Am I banned from Google?

[chocolate4free]

How can I find out if my site has been banned?

For over two years I have been ranking on the first page of Google for all my serach terms.

Initially, I noticed that my traffic has declined and then today I just cannot find my site at all !

The domain is www_teddywear_com

The only page I can find is www_teddywear_co_uk/catalog/banners.php which is bizarre as this is not actually a page I use.

I do have a redirect from my index.htm page to my main page which is in a sub directory due to it being an Oscommerce site.

I would be pleased to hear from anyone who can offer constructive advise.

Flamers stay away.

[crankydave]

I'm not sure what kind of redirects you have set up, but both the .com and the .co.uk domains redirect to the /catalogs URL.

I did a header check on both of the root domains and both return a 200 status.

I rather suspect there's a problem in handling the kind of redirects that are in place.

Dave

[chocolate4free]

Hi Dave

Thank for the reply.

The redirect I am currently using is:

<script language=javascript><!--
top.location.replace("http://www.teddywear.com/catalog/");
//-->
</script>

I am not sure what you mean by a 200 status. Sorry! Can you explain this for me please.

Thanks

Zoe

[SemAdvance]

Well your not banned... but in a Googlefark

Now a googlefark is not a good thing,,,,however it can be fixed.

You see as things are now, Google sees three versions of your site

Results 1 - 1 of 1 for site: h ttp://ww w.teddywear.com

Results 1 - 10 of about 589 for site: w ww.teddywear.com

Results 1 - 10 of about 469 for site: teddywear.com

[spaces added above to prevent urls from linking]

The top results are in supplemental results, due to the fact that Google thinks it is a dupe of one of the other two URls.

Being as your on an linux box if you have access to the htaccess file you can add this code to resolve the issue however it should be noted it will take months for Google to straighten out.

RewriteEngine on
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^teddywear\.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^$
RewriteRule ^/(.*) http://www.teddywear.com/$1 [L,R]


Another issue you seem to be suffering from is unfriendly URLs ....you should find someone to rewrite those also through the .htaccess file to something more search friendly.

Hope it helps

[crankydave]

Zoe...

Google is not a fan of java redirects. You need to specify that it is a 301 (permanent) redirect.

<%
response.setStatus(301);
response.setHeader( "Location", "http://www.domain.com/" );
response.setHeader( "Connection", "close" );
%>

You can also use what semadvance suggests, and use the htaccess file to specify the the rediretc is a 301.

The key in both instances is a 301 redirect.

Dave

[chocolate4free]

Hi,

Thank you Dave and SemAdvance - I'll get these things rectified. I appreciate your responses.

Once I have your suggestions implemented do I need to submit my site to Google for reconsideration?
If I do have to submit for reconsideration - do I need to fix anything else before?

I thought I would add a site map and last night I verified my site in the Google section for Webmaster Tools and informed them of my preferred domain. It confirmed the URL situation that SemAdvance wrote about asking me to choose between:

http : //ww w.teddywear. com

or

http : // teddywear . com

Also, how can I avoid getting into a googlefark again? I am not sure how this has happened.

SemAdvance wrote that I was not banned - I was relieved to hear this but I am curious about how you managed to establish this as I could not find my site on google at all, no cache, no internal links, no pages.

Thanks again for your help.

[ctabuk]

Is there a reason why you are disguising the URL in these posts?

At first I thought 'adult site' but no it's clothing. I'll leave the redirect with crankydave but each page needs html coding - this is the Nursery page
Children's Designer Clothes at Teddywear
Needs to read /Nursery-Christenings.html or vice versa and No you are not banned

[chocolate4free]

Originally Posted by ctabuk

Is there a reason why you are disguising the URL in these posts?

At first I thought 'adult site' but no it's clothing.

Yes, I left spaces in between the URLs so you can see the difference as both the URLS just show up as a link to "Children's Designer Clothes at Teddywear".

I had to edit it a few times. Hope that makes sense now.

Originally Posted by ctabuk

I'll leave the redirect with crankydave but each page needs html coding - this is the Nursery page
Children's Designer Clothes at Teddywear
Needs to read /Nursery-Christenings.html or vice versa and No you are not banned

Thank you for this suggestion. This makes a lot of sense. I'll have to look into this as I do not know how to do it.

[ctabuk]

My pleasure - thanks for the PM

[labeler2003]

There is a blog post titled "An Easy Way To Get Banned In Google" that describes exactly how to find out if a site has been banned. The post is at:

Steve Hudgik's Internet Marketing Blog - Internet Results: An Easy Way To Get Banned From Google

It talks about using the Google Site Maps tool available in Google Webmaster Tools. It will specifically identify a site as being banned, if that is the case.

The site discussed as being banned in Google was reinstated to Google. There is a post on that also.

[chrisJumbo]

We don't have an htaccess file on our domains server. First, is it just simply a text file called .htaccess? If so once created, can I then just simply FTP into our domains root folder (where the index.htm file is)?

cd :O)

[chocolate4free]

I have definately been banned and I know why!

I have just uncovered the most horrific situation and I cannot believe I am in this situation!

After receiving all your suggestions (thanks) I started to work on them. Firstly, I have downloaded my site from the server and started looking at the pages in dreamweaver and have found I have been hacked by a credit loan company.

http: // www. excelrchobbies. com

I have tons of outbound links to this companies many, many pages.

However, the links are not obvious they are totally hidden! I cannot figure it out.

What a nightmare - I have no idea how I am going to sort out this mess!

[crankydave]

Go over your site with a fine toothed comb.

Remove all the links and correct anything else that may be dodgy, if anything.

Submit a reinclusion request.

Dave

ETA... Let's back the truck up here...

The URL you posted doesn't go anywhere.

I took a look at the source code for a few pages and I'm not seeing that URL anyplace.

Dave

[malco-UK]

Checked out excelrchobbies.com with Alexa.

It has nine sites linking in, blackmagic.com, RANK 134,000, Teddywear.com Rank 624,000, efamilybusiness.com Rank 1212691, 3 other low rank, then domain1.orbitscript.com Rank 142000, rasalom.blackmagic.com Rank 134000

The site is a NO RANK model supplies ecommerce site. These incoming HIGH RANK sites must have been hacked.

Is this illegal in the USA, is it worth reporting. Should someone tell these sites. ??

I am a total amateur, so I dont know.

Good luck with teddywear.com.

[chocolate4free]

Dave,

The hacker put the links on 3 php pages and ALL of my old site which were htm pages approx 20.

The links were not visible on the pages, it was strange. It had been concealed using code as follows:

<p><prl><u style="display:none"><font size="1">

and then the links were endless 35 on each page.

An example is below but all of them led to different pages, however, all to do with loans or financial institutions.

www. excelrchobbies. com/catalog_old/pub/loan/citibank-loan.html

(spaces to ensure its not a real link)

However, all these pages now get a 404.

I have now deleted all the htm pages and removed the links from the PHP pages.

I have made a back-up of the pages too.

Incidentally, the pages were hacked August 6th 2006

Still struggling with the 301 redirect though!

Still working, combing through the website as you suggested too.

Zoe

P.s malco-UK - You are right I just looked at Alexa and I am showing as having linked to this site! Obviously when checking on google I can't find anything at this moment so that was useful. Thanks

[malco-UK]

Just a little off thread, one of the other links to excelrchobbies.com is rasalom.blackmagic.com/last/COM/E.html . It is a load of urls, starting with E, what does this do ????

[Mads Dam]

Hope it helps a bit; I've just reported excelrchobbies.com to siteadvisor.com

That won't suspend the site, but at least others will be warned now...

[chocolate4free]

Last night I cleaned 23 pages (805) links to:
http: // www. excelrchobbies. com
Today I had to remove additional links found hidden in my pages from:
http: // www. evomoto. com/ (blackmagic. com is also linking)
and
http: // microhealthsolutions. com/
Between these two sites I have found another 350 unwanted links!


malco-uk
I was thinking about your comments about whether it was illegal and I am fairly confident that it is most definately illegal.
However, I really do not know if I would be able to seek legal recompense.

Unfortunately for me being hacked like this and losing my place within google is a devastating blow as I have just expanded my business and was relying on the internet business to support my new venture through its first year. I have just opened a small retail shop (London based so the rent and rates are not cheap!)
Teddywear has been a stable source of income for over three years. I have had a PR5 for 2 years and high CTR via Google.

Of course, I do understand why Google has banned me with so much hidden spam but I figure it will take time for matters to be put right. It is the time that this may take to recitify that could ultimately be the problem.

Thank you for your interest.

Zoe

[wige]

It is technically illegal to gain unauthorized access to a computer system for the purposes of stealing, altering or accessing data that you have not been authorized to. However, it can be difficult to track down the person who did this, and unless you can show specific monetary damages, it would be difficult to prosecute the offender successfully. In most cases this would be considered vandalism, even if the purpose was to get you banned from the search engines, and would be given a lower priority from the law enforcement standpoint than data theft or theft of credit card numbers for example.

At this point, your priority once you have recovered from the compromise and started your resubmission process with Google is to secure your site/server to prevent this problem from happening again. There are some pretty good free tools you can use to scan your server and look for vulnerable points (mostly the same tools the attackers would have used in the first place, assuming this wasn't an attack targeting you specifically). Also make sure any custom scripts you have installed have intensive input verification.

[chocolate4free]

Hello Wige,

Thanks for your help with this.

Showing monetary damage would be no problem, the reason I investigated my traffic initially is that I have noticed a decrease in sales from new business. I also noticed a general decrease in traffic.
Teddywear has been established since October 2003 and after a couple of years building the business, developing PR etc it has been very stable, so a comparision to show this months gross profit against the last few years during the same quarter should be confirmation enough.
However, I don't think I will find the culprit and to this end I whole heartedly agree with your comments about securing the site. You mentioned some good free tools - can you share these with me please?

I think short term it will be clean, repair, secure, resubmit but I think I need to look into a system that is tighter longterm.

Thanks again for your contribution. Its been a tough week!

[wige]

Sent some information, should be in your Private Messages.

[HamletBatista]

chocolate4free,

Any chance this may have been done by somebody you know. Maybe tech or SEO you hired?