]

I cannot believe it
I think that is just part of "the big commercial game"

[jawn_tech]

I had a similar issue with Google, and received a personal reply that 301 redirects comply with their bot.

Whenever the next PR update will be, I suspect business.com will take another punch, as Google is showing around 18,500 inbound links to their homepage.

[DarrenC]

don't get caught for having duplicate content

What about if someone steals your content and displays it on there website? How will Google treat that - both banned, first site in Google Ok, second site in Google banned.

Any ideas - reason why I ask is I recently found a competitor using some of my content and title tag.

Darren

[cbp]

first site in Google Ok, second site in Google banned.

CBP

[bhartzer]

having just a web-page without any content...just links to real page.

This is fine, there shouldn't be any problems. I still would change those to redirect using a 301, though.

[imaginemn]

After reading the following post and they seem to make sense to me, it could be that Google's index is just FULL. Normally when a site is banned so are the related pages.

This is why I think Google's index is full.

Today Google’s home page lists:

Searching 4,285,199,774 web pages

It has been at this number as far back as Aug 5, 2003. A whole year later and no new pages have been indexed?

The last time it was anything other that this was Aug 4, 2003 when it was:

Searching 3,083,324,652 web pages

So either Google has serious problems with this or the counter is no longer working.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that Google has used an 4-byte unsigned long integer to store the document ID (every page in Google's index). In Linux (which is what Google uses), this variable is 4-bytes long, and has a maximum of 4.2 billion (4,294,967,296) before it rolls over to zero.

This may also be one of the reasons pages appear to be dropping from Google's index at an alarming rate for short periods of time. If you want to confirm the results visit http://web.archive.org and type google.com as the web address to see archives of the site.

imaginemn

[iamrussell]

So, in theory, you could get a bunch of old domains and 302 redirect them to a competitor and get them banned?

I don’t think so...

I highly doubt Google is banning sites for 302s if not for that reason alone.

[DrTandem1]

I'm not sure why you think it is redirecting. I see it as a 200 code for both http://www.business.com and http://business.com. Am I missing something?

Anyway, multiple domain names forwarding is not a reason for being banned. The reason is if the redirect is located on the page itself, not the DNS.

I think you are confusing the forwarding of URLs with redirects built into a page. Occasionally, you may need to use a redirect. Say you change a page name or domain, but you don't want to lose the traffic it has already attracted. What you need to do is place a meta refresh tag with the correct URL. Set the time to instant or have it take 10 or 15 seconds along with a link and a message telling the visitor what is happening. Now, this is important, in the head have the robot instructions read noindex, nofollow. That way you are not penalized for duplicate content or a redirected page. After sufficient time has passed, check your web logs, delete the page that is redirecting.

A more likely scenario is that business.com is a competitor of Google's. Why list a competitor? Possibly, they have a business disagreement. There could be any number of reasons why it is not appearing in Google. However, redirecting is not the reason.

As far as spamming another's site with redirects in an attempt to get your competitor banned, it won't. It will however get the redirecting pages and their associated domains banned.

[flawebworks]

Originally Posted by bhartzer

Lately, search engines have started to ban websites because they're doing the wrong type of redirect from the "additionally bought" domain name to the main website's address. Web hosts, including self-service online control panels that allow you to add domain names and perform redirects, are programmed to redirect one domain name to another using what is called a "302 Temporarily Moved" redirect. A 302 redirect is the wrong type of redirect to use. The 302 Temporarily Moved" redirect should only be used if a website or web page has temporarily moved to another location for less than 24-48 hours. Any longer use of the 302 can result in a website being banned and removed from a search engine.

Improper redirects cause problems
Your first task is to look and see what the search engine sees when it visits your website. When someone (or a search engine spider) requests a web page on your website, your website server responds with server headers before the actual content of your web page is "transmitted". This includes a date, what type of server it is, and usually a '200 OK' message. If everything's fine, then the '200 OK' is transmitted and the requested web page is delivered by the web server.

Fixing the Redirect/setting up the proper redirect
There are two ways to set up a 301 Permanent Redirect. If you are using a Unix web server (you can identify your type of web server through the server header check) then you can use the .htaccess file to add the redirect. You can redirect an entire domain name, all at once, to another domain name, or you can redirect one web page on your website to a new location (typically used if you change static html pages to dynamic web pages, for example). It also can be done in the DNS of the domain name, but I suggest that you don't attempt this unless you're very advanced and have set up DNS before.

The correct way to redirect a website is to first set it up as a pointer to the original domain - basically as a separate account - then in the htaccess file of the original domain do a redirect. I've done mine this way with no ill effects so far.

This article will take you thru the process:

http://www.highrankings.com/issue060.htm

[eclectec]

Does this mean that any website hosted at GoDaddy isn't going to get into Google?

[cbp]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that Google has used an 4-byte unsigned long integer to store the document ID (every page in Google's index). In Linux (which is what Google uses), this variable is 4-bytes long, and has a maximum of 4.2 billion (4,294,967,296) before it rolls over to zero.

That was written about a long time ago and has turned out to not be true, so I doubt your theory about Google being "full".

CBP

[cbp]

Does this mean that any website hosted at GoDaddy isn't going to get into Google?

Huh? There are a huge number of Godaddy hosted sites in Google.

CBP

[lightning]

This is a quite interesting topic, as I have moved some of my pages into some subdirectories. In my 404.php page I sent back a 301 Moved Permanently reply. Google took the hint right away. On their next database update they indexed the new pages correctly.

I noticed the following:

index.htm had a PR5
other root level pages had a PR4
all other pages, in various subdirectories just below/above the root (depending on your frame of reference) all have PR3.

The strange thing is that these PR3 pages have most of the traffic, and keywords. Hardly anyone seems to land on the home page from Google. So why does the index page have the highest PR?

It has been about 2 months since my update. Yahoo and MSN bots visit my site often and send me lots of traffic. Yet their databases still point to the old URLs. Don't they heed the 301 reply?

Even improving, I'm now migrating more pages to PHP. Will there be any negative repercussions from updating the site to PHP, using the same "301 Moved Permanently" methodology?

I'd hate to lose ranking with Google or other Search Engines.

[joetahoe]

Just thought I would let everyone know how to do this in ASP and PHP if they need to. I found this on another site somewhere:

ASP:

Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently" 
Response.AddHeader "Location","http://www.yoursite.com/"
Response.End

PHP:

header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
header("Location: http://www.yoursite.com/");
exit();

Hope this helps!

[27thNub]

My dad first started his business on 27thavenue.safeshopper.com, later we got a little more updated, got our own shopping cart software and then put it all up on www.27thavenue.com but before we had that we also purchased 27thavenue.net and .org I just used the following:

http://www.seoconsultants.com/tools/headers.asp

and and .com, .net, .org, and the safeshopper.com sub-domain it all said 200 OK. I just recently changed my www.27thavenue.com index.php file though because it initially would redirect a customer to www.27thavenue.com/customer/home.php and I noticed that the www.27thavenue.com site would never go up in the google searches. However, 27thavenue.safeshopper.com still remains high in the rankings even though we've been laying links and ads like landmines for the new site. I wonder if all this time, that redirect has been keeping us from attaining the higher rankings?

[GiftsForYouBiz]

I appreciated the info on the 24-48 hours for the temporary redirects. Seems to be default. I just migrated my addon/demo pages from my friends site over to mine, and the following seemed to work for me.

DirectoryIndex index.html index.php
RewriteEngine On
RedirectMatch permanent ^(.*)$ http://kdcinfo.com/demo/index.php

This htaccess file was put in the subdirectory where my files used to be. Putting it in there seemed to leave the rest of the site alone, and only redirect the files/folders within the subdirectory I put it in.

Probably don't need the first two lines. Nonetheless, all the headers seem to be permanent now.

Using the PHP redirect on an index.php file would probably be unnecessary, I would believe, being the .htaccess is probably accessed first. But for spiders that don't follow 301s, then the index.php could be a fallback, yes? (that is, so long as I don't have an index.html file, because of line 1)

[GiftsForYouBiz]

Oh, I also learned that, apparently, at least for my server, if you leave the trailing slash off a subdirectory, it will automatically show as a 301.

Again, at least that's what it does for my server.

I sure wish Google would treat "www.giftsforyou.biz" the same as "giftsforyou.biz". Some people link to one, others to the other. If they were combined, I'd be doing pretty good for my gifts site.

[AcmeSEO]

Originally Posted by bhartzer

a 301 Permanent Redirect is what should be used to redirect domain names.

...unless you value your Yahoo rankings, which, more likely than not will drop or disappear if you use a 301.

I've used 301 with custom 404 for years. Google almost always rewards me for doing so but at the same time, half the time, Yahoo rankings and findability drop or disappear.

So, if you are going to use 301, which I do recommend, be ready to deal with new problems in Yahoo.

I think I've figured out the ideal workaround which my coder is working on right now.

A drop in Yahoo is better than a penalty in Google!

At SES this fall, Yahoo said that fixing the 301 glitch is one of thier TOP priorities.

Good luck,

Robert

[AcmeSEO]

Originally Posted by GiftsForYouBiz

I sure wish Google would treat "www.giftsforyou.biz" the same as "giftsforyou.biz".

She will if you tell her to, or if you make your site do it for her.

[AcmeSEO]

Originally Posted by eclectec

Does this mean that any website hosted at GoDaddy isn't going to get into Google?

No

[stevealmond]

Originally Posted by bhartzer

Business.com has a PR0 on their home page and is not in Google's index anymore. After checking the server headers, I found that they're delivering a 'HTTP/1.1·302·Object·Moved' redirect from business.com to www.business.com.

A lot of website owners are seeing their websites get banned in Google for some reason. In many cases, it's because they have more than one domain name and have redirected them all to the same content. And they're using the wrong type of redirect. Getting your website banned in a search engine because of the wrong type of redirect is more common than you think.

I'm not sure that your logic is true, both http://business.com and http://www.business.com are banned, click the links below to see what I am seeing;

http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...business%2Ecom

http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...business%2Ecom

I have only one site and the host returns a code 200 for the domain name with the www and without, i.e. http://fantasiaadventureholidays.com and http://www.fantasiaadventureholidays.com. The domain that I registered was with the www, but the host sees it as without the www, but serves both. This could be a registrar thing. However the full version has a pr5 on google but the short version is pr0. This probably is due to the fact that there are no inbound links to the http://fantasiaadventureholidays.com version of my url. Anyway I don't really see that the redirects are a cause for business.com to be banned on google, why the site is banned I can't comment.

Regards

Steve

[DanThies]

Google has a problem with handling 302 redirects, period. Business.com isn't banned or penalized, they're just returning the wrong response.

Yahoo's problems with 301 redirects seem to be in the past at this point, at least in terms of them tanking sites that use them. They still aren't following them very well, and that's a little silly considering how much technology they've acquired in the past couple years.

[ozchris]

I usually buy my domains from Godaddy cos they're cheap.

I initially used their simple forwarding to where it was hosted, eg freewebs/blah. This meant that the address bar, and listing in Google would display as freewebs/blah, even when you typed in my domain name. A bit pov.

When I went to external paid hosting, I was limited in the the number of "add-on domains". So I setup all my sites as subdomains to my main account, and forwarded domain names to each one thru Godaddy.

Godaddy's free forwarding PLUS masking seemed to fix the address bar display, but not the Google entry. (Altho updates in Google were so slow it is hard to tell).

The free forwarding and masking seemed to use frames, and didn't allow direct access to individual pages. Yuk.

Some people also would not do link exchanges while I used Godaddy's forwarding/masking.

So I begged my host for extra dns entries, and everything now looks great, set up as add-on domains. Although details in Google still seem slow to update.

For example, where www.work-from-home-with-me.com used to be Godaddy forwarded to (1)workwithme.free-marketing-help.com, it now points to (2)workfromhome.free-marketing-help.com thru my hosts dns. Typing the domain in the address bar gets the correct site. Typing the domain into Google shows a cached version, theoretically retrieved on Sep 6, but actually retrieved from (1) instead of (2). A bit annoying.

I also had an old flower site, initially forwarded to freewebs, but then changed to a hosted subdomain. For about 6 months the old freewebs site had a higher position than my new updated site, when searched for thru Google for my targetted keywords.

So no, I don't like Godaddy forwarding, if you have any other choices.

[JonnyGoodBoy]

This Post is an excellent example on how to get attention.

Anyhow, if you have any question regarding Pagerank etc.: The easiest way it to write a friendly email to help@google.com.

I had a similar problem with one of my sites.

Here is what google said(2 weeks after I wrote):
--------------------
Hi Hans,

Thank you for your note. We apologize for our delayed response. Please be
advised that a PageRank score of zero does not necessarily mean that a
page or site has been penalized by Google. A page may be assigned a rank
of zero if Google crawls very few sites that contain links to the page in
question. Additionally, pages recently added to the Google index may also
show a PageRank score of zero because they have not yet been crawled by
Googlebot and have not yet been ranked. A page's PageRank score may
increase naturally with subsequent crawls. In the meantime, a zero
PageRank score should not be a source for concern.

Regards,
The Google Team
-----------------

But the interesting thing:
A few days after I received the email, my site
was back in the index with a PR5.

[Tjaart]

I have a question.

I have a 302 redirect on a page deeper into my website, redirecting to another page on my website. Basically, if you haven't logged on yet, I want you to logon first and redirect you to the logon page.

The resulting page is no-index and no-follow.

Do you think my whole website will be penalised / banned for this or only the resulting page, which I don't want to be indexed anyway?

Thanx in advance.

Kind Regards
Tjaart
Siam Excursions

[dennislazo]

this is interesting.

i also found out that my main page redirects using 302. but then i still see google crawling my site every now and then.

further, if i add another page, it just takes me three weeks and it's on google.

even then, the 301 pages retains the original url, and then the 302 pages takes on the new url.

[jawn_tech]

A more likely scenario is that business.com is a competitor of Google's. Why list a competitor?

Dr. Tandem I agree with you 99.999% of the time. Just for clarification --- Yahoo and MSN are also competitors, have high PR value by Google and listed in their index without problems. I'm thinking you might mean that there is something, not being a redirect issue, but something else -- and because they are a competitor, it was all the ammo they needed...? So probably they might do the same with Yahoo or MSN, if they get just a bit out of step with Google's algo?

[Vitaly]

I don't understand how business.com can be banned if for search "business" it's #1???

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...f=1&q=business

[rer3]

I am using GoDaddy forwarding also. This is the responce from the checker at thinkhost.com:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 14:38:25 GMT Server: Apache/1.3.31 (Unix) mod_pointer/0.8 PHP/4.3.2 X-Powered-By: PHP/4.3.2 Connection: close Content-Type: text/html

This page has a PR of 2 so either GoDaddy's way is OK or Google didn't get me yet

[bhartzer]

I see it as a 200 code for both

Drtandem1, they're still delivering a 302 error, not a 301 error like they should be--check Rex Swain's http viewer and you'll see what I mean.

In my opinion, this is the wrong type of redirect. You should be delivering a 301, not a 302 error. I only recommend delivering a 302 if you need to redirect for a a day or so, perhaps up to a few days. Otherwise, I would always deliver a 301.

[sparkyfire]

Question, if you were to just have the a record of the domain pointed to the same IP as a different domain will that cause this same problem?

Sparkyfire

[xmx]

I experience something similar with my site CosmoDomains.com.

As it is a domain names related website I parked many other
domain names that I have not yet developped to it.

Result is that the main page of the site has a PR of 0, while
3 of the 4 sections of the site (domain registration, sell & buy, directory) have a PR of 4. The newer section is appraisals and was added last month only.

I am considering removing the parked domains and see if the PR of the main page will improve too.

[bhartzer]

if you were to just have the a record of the domain pointed to the same IP as a different domain will that cause this same problem?

Yes, it will cause a problem or potentially get your site banned if you don't do the proper redirect.

The key here is that it must be a 301 permanent redirect.

[sparkyfire]

are you positive about that? Cause an A record pointed to the same IP as another A record isn't considered a redirect (as far as I know). Most redirects that I know of consist of a page that then forwards you to another page, normaly automaticly. I could be wrong here and would like someone to confirm one way or another. I really brought this up for thouse people who have this problem, that has this ability, to have another viable option that may actually look more professional then a redirect page.

Sparkyfire

EDIT~ For thouse that don't know...

An A record points a domain to an IP. Such as ABC.com points to 199.181.132.250. When you type into the address line abc.com it contact DNS server and DNS server responds to connect to 199.181.132.250.