The 800lb gorilla called google looked my way
Posted by Ian Holsman
rant
Well.. for some reason most of my ‘chatter’ sites have been removed from the google index.
the reason?
I don’t know. for all I know someone in the google operations centre was drunk was night and accidently clicked “blacklist” on my site.
Google’s arbitration process??
mail our support people with your transgressions and what you have done to fix them, and we might do something about it (in 2-3 weeks)
this sux is so many ways.
1. No notification was given, or reason was given to why it was blacklisted. (not even in there webmaster area, which I use) so I have no idea if there is a bug on their side, or if someone complained or if they didn’t like the color of the background.
2. No support queue. After following the google’s suggest fix (mail + prey). I didn’t get a receipt or a ticket assigned. I don’t even know if my mail reached a bot at the other end, or got eaten by a spam filter somewhere.
3. 2-3 week turnaround? and if it is your mistake? do I get a free t-shirt for the site being dead for that period? I’m lucky I don’t rely on them for feeding my family is all I can say.
now google can respond that they don’t have to index your site. they are a public company and there is no obligation from them to index me.
While that might have been true when they first started. They now hold a monopoly position as far as I can see. 80-90% of all searches are done through them.
In the monopoly position that they hold in the search market, you have different responsibilities to your users/suppliers.
I would argue that they need a impartial / independent body to deal with people getting blacklisted. at the very least they need to fix up their process to:
- notify the domain owner that their site is failing their quality guidelines and the specific reason they are failing, and they risk being blacklisted.
- have a ticketing system so we can see if a google operations person has looked into the dispute.
it’s not that much to ask is it? giving some feedback?
oh.. I’m not saying my site didn’t pass all of their guidelines, I think it was meeting all of them.