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Google: Judge, Jury and Executioner?
By Sasch Mayer (c) 2007

Your website has gone from being in the Google search results
for several years to not even being included in Google's index.

What happened?

I generally spend a few hours a week taking part in discussions
and lending the occasional helping hand at the Google Webmaster
Help ((http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help?hl=en)
group, a forum set up to help address the problems and technical
queries of frustrated webmasters, designers and SEOs with regards
to anything from site verification to indexing & crawling; in
fact, just about any Google related issue imaginable.

Populated by a colourful mix of regular characters and part-time
contributors from across the globe as well as more than a few of
Google's own staff, it acts as a kind of front-line support
forum which has thus far attracted a membership of over 16,000.

Indeed, this article is the result of one particular discussion
thread which caught my eye this afternoon.

What Happened to My Site?

As another user quite rightly pointed out, this is by far the
most commonly asked question in the Google webmaster help group.

Which is to say; "My web site was ranking very well up until
recently, but has now dropped in the results or disappeared from
the Google index altogether."

Although the comment about this question's frequency was
initially made as part of a post highlighting the need for a
properly structured FAQ section, it eventually prompted a heated
debate regarding Google's spam report and penalty system which
raised a few interesting points of its own.

Persecuted by Google?

The general stance taken by group members on one side of the
discussion was that, if a web site simply disappears from the
index without having previously employed 'black hat' tactics,
the fault must be Google's for persecuting it as a result of
malicious spam reports made by competitors.

Having seen this type of allegation levelled against Google
before, I followed the discussion with great interest wondering
where things would end up.

After some to and fro involving the usual mix of paranoia,
guesses and solid advice, one user pointed out that the issue
had been briefly addressed only a short while ago by Google's
Adam Lasnik, stating:

"Spamfighting does not factor in a "popularity of the
commons" scheme whereby if [x] people vote a site off the Google
Island; it is ceremoniously dumped into /dev/null.

Put more directly: Having someone (or even 42 MILLION
people) report a site as spam will not change how we view a
site. Our spam report, rather, helps us to become aware of pages
violating our guidelines that we might not yet have crawled...
enabling us to have another datapoint in our search quality
efforts." Full Post (http://groups.google.com/group/
Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/browse_frm/thread/
a5e922c6a36e19c1/307f715d60485335?lnk=gst&q=&rnum=57
&hl=en#307f715d60485335)

To quote one user's interpretation of the above statement: "If
it were really this easy to bump your competitor out of the
rankings, every site in the world would now be banned and the
Google index would be empty.

When a spam/abuse report is filed, Google looks at the spam
techniques used and investigates ways to improve its algorithm
to find these spam techniques in the future on all sites - not
one site in particular."

If a web site loses its rankings or is dropped from the Google
index altogether, there is usually a reason; an issue which
needs to be addressed in order to regain the lost ground or be
re-included in the search results.

Despite the fact that Google's Judge, Jury and Executioner
approach of deleting sites from the index without notice may
seem draconian at first glance, one should remember that it has
become a search-leviathan, not only having to deal with an
almost unfathomable number of indexed pages, but also having to
differentiate between relevant and irrelevant resources whilst
weeding out black-hat techniques in the process.

Speaking from personal experience, it seems to me that many
webmasters are much quicker to level the finger at Google (and
other engines) than they are to diagnose their own web sites in
order to find out whether something is wrong.

Furthermore, a fair proportion of them still seem to be entirely
unfamiliar with Google's Webmaster Tools
(http://www.google.com/webmasters/ or even the Google Webmaster
Guidelines (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/
answer.py?answer=35769&hl=en).

The fact is that, love it or hate it; Google provides its users
with a whole array of applications to aid the monitoring and
ongoing promotion of their sites, as well as a host of other
resources, including blogs, help pages and even the occasional
piece of personal advice via the webmaster help group.

So, whilst Google-bashing is rapidly becoming a favourite
pastime for some webmasters whose sites have been caught in the
latest algorithm update or are struggling in the face of growing
competition, I cannot help but wonder if their time and efforts
would not be better spent redeveloping their web sites,
addressing W3C Compliance (http://www.icegiant.co.uk/
w3c_compliance.html) issues and/or generating high-quality
content and inbound links to aid their chances of future success.

In the immortal words of Henry Ford; "Don't find fault. Find a
remedy."

If all else fails, take a look through the webmaster help
group's archives and, if you don't find the answer to your
problem there, post a question.

There's usually someone at hand willing to give advice.
================================================================
With a writing career spanning well over a decade, Sasch Mayer
currently lives in Larnaca, where he works under contract to
IceGiant Web Design in Cyprus (http://www.icegiant.co.uk/
web_design/web_design_in_cyprus.html). You will find further,
non-solicited articles, tips and quality web and graphic design
services at the IceGiant web site.
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