The Google smackdown and minus 30, 60 and 950 penalties
Posted by Blueeyes at 9/7/2008 7:07 PM 
Categories: HOWTO, Hosting, Advice, Business, Computers, Internet, Interesting, Hacking, Crime, Blogging, website
Categories: HOWTO, Hosting, Advice, Business, Computers, Internet, Interesting, Hacking, Crime, Blogging, website
So you think it has happened. You got caught with the Google smackdown. Whether it is that your site has been moved from page 1 to 2,6 or even farther back you may have been penalized. What is the quickest way to tell if you have been penalized by Google (aka the Google smackdown)? Do a site search in Google under your own domain.
site:www.yourdomain.com
Unless you are a brand new site or are using highly competative keywords in your domain name you should show up at the top of this site search. You can also do this under the other search engines and it is slightly different, but we are primarily going to deal with Google here because it has a basic monopoly on most of the search engine traffic.
Now if you used to rank #1 or so for your domain name and now you rank #60 or so - that means you have a 99% chance of a penalty. The most common penalty is the minus 60. Supposedly, according to numerous sources and blogs (including Google and Matt Cutts) the minus 30 has been phased out and so there is the minus 60, minus 950 and then the last one you want - the ban.
Basically a minus 60 penalty will come by way of Google's filters. If they indicate a certain percentage of negative problems over your trust value (this is through their own algorithms which they hold in tight secrecy) then you will get yanked. This is why some sites that routinely practice black hat SEO techniques stay on - they have just enough authority or trust to keep themselves out of the filters.
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Now what exactly could cause your penalty? Hidden keywords (everyone knows this is a no no), hidden links, link schemes and farms (do you have 100 sites that all interlink to one another to boost each others Google rank - that is a definite link scheme), domain farming (having multiple domains that all sell the same product and have virtually the same content), etc... There are many things that can get you penalized and I am not going to list all of them here (for more go to Google webmaster guidelines).
Now, according to the Google discussion boards hacking is on the rise and this is now the leading reason for penalties like the minus 60. So, to get your website back up it is best to first change all your domain, hosting and similar passwords to very strong passwords. It is best to use a combination of letters, symbols and numbers so your password is almost impossible to crack. Then go through and do a search under your site for common hack terms:
Example: yourdomainname.com porn
You can also use ring tones, gambling, etc... you get the idea. Anything spam related will show in many hacks. If you see anything out of the ordinary go in there and remove it. Google will not let you back in until you have removed all of the hack code. Also, in more devious cases they may do stuff that would go unnoticed like meta tag spam, changing some links around so you link to other websites you own and look like a domain or link farm (usually only really nasty competitors will do this).
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You must remove all of the hack job. And the worst thing is that Google will just penalize you. Good luck at getting them to ever communicate with you and give you an idea of what happened or point you in the right direction. This is one area where I think Google needs to improve - if you and your billion dollar search engine can take the time to filter websites based on violations, hacks, etc... then you can at least take the time to state why in the Google webmaster tools or some similar way. Else, there are many websites like local cities, charities and others which didn't do anything wrong and were unfortunately hacked and now they have no idea of what all needs to be fixed and when or if their website will ever get back up in the rankings and out of the penalty.
If you were hacked then you may also want to consider moving your domains to a more secure hosting service. A bad hosting service with poor security could easily cost you your business especially when Google is so big that they virtually control the internet. Now, if you were penalized for something other than the hack then you probably know what it is and once you fix and remove your little tricks like hidden keywords or stop spamming forums enmass, then fill out a reconsideration request in your Google webmaster tools. Then it all depends on the seriousness of your infraction(s). It also depends on how authoritative or trust worthy Google sees you and your site. Low trust score and you could be left hanging for quite some time. If you are a big company like BMW or Ricoh you could be back up in a few days.
Good luck, don't get hacked and don't use black hat techniques - eventually you will get caught and receive the Google smackdown. Also don't hack - what comes around goes around - you may get hacked next. Treat others on the internet as you would want them to treat you. Don't cheat and try to be beneficial.
If you need a new host try hostmonster:
site:www.yourdomain.com
Unless you are a brand new site or are using highly competative keywords in your domain name you should show up at the top of this site search. You can also do this under the other search engines and it is slightly different, but we are primarily going to deal with Google here because it has a basic monopoly on most of the search engine traffic.
Now if you used to rank #1 or so for your domain name and now you rank #60 or so - that means you have a 99% chance of a penalty. The most common penalty is the minus 60. Supposedly, according to numerous sources and blogs (including Google and Matt Cutts) the minus 30 has been phased out and so there is the minus 60, minus 950 and then the last one you want - the ban.
Basically a minus 60 penalty will come by way of Google's filters. If they indicate a certain percentage of negative problems over your trust value (this is through their own algorithms which they hold in tight secrecy) then you will get yanked. This is why some sites that routinely practice black hat SEO techniques stay on - they have just enough authority or trust to keep themselves out of the filters.
Front Page Hosting $6.95
Now what exactly could cause your penalty? Hidden keywords (everyone knows this is a no no), hidden links, link schemes and farms (do you have 100 sites that all interlink to one another to boost each others Google rank - that is a definite link scheme), domain farming (having multiple domains that all sell the same product and have virtually the same content), etc... There are many things that can get you penalized and I am not going to list all of them here (for more go to Google webmaster guidelines).
Now, according to the Google discussion boards hacking is on the rise and this is now the leading reason for penalties like the minus 60. So, to get your website back up it is best to first change all your domain, hosting and similar passwords to very strong passwords. It is best to use a combination of letters, symbols and numbers so your password is almost impossible to crack. Then go through and do a search under your site for common hack terms:
Example: yourdomainname.com porn
You can also use ring tones, gambling, etc... you get the idea. Anything spam related will show in many hacks. If you see anything out of the ordinary go in there and remove it. Google will not let you back in until you have removed all of the hack code. Also, in more devious cases they may do stuff that would go unnoticed like meta tag spam, changing some links around so you link to other websites you own and look like a domain or link farm (usually only really nasty competitors will do this).
Host Unlimited Domains On 1 Hosting Account
You must remove all of the hack job. And the worst thing is that Google will just penalize you. Good luck at getting them to ever communicate with you and give you an idea of what happened or point you in the right direction. This is one area where I think Google needs to improve - if you and your billion dollar search engine can take the time to filter websites based on violations, hacks, etc... then you can at least take the time to state why in the Google webmaster tools or some similar way. Else, there are many websites like local cities, charities and others which didn't do anything wrong and were unfortunately hacked and now they have no idea of what all needs to be fixed and when or if their website will ever get back up in the rankings and out of the penalty.
If you were hacked then you may also want to consider moving your domains to a more secure hosting service. A bad hosting service with poor security could easily cost you your business especially when Google is so big that they virtually control the internet. Now, if you were penalized for something other than the hack then you probably know what it is and once you fix and remove your little tricks like hidden keywords or stop spamming forums enmass, then fill out a reconsideration request in your Google webmaster tools. Then it all depends on the seriousness of your infraction(s). It also depends on how authoritative or trust worthy Google sees you and your site. Low trust score and you could be left hanging for quite some time. If you are a big company like BMW or Ricoh you could be back up in a few days.
Good luck, don't get hacked and don't use black hat techniques - eventually you will get caught and receive the Google smackdown. Also don't hack - what comes around goes around - you may get hacked next. Treat others on the internet as you would want them to treat you. Don't cheat and try to be beneficial.
If you need a new host try hostmonster:
Yeah, got hacked too. They installed some kind of malware on mine and if you look at my website through Google you get a warning for it. There is a badware or malware resubmission button in my google webmaster console, but I won't bet on Google getting to it very soon. It sucks, though, because my Google traffic is gone.
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I got hacked too and the morons at Google will not review my site or put it back up. It has been permanently penalized or banned. I think the government needs to start looking into how much power and influence Google now has over the internet world.
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How many sites can you own and safely interlink with no chance at all of collecting a penalty from google. Say for instance that you have 20 sites, can you link all of those as much as you want, or do you need to exercise care.
Also, would google ever look at which domains you have registered in webmaster tools to check for interlinking? Surely they wouldn't, but if they did then I could see the benefit of setting up several google webmaster accounts.
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