German auto manufacturer BMW was recently banned from Google according to a recent ComputerWorld article highlighting the company’s tatics in online marketing. Google’s Webmaster Design Guidelines outlined the use of displaying different pages to users than search engines. BMW.de used this exact same technology that presents users with a different webpage than users would normally get. This tactic is often used by shady search engine marketers to create webpages that simply state keywords so many times that it would not make sense to a normal person. But when a user finds that page, they are presented with a different page that is more human readable. This type of marketing is very heavily discouraged by Google and resulted in BMW being banned.
How do I know if my site has been banned?
There are two ways to determine if you website has been banned:
Check your Google PageRank
In order to check your PageRank, you will need to download the Google Toolbar. Once you have installed the toolbar, navigate to your company’s homepage and view the PageRank bar. (You need to have advanced features enabled for this to work.) If your PageRank is 0 of 10, you may have been banned. By default, Google starts all webpages at 3 out of 10. Your score can increase or decrease from there, but factors such as how long the domain has been registered and whether Google knows about your site in the first place can cause a 0 PageRank.
Check Google’s Cache
In order to see if you website is listed in Google’s cache, go to www.google.com and type in the search box: cache:www.yoursite.com. See an example of Onepax’s website in Google Cache. If your website shows up, Google knows about your site and has it indexed. If your website does not appear, there is a good probability that either Google does not know your website exists and you need to submit it or your website has been banned. The key is that you should know if Google previously had your website in their cache.
What to do if your site has been banned
The great thing that Google offers is a second chance. Read the Webmaster Guidelines on Google’s website and make sure that your website complies with the rules. This includes removing any hidden text, cloaking, pages with irrelevant words and other sneaky tatics used to gain search engine ranking. Although they may help rankings temporarily, they will absolutely destroy your ranking if you get caught. If you are a small business, count on closing the doors if you don’t get re-listed!
Once you have removed the questionable content, try and contact Google via email or web forms (there are many ways to do so) and tell them that:
- The offending content has been removed.
- The webmaster of the website has acknowledged the fact that this practice is against Google’s policy.
- The company promises that this is a one-time incident and that it will never happen again.
Most bans last usually 2 to 4 weeks. At the end of the ban period, the website is inspected by robots for deceptive marketing tactics. If the page is found to still be using deceptive marketing tactics, it will be re-banned until it is eventually permanently banned. If your site is found to be clean of deceptive marketing techniques, Google with schedule your site for re-inclusion.
Need professional help?
Onepax has been providing support for businesses who have been banned from Google for over 4 years. If your company’s website site has been banned, don’t play the wait game with Google. Onepax has the expertise and skills necessary to ensure your company makes a swift and successful comeback from this potential show stopper.
February 7, 2006 
