Recently had one of my websites that was once listed in the top 25K sites in the world according to Alexa, dropped from the natural listings of Google altogether. The site was receiving well over 1.5 M monthly page views, had a sitemap in Google search results and was well indexed in Google, until I noticed a dramatic decrease in new visitors a few days ago, and found the culprit being no more links indexed in the Google natural search results, and the site pretty much removed from existence. Imagine the horror, after 7 months spent day and night, you pour your heart and soul on a project, just to find that Google has removed your site from their index!!!
This is exactly what I felt like……
What makes the matter worse, is that I am not even sure why it was removed? I have contacted Google on a number of occasions, but Google being…..”Google” has not responded or even acknowledged receipt of email. At least if they respond, I would know what was done wrong, so that I can fix the error and not do it again. I have tried to contact them through their Webmaster Tools and same thing - no response.
The site is an niche online movie aggregator that gathers videos from different sources, embeds those files and displays them in a nice, neat and orderly fashion. There are numerous online movie aggregators doing exactly what I am doing and even taking it to the next level, where they are hosting some movies directly. These sites are nicely indexed with Google and have very deep natural links additionally have also been approved for Adsense and I also see them advertising on Adwords, so I have no idea why Google would take offense and remove my website from their natural listings, no warning….nothing. POOF!
So I decide to take another route by using their Adwords solution and spend money to get Google visitors and here is the exact response I receive from Google after being denied for my first submission:
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At this time, Google policy does not permit the advertisement of websites (including services or products therein) that violate or encourage violation of any applicable laws. In this case, your advertisement directs users to a website that either contains (or claims to contain) copyrighted TV shows, movies, or music that cannot be distributed freely online, or your website promotes the availability of such material without the consent of the copyright holder.
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The part in their response that makes absolutely no sense and shows Google’s double standards is that according to them, the ‘advertisement directs users to a website that contains copyrighted TV shows, movies or music’ in other words….YouTube and Google Videos, BOTH of which are owned and operated by Google. So if I am directing users to something inappropriate, according to them, then Google should remove those videos from their own properties. They have basically admitted that there is something inherently wrong with sites that contain copyrighted TV shows, movies or music, which is at the heart, essence and core of their two largest portals - YouTube and Google Videos. They, themselves are hosting these videos and are refusing my advertisement because I have links to their websites. This is the height of double standards, and needs to be addressed.
All is not lost however, as Yahoo still has the site nicely indexed in their natural listings and is sending a steady stream of new visitors and users. Although a fraction of the traffic that Google sends, I definitely am glad that Yahoo has separate algorithms in place when it comes to natural search. With Google taking such a dramatic step by removing my listings, I have learned a major lesson, that Google is not necessarily the solution when it comes to search. I need more…. I need Yahoo, Live, Ask and more. Previous searches on Google that resulted in my site coming up on the first page no longer show my site in the first 50 (i stopped looking after 50 pages). This leads me to believe that the selection process and algorithms Google has in place may not necessarily be giving us the full spectrum of results as we have always imagined.
