Deletion of sites history due to non-malicious hidden text

[Dan Lawrence]

Earlier this month I noticed my GoogleUK SERPS totally collapase to the extent that I thought I had been kicked of Googles index altogether. I received an e-mail 'apparantly' confirming my worst fears......stating that I had been removed from the index because of hidden text on my home page.

It turns out this is because of the hidden text included on every ShopFactory created website up until SF recently released an upgrade created after I bought this issue to their attention (Since Shop21.uk.com was the first SF created site to be kicked off google).

Strangely though I was still getting a SERP for 'Shop21', my company name, so I had not been removed from the index after all, I had just had all my SERPS decimated to such a low position I cant find any of them apart from 'Shop21'. For aprox 5 Years my website has held Page 1 positions for all the keywords & phrases relating to the products I sell on Google.co.uk (most also repeated on google.com). A good example of a keyword I have held a Position #1, Page 1 on Google UK is 'Griffin iTrip' for which shop21 is still currently #2 on Google.com but no ranking at all on GoogleUK anymore.

I also have a Paid Search Campaign running with Google via a 3rd party company. I asked them if they could shed any light on this & they asked their account manager at Google who said that SF created websites 'historys' have been wiped due to the hidden text issue but would be re-instated soon since hidden text not malicious. This is apparantly the reasons for the collapse of my rankings since history counts alot towards your SERP's.

Apparantly most of these websites have now had their historys re-instated. Shop21 has not but is still getting good rankings on google.com but nothing on google.uk apart from a search for 'shop21'.

Apparantly, from the information I have received, Google will be reinstating my History at which point my SERPS should be back to what they were or therabouts. It has been two weeks though and they still havnt done this & this is now seriously effecting my business.

This all seems very unfair to have been effectively booted off google for something totally out of my control. The hidden text was not there for marketing reasons and was not put there by any of the merchants using this Shopfactory software but was included by Shopfactory coders as part of the product. It has been like this for 5 years without any issues.

Does anybody know:
A) How to get Google to re-instate history when its been unfairly & unreasonably deleted (or do so faster than they currently are)?
B) Know my legal position with the creators of the software that caused this issue contrary to their claim that all sites created using their software are S.E. friendly/compliant ?
C) Any other cures or remedies :) to aid the situation ?

[incrediblehelp]

If you are signed up with Google Webmaster Tools (formerly Google Sitemaps) within this dashboard you can submit as request for re-inclusion.

[Dan Lawrence]

Thanks for that, I have done this though about 2 weeks ago. The site hasn't actually been taken off the index (since still getting a SERP for 'shop21')its just had its 'history' deleted which has caused the sites SERPS (previously page 1 for all targeted keywords) to collapse on google.
So long as applying for re-inclusion also means 'history' will be re-instated hopefully should all be ok, just a question of waiting until google does re-instate but im not confident this will happen, any ideas ?

[incrediblehelp]

Not sure Dan, I am sure Google would let you know. I would ask them this in the re-inclusiuon request.

[parkoskar]

I am also facing similar situation, but I don't know the reason of Penalty.. such that I can correct and ask google to have another look on my site...

on 21st I have lost rank for nearly all my keyword.. Those keyword which were on top 3 were thrown to 41st Position... It was the clear indication that we have been penalized...

Some Fact:
> We have taken some sponsord links which had the PR of 6.. but they have lost their PR.. to 0 ( May be Penalized )... Does this could me also...

As I never linked them... ?

> Some of my link exchange Page PR has gone down to zero.. MAY be this could be the reason of Penalty...


What should i do to get out of this penalty...

[nadeemansary]

I had a similar problem. Our previous webmaster has used hidden text. Whilst our site remained in top 5 for about 2-2 1/2 years, earlier this year Google blocked it from the index saying that we had used techniques which violate the webmasters guidelines. I then personally checked each an every page and removed every evidence of hidden text and re-submitted through the sitemaps section. The site reappeared after about 3 months and shot back to top 3 position.

All was well up untill couple of weeks ago when it was again blocked by Google and they gave me the same old story.
Now I don't know what to do as I do not know which part of their webmaster guidlines the site is in violation of.
Any comments will be welcome.
Thanks
NADwww.sportshospitality.com

[Galway]

Hi guys and Dan,

You are missing the point here, if you have some listings then you have not been screened out and you do not need a reinclusion request, especially as you still have the .com listing.

If you check out Google.co.uk you will find that Google has merely dropped your homepage in a site search, this is a common problem at the moment and has affercted thousands of people. The homepage is still in the .com site search. Most of your generic listings were delivered through the strength of your homepage and obviously with this dropped you will lose those listings as your internal pages are not doing the job as they are not strong enough.

I will look at the site in more detail when I can but this is a common Google glitch and one that will rectify itself.

Make sure you are hosted in the UK.

Relax and it should right itself, IMO of course.

[parkoskar]

Originally Posted by nadeemansary

I had a similar problem. Our previous webmaster has used hidden text. Whilst our site remained in top 5 for about 2-2 1/2 years, earlier this year Google blocked it from the index saying that we had used techniques which violate the webmasters guidelines.

>> Did Google informed you about the Penalty ? How did they do that ??

I haven't received any response from google that good... But I am sure we have been penalized.... And I have to find the reason for this...

I then personally checked each an every page and removed every evidence of hidden text and re-submitted through the sitemaps section. The site reappeared after about 3 months and shot back to top 3 position.

All was well up untill couple of weeks ago when it was again blocked by Google and they gave me the same old story.
Now I don't know what to do as I do not know which part of their webmaster guidlines the site is in violation of.
Any comments will be welcome.
Thanks
NADwww.sportshospitality.com

[nadeemansary]

Originally Posted by parkoskar

>> Did Google informed you about the Penalty ? How did they do that ??

I haven't received any response from google that good... But I am sure we have been penalized.... And I have to find the reason for this...

I don't think you have been penalised. If that was the case, your pages WILL NOT at all appear in Google. You have just been a subject of Googles occassional jumble. As long as you keep on using fresh content, you will soon be back on your previous position.. As they say, don't fix it if it ain't broken.


NAD
www.sportshospitality.com

[/quote]

[parkoskar]

There is a difference between Penalty & Banned...

I think we have been Penalized ( -30 Penalty) and thanks google that they did not banned us ( remove from Index)..

I am not able to decide whether to stop the Link building activity ot Carry on this and make the situation more worse for me...

[Dan Lawrence]

You are missing the point here, if you have some listings then you have not been screened out and you do not need a reinclusion request, especially as you still have the .com listing.

Thanks Galway, i didnt think i had been kicked off (for the above quoted reason) but i DIDreceive an email from google saying that i had been because of hidden text and i thought best to apply for reinclusion if google was telling me too even if i could still find myself on the index.

If you check out Google.co.uk you will find that Google has merely dropped your homepage in a site search, this is a common problem at the moment and has affercted thousands of people. The homepage is still in the .com site search. Most of your generic listings were delivered through the strength of your homepage and obviously with this dropped you will lose those listings as your internal pages are not doing the job as they are not strong enough.

Thats interesting since didnt know about any of this. I have done a search for shop21 and comes up #1 on google UK & com but if i search for http://www.shop21.uk.com then no page indexed. Hopefully then thats all the problem is and it will right itself, any ideas of aproximate timescales since i cant survive drop in sales for much longer ?

Make sure you are hosted in the UK.

I was with Virtual Internet but they were taken over by activ24 who promptly moved all the hosting to Norway a few months ago but was told Domain/DNS still in UK so wouldnt negatively effect the SERPs ?

Relax and it should right itself, IMO of course.

Im trying :) but i cant survive drop in sales much longer. Whats IMO stand for ?

Also still a bit confused since both Shopfactory personnel & my account manager at 3rd party paid search agency i use have said that they have spoken to Google and google say problem is that history was deleted due to hidden text and this is the cause of the issue and would be re-instated. Yet most other sites with this problem have had history & rankings re-instated after google was notified by SF that hidden text was not malicious. Maybe i have had history re-instated & original issue now rectified but also have an additional issue, as Galway suggests, of a dropped home page ??

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by Dan Lawrence

Thanks Galway, i didnt think i had been kicked off (for the above quoted reason) but i DIDreceive an email from google saying that i had been because of hidden text and i thought best to apply for reinclusion if google was telling me too even if i could still find myself on the index.

So did you apply for re-inclusion?

[Dan Lawrence]

yes about 2 weeks ago

[incrediblehelp]

Good time to wait and hope!

[bertboy60]

I had a similar problem with one of sites. I saw the re-inclusion option under Webmaster tools and I applied for re-inclusion and made modification to the site.

Now the re-inclusion option is not there but the site is still not in the index.

What does this mean? What else can I do?

The site has been delisted since August.

[ACross]

Originally Posted by parkoskar

I am also facing similar situation, but I don't know the reason of Penalty.. such that I can correct and ask google to have another look on my site...

on 21st I have lost rank for nearly all my keyword.. Those keyword which were on top 3 were thrown to 41st Position... It was the clear indication that we have been penalized...

Some Fact:
> We have taken some sponsord links which had the PR of 6.. but they have lost their PR.. to 0 ( May be Penalized )... Does this could me also...

As I never linked them... ?

> Some of my link exchange Page PR has gone down to zero.. MAY be this could be the reason of Penalty...


What should i do to get out of this penalty...

The short answer: Remove anything and everything from every page that uses tiny text and colors intended to blend with the background. This is effectively hidden text!

The long answer:

A quick look at your front page shows the following "hidden text" links at the bottom of the page.

a, b, c, d, e, f
www_dubaiholidayspecialists.com/virgin_airlines_dubai.htm www_dubaiholidayspecialists.com www_dubaiholidayspecialists.com/Dubai_information.htm www_dubaiholidayspecialists.com/Events_in_Dubai.htm www_dubaiholidayspecialists.com/Dubai_Attractions.htm www_dubaiholidayspecialists.com/Index.htm www_dubaiholidayspecialists.com/british_airways_dubai.htm www_dubaiholidayspecialists.com/dubai_developments.htm
(I replaced the first "." with an underscore to prevent these from becoming live links in the post.)

Looking at the source code shows the text size is set to 1pt, and the color is set to be so close to the background blue that one must look really hard to see it.

Under Quality guidelines - basic principles, Google states:

Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"

Under Quality guidelines - specific guidelines, Google further states:

Avoid hidden text or hidden links.

The links I found on your front page are not there for your visitors. They are there solely for the search engines. They use a font size and color intended to hide them from your visitors view. Therefore, they are unacceptable to Google.

And to top it all off, the links to this other site won't do them much good, either! Even if they weren't hidden.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news...

Hope this helps.
-ACross

PS. Here's a link to Google's Webmaster Guidelines, for your convenience.

[ldylion214]

Originally Posted by Galway

If you check out Google.co.uk you will find that Google has merely dropped your homepage in a site search, this is a common problem at the moment and has affercted thousands of people. The homepage is still in the .com site search. Most of your generic listings were delivered through the strength of your homepage and obviously with this dropped you will lose those listings as your internal pages are not doing the job as they are not strong enough.

I think this has happened to me too.

[Synonymizer]

Google applies partial penalization, but they will not acknowledge it or explain anything about it. Complaining to them is surely useless.

I am trying to develop a method to measure the partial penalization, by doing a few experiments. I welcome any ideas.

One of my sites was completely banned, and I suspect that others that linked to it suffered partial penalizations. So, check whom do you link to.

[nadeemansary]

For pointing the hidden links.
I'm sure our previous webmaster must have done this to increase the inbound links to these sites and this has resulted in our site being penalised. I'll remove them immediately and re-submit to Google.

Bu the way I sacked the websmater few months ago as he was making a meal of this. I better check our other sites for these hidden links.

Thanks again.

[Dan Lawrence]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Good time to wait and hope!

Any idea how long this may take ?

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by Dan Lawrence

Any idea how long this may take ?

No idea.

[Dan Lawrence]

:)

[Galway]

There is a problem here which is causing confusion, there is a difference between being dropped from serps due to falling foul of a change in Googles algo or filtering policy, being penalised specifically for bad practice and losing profile due to a Google glitch (such as losing the homepage)

All three require different types of action, the most difficult in my opinion is 'bad practice', re-inclusion is a bit of a lottery and you must have all your website in good order when you follow this path.

The problem here is that many people are confusing the above issues and then not taking the appropriate action.

For example if ldylion214 has lost her profile due to a homepage drop from Google it is entirely different to if she lost it due to tripping a filter or losing link value.

Therefore the fix is different.

BTW ldylion214 let me know your site and I will take a look.

[parkoskar]

Suppose I have been penalized for the reciprocal Link building... then what should i di to overcome from this Penalty...

[Dan Lawrence]

Galway - Do you think most likely issue in regard to shop21 is the 'home page' glitch then, since were still on .com & web searches on .co.uk just not on uk specific results ?

PS - What does IMO abbreviation stand for re: your last reply to my previous post ?

[Galway]

Hi Dan,

IMO..... in my opinion :)

Yes, your homepage is not available when you do a site search in Google.co.uk in UK results. However it is available in the more competitive worldwide results.

Much of your traffic will have come from your listings that had an element of generic profile, with most of the websites I analyse, these listings are associated with the homepage (what I call the default served page).

In your case as this page has been dropped in the UK site search then you will lose these listings, the fact that your other pages are still listed shows this as a temporary glitch, this is underlined by the fact that the homepage is still active in the worldwide results.

The worldwide results are of course more competitive so the profile here will be less and therefore the lost traffic from losing the home page in the UK sector is more noticeable.

We had this recently (twice) with our own site, first time was 10 weeks absence the second was 3 weeks absence and both events were in last 6 months.

Our site is very strong in both UK and Worldwide, we lost the UK profile but retained the worldwide in both instances.

This glitch is very well documented in other forums that have the same good credibility as this one.

Hope this helps,

[Dan Lawrence]

Thats great information thanks Galway !

I can relax a bit now knowing:

A) Its not my fault
B) will right itself evetually.

I'll get on with a Paid Search campaign to plug the sales gap/drop asap. Also have some conventional advertising in the run up to xmas as well which will hopefully help although my priority is to commision someone to develop a whole new ecommerce & back end system since im dropping behind my competitors by just using an off the shelf ecommerce pakcage.

Many Thanks for taking the time to answer my posts, i really appreciate it.

[Galway]

Listen Dan,

You need to use this time to improve the website and not just sit and wait.

The site itself has many duplicate content problems especially with products. You need to work through these product content descriptions and make them unique. An example is this text:

---You are looking at the coolest iPod accessory in the world. The Griffin iTrip FM transmitter for the iPod can play your music through any FM radio in your car,----

Put it into Google and see how many websites have this information word for word, this will put all your pages into supplemental (SI) before too long, there are many pages already either there or in the omitted results cat.

In addition there are many internal pages that have no associated navigation and are in effect in a cul de sac, this will also render the pages into the SI.

This is where you need to work hard.

[Synonymizer]

Do you mean no incoming or outgoing links ?

many internal pages that have no associated navigation and are in effect in a cul de sac

[Galway]

Initially there should be no internal page that does not have associated navigation so that spiders can migrate in and out of the page through a number of avenues.

In an ideal world then yes deep linking from external sites is also a big advantage.

[Dan Lawrence]

You need to use this time to improve the website and not just sit and wait.

I most certainly intend to, hence why getting on with developing whole new system.

The site itself has many duplicate content problems especially with products. You need to work through these product content descriptions and make them unique

Interesting ! i thought the duplicate content issue is just in regard to pages on own site or other linked sites, had no idea 'duplicate content' applies to similar content on totally unconnected i.e. competitors pages or sites. All content will be re-written then as part of new development.

In addition there are many internal pages that have no associated navigation and are in effect in a cul de sac, this will also render the pages into the SI.

I have found one or two but most of my pages do have subsidary navigation menu or at least one link back, is 1 or 2 nav. links not enough ? When new system is created it will be implicit that all pages must be 'stand alone' i.e. full navigation on each.

[Galway]

Hi Dan,

Its good that you are redeveloping and I wish you every success with it. If you do the site search in Google and move well into the results there are many pages that are being discarded by Google and these pages all have virtually no navigation on the page or from page to page.

This is a really bad thing to have in place, try and ensure that in your new site the different sectors have navigation specific to each sector but also with some topline pages included.

If for example you have a sector on Ipods then make sure these pages link to each other but also link back to some associated category and also the top tier nav.

[Dan Lawrence]

I'll do that asap and add navigation to those pages as a quick fix so dont suffer any more page prejudice befor ei get a chance to develop new system.

Many Thanks

[bertboy60]

Originally Posted by bertboy60

I had a similar problem with one of sites. I saw the re-inclusion option under Webmaster tools and I applied for re-inclusion and made modification to the site.

Now the re-inclusion option is not there but the site is still not in the index.

What does this mean? What else can I do?

The site has been delisted since August.

Any thoughts...

[Dan Lawrence]

This looks like a good explanation of the likely cause of home page being dropped:

http://blogs.webpronews.com/2006/11/...your-homepage/

I have a .uk.com domain registered through centralnic. It turn out this isnt a Top Level Domain so Google maybe reading it as a .com and not a UK specific domain even though theres a whacking great big 'UK' in it.

[parkoskar]

I recovered back on 4th December...

Things done to get out of penalty..
1> waiting
2> Addition of fresh content
3> removed some reciprocal link which has lost the PR in the recent update.. ( Bad neighbourhood Linking )
4> removed the on page redirection to our dedicated language sites..

5> We are back...

Thanks google

[sysopdan]

I have various sites that do well in keyword searches on google, but one site in particular does not. It is a clean site, with lots of original content, images with alt tages, some video files. Lots of text. The site is www.ukraineinsider.com

It is recent, I make updates, yet in relevant keyword searches dozens or hundreds of other sites come up before me and many of those have not been changed or updated in years. The only time I come up on the first few pages is when I search for the domain name itself, in that case number one. Lots of good that does me.

Any ideas anyone?