I own an education website which i spent quite a lot building as a student.

its accessibility, coding etc according to silktide.com is excellent.

and yet has only PR 1. - terrible. i know.
its about 2 years old and gets less than 10 visits a day.
it has about 300 unique backlinks


only reason i can think of is because I engaged in a small black hat activity a while back when i could not afford any marketing activities. l learnt a valuable lesson - do not do black hat crap.

I am thinking of removing the site entirely from engines using robot.txt by disallowing any spider activities. I douby it will wipe out my dark history.
I have to keep my domain name as well.

will it work ? will it reset everything and treat my site without perception ?


Please advise

Hi private...welcome to the forums. You may wish to check this out: http://mattcutts.com/blog/reinclusion-request-howto/

Other search engines also offer this ability...do a search for "reinclusion request [engine name]"

Good luck!

but my site is still on google.

its not banned. i can't ask for reinclusion if its not banned.


Please Help.

You problem is unique. I hope the unique links you are talking about are from related sites and of good PR. If not that may be the reason for low PR of your site and low traffic as well. I am considering that is not the case here. What I can think is that you buy another seasoned domain at some auction (but be careful to check if it is banned) and then copy your site to that domain. Put 301 redirect on your original site. So that you will retain the existing users and will be able to start the new site as well.

With regards,
Mandar Thosar

but my site is still on google.

its not banned. i can't ask for reinclusion if its not banned.


Please Help.
Hi private, you say in your title that the site is "removed from Google Index." That means banned. If you do a [site:URL] search, does Google give you any listings?

(***Added: If you had bothered to read the second paragraph of the link above to Matt Cutts' blog, you would have seen: If you’ve been experimenting with SEO, or you employ as SEO company that might be doing things outside Google’s guidelines, and your site has taken a precipitous drop recently, you may have a spam penalty. A reinclusion request asks Google to remove any potential spam penalty.)

Hi private, you say in your title that the site is "removed from Google Index." That means banned. If you do a [site:URL] search, does Google give you any listings?

(***Added: If you had bothered to read the second paragraph of the link above to Matt Cutts' blog, you would have seen: )


Thank you for your reply Chris.

Actually my title says removING from Google Index, not removed.

when i do site:URL i see my site.

I did read Matt Cutt's blog. I tried to request reinclusion but only it seems i can only do this through Google Sitemap Page. But it does not allow me that option because I feature in the engine.

So, i put a robots.txt on my root to disallow all spider activities. And perhaps I can request reinclusion afterwards.

Shall I try and email Google ?

Please advise me on what to do.


Thank you ever so much

HI P, sorry but I cannot be of much help to you without knowing the specifics. You may want to seek a professional analysis of your site - there are many SEO companies that do this for free ( ;) )

btw I am not sure what you mean by "I tried to request reinclusion but only it seems i can only do this through Google Sitemap Page. But it does not allow me that option because I feature in the engine."

You should be able to get to the reinclusion request form by logging in to webmaster tools (formerly Google sitemaps), adding your site and verifying ownership, then clicking the Tools link in the upper right of the My Sites page and choosing "Submit a reinclusion request".

Blocking your site with a robots.txt file so that it gets taken from the index completely, then changing the robots.txt file so the site is allowed won't reset any potential penalties.

You should be able to get to the reinclusion request form by logging in to webmaster tools (formerly Google sitemaps), adding your site and verifying ownership, then clicking the Tools link in the upper right of the My Sites page and choosing "Submit a reinclusion request".

Blocking your site with a robots.txt file so that it gets taken from the index completely, then changing the robots.txt file so the site is allowed won't reset any potential penalties.

Thank you Vanessa. Found it.

Sorry Chris, my english is quite terrible.

But problem solved now. Thanks for all your help.

Excellent! fortunately Vanessa "rode in and saved the day." :) It's nice to see you here Vanessa. You Googlers are very helpful, as usual.

Sorry I was confused by the statement, private. For a second (or maybe third?) language, your english is far better than my Dutch!