A murdok reader shared his recent experiences of getting back in Google after being banned. His experience is quite unique — one I’d never heard before.
He said that his own experience in sending polite requests to the help@google.com e-mail address over a period of 2-3 months resulted only in an autoresponder message each time.
So, here’s what he did:
“When I got no results sending e-mails to help@google.com I decided to take the proverbial Google by the horns and telephone them. When I called Google at their Mountain View, CA headquarters, the telephonist was friendly and helpful. She asked if I had written to help@google.com. I told her I’d written several times without proper response, and I quoted the dates of my e-mails. She said: “OK, please send a new message to webmaster@google.com and use a code word in the subject line of the message. The code word is . She went on to say that I would have to use a code word in the subject line of my message and I would have to write the same day as otherwise the code word would be invalid.”
Four days later, he received this response:
“Re: [#] Thanks for your email. We will review your site. If we find that it is no longer violating our terms of service, we will re-include the site in our index.
Regards, The Google Team”
Nothing happened for three weeks, but a month following Google’s promise to review his site, his site was re-indexed and allowed back into the index.
This is phenomenal information! From now on, if any of your readers are banned from Google, they need to follow these steps to the letter:
1. Clean up your act! Determine (to the best of your abilities) why you were banned in the first place. Read their Webmaster Guidelines and their Terms of Service. Don’t contact them until you have done everything you can to make sure your site is squeaky clean and ready to be allowed back in the index.
2. Write to help@google.com and ask them to please review your site. Explain what steps you’ve taken to clean up your act, and ask them to consider reviewing your site for inclusion back in the engine. Save a copy of this email.
3. Wait 3-4 weeks (for the next spider run), and if your site hasn’t made it back in, write to help@google.com again. Explain that you wrote to them on , and that you’ve done everything you can think of to make sure your site is adhering to Google’s guidelines, and ask them again to review your site for inclusion back into the engine. Save a copy of this email.
4. Wait 3-4 weeks and do the same thing again. Save a copy of the email.
5. If this doesn’t work, call Google at their home headquarters (650) 330-0100) and explain that you’ve written to help@google.com three times, and be prepared to list the dates. If they continue using the “code name” solution, follow their directions explicitly. Enter the code name in the subject line, and write to webmaster@google.com that very day, UNLESS they give you different directions.
6. Be prepared for wait about a month for the site review and inclusion back in the index.
Thank you to the special murdok reader for sharing this experience with us!
Robin
Robin Nobles conducts live SEO workshops
(http://www.searchengineworkshops.com) in locations across North
America. She also teaches online SEO training
(http://www.onlinewebtraining.com). Localized SEO training is now
being offered through the Search Engine Academy.
(http://www.searchengineacademy.com) Sign up for SEO tips of the
day at mailto:seo-tip@aweber.com.
