Removed From Google Index, and Wondering Why? - Over Optimization Penalty
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This summer, a new term emerged: over optimization penalty. This refers to the tweaks most SEOs make to pages to "fine tune" them to the top of their keyword categories. Page length, keyword density, bold, underline, italics, H1 formulas, link text, and various other small elements are manipulated until the perfect balance is struck, and the SEOed site contains just a small bit more of these tweaks than the other sites in the top 10. It can be a full time job keeping a site at that level with these tiny changes.
Google has raised the bar, however: it is now effectively saying that high keyword densities, and many of the other SEO tweaks, are evidence of too much SEO. Filters are created, and such sites drop in the rankings. Sites that have been playing too close to the edge are penalized.
ALT Text
This tweak involves putting your keyword in Alt text. Not only does this contribute to your ideal word count, but it may look like keyword stuffing in the ALT tags. To clean this up up, switch to clear text navigation.
Old Link Exchanges
Pages stored in the Internet Archive may indicate the site was once involved in some questionable link exchanges.
Duplicate Content
All duplicate pages should be eliminated. Link to just one page consistently.
Once all of these changes have been made, what do you do? You can, of course, try writing help@google.com. According to its Webmaster Guidelines, however, "We do not make any guarantees about if or when we will re-include your site." (www.google.com/webmasters/2.html)
I personally know of only four sites that have been re-included after manual removal. In each case, the site was crawled regularly, but was not included in the index for over six months. I don't know the specific reason for this, of course, but I would imagine it might be some sort of testing period. How strong is a webmaster's resolve to walk the straight and narrow, after all, despite lack of indexing?
So, assuming the best case scenario, you might be looking at six months or more before your sites are re-included in the index. Once delisted, I also imagine such sites must stay squeaky clean. An SE might be forgiven once, but seldom (if ever) twice.
Next: Looking Ahead >>
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