Puzzled by Google

[bwprice]

I am new to here and really think this is an excellent forum!

My web site www.quitsmokingsupport.com has been #1/2 or 3 position in google for the past 6 years. 2 weeks ago I slipped out of google.

When I type in my url in the google search box the search result lists another url that I had online a few years ago - http://www.chriscor.com/morequit.htm

Yesterday I removed the page from my server to avoid being penalized as a mirror site.

Am I being penalized by google. I am NOT banned.

I sent an email to help@google.com and they replied with:

Thank you for your note. Unfortunately, we are unable to send personal responses to all of the requests we receive to review individual website content.

Certain actions such as buying or selling links to increase a site's PageRank value or cloaking - writing text in such a way that it can be seen by search engines but not by users - can result in penalization. Please review our quality guidelines at http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html for more information. If you identify problems with your website and make the changes necessary to comply with these guidelines, please do not hesitate to contact us.

We are sorry that we cannot provide individual assistance at this time.

Regards,
The Google Team

I am not doing anything that I can see to deviate from googles webmasters guidelines.

Anyone have any helpful advice?

regards,
Blair

[cyanide]

YOu could be hit with the duplicate content penalty.
What exactly is chriscor.com? Because it contains pretty similar content as your other one.
YOu should create a 301 redirect to tell google it has been moved to the other site and take this one down

[bwprice]

How do I create a 301 redirect to tell google it has been moved to the other site?

What do you mean by take it down...you mean delete the complete web site? I have a page on this site that has EXCELLENT results in most search engines for several important keywords.

Thanks...Blair

[cyanide]

Originally Posted by bwprice

How do I create a 301 redirect to tell google it has been moved to the other site?

redirect 301 /oldpage.html http://newdomain/newpage.html

--put this in .htaccess and upload to your root directory

What do you mean by take it down...you mean delete the complete web site? I have a page on this site that has EXCELLENT results in most search engines for several important keywords.

Well, I'm working on the assumption that chriscor.com is now at quitsmokingsupport.com
If the answer is yes, then you will be subjected to the duplicate content filter by google. So, either you take down one of those sites or google will essentially do it for you.

Anytime there is more than one website with the same content, google will only index one of them. Usually it is the url that has been active the longest, which explains why chriscor.com comes up when searching for quitsmokingsupport.com

[minstrel]

Originally Posted by bwprice

When I type in my url in the google search box the search result lists another url that I had online a few years ago - http://www.chriscor.com/morequit.htm

Cyanide, I believe bwprice meant there was a PAGE on the chriscor.com site that had duplicate content, not the entire site.

Bwprice, to clarify, if my interpretation is correct then removing just that page should be fine. However, using the 301 redirect instruction cyanide suggested may get Google to recognize the change more quickly.

[cyanide]

Originally Posted by minstrel

Cyanide, I believe bwprice meant there was a PAGE on the chriscor.com site that had duplicate content, not the entire site.

That's what I thought at first, but if you look at the old domain(home page), it looks like a stripped-down version of the new domain...

So, maybe some clarification from the poster is in order...