Blacklisted in Google, Now What?

With the most recent Google update on July 26th, I now have the experience of having a web site blacklisted in Google (not this one). How do I know?

Because I did a search on Google using site:mydomain.com and received no results.
Because I checked in the Google toolbar and the PR went from a digit to a grey bar.

The site was not a spam site, nor did it intentionally use SEO blackhat tricks. The site is even listed in dmoz.org and ranks highly on Yahoo and MSN. The site included many RSS and atom feeds. Is it possible some of those feeds (especially the atom ones) contained nasty web site spam tricks within them, which Google thought was my own site's content?

I know Google has automatic web site spam routines that check for spam web sites. When a site is blacklisted it is not done manually. At least that is what Google claims. So, basically you have to hope your web site does not fall into their spam detection routine... or that a careless programmer over at Google didn't add a little *too* much detection in the script. Come to think of it, how accurate are their search engine results if they automatically blacklist sites regularly now?

Now the big question, and I suppose, a learning experiment too.

How do I get a blacklisted site back into the Google index? How long will this take? Will I regain my PR or start from scratch?

Well for starters, I wrote Google an email. I'm sure that will just end up in a big black hole. So, I went further and submitted a Google Sitemap of the web site's pages using the new Sitemap program at Google. Happily, Googlebot did indeed download the sitemap without error. But whether this helps a site back into the index remains to be seen. I am hoping in the next Google update at the end of the month, I may begin to see Googlebot back at the site or even appear back in the index, or should I just go buy a new domain? :)

I would also like to take this time to express my dissappointment in Google. It is ashame that one search engine has such a monopoly on the Internet that being blacklisted from their holy search engine is almost like being banished from the entire web. That is just plain ridiculous. I praise MSN Search and Yahoo for trying to gain more ground and look forward to a more equal search engine playing field in times to come.

References:
Rathish’s Webspace » Blog Archive » Google blacklist
Blacklisted website update day 2 at David Kendall
How Search-Engine Rules Cause Sites to Go Missing

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