Dropped By Google

[crocodile hunter]

Can someone be so kind to assist? I recently updated my meta tags site trying to help my search rank - which it has helped alot on MSN and Yahoo - but now I cannot find my site listed (even 30 pages deep) on Google at all.

Is there something that is on my page which could have been treated as spam?

Here are my title and meta tags:


<title>something.com - Honeymoon Registry, Wedding Registry, Gift Registry, Honeymoon Registries</title>

<META name="description" content="Honeymoon Registry. Create your own Wedding Registry where guests purchase items from your Gift Registry. something.com Honeymoon Registries.">

<META name="keywords" content="Honeymoon registry, Wedding registry, Honeymoon registries, Gift registry, Honeymoon, Registry, something.com">

<META name="classification" content="Honeymoon registry, Honeymoon registries, Wedding registry, Gift registry, Honeymoon, Registry, something.com">

<META name="subject" content="Honeymoon registry, Honeymoon registries, Wedding registry, Gift registry, Honeymoon, Registry, something.com">


The other thing i've realized is that I have some color blocks at the top and bottom of the page. Ive done this by using '.' and setting the background color the same, i.e:

<td bgcolor="#d3e0ea" colspan=8>
<font color="#d3e0ea">.................................................. ....................
.................................................. ................................................
.................................................. ................................................
</font>
</td>

Could this be causing Google to drop my listing?

Thanks!

[seomike]

Crikey

You only need the keyword and description tags. The rest are just rubish.

Google usually drops those that have few to no quality in bound links. Submit your site to some free directories or get similar sites to drop you a link. That should get you crawled by Google and indexed :D

[crocodile hunter]

Mate -

I don't think that is the problem. I have some good inbound links (a few from PR 6 sites) and I am listed in the yahoo directory and dmoz. Also I am being spidered every night by googlebot plus most other crawlers.

In my previous email is there something there that would get my site dropped for spam - possibly repeating keywords in the meta tags?

[glengara]

I put your title in quotes in a G search, and the only result for "Honeymoon Registry, Wedding Registry, Gift Registry, Honeymoon Registries" was this forum thread.

Without an Url, it looks like either G hasn't indexed your site yet, or you're banned....

[crocodile hunter]

sorry if it wasn't obvious, but I didn't include my url or site name in my previous posts. the 'something.com' is a made up URL to mask my real site name.

guys, please believe me when i say that i am being crawled by google.

All i am asking is for you to look at my meta tags and also the hidden text that i pasted into my previous post to see if you see any problems that would have caused google to sandbox my site?

[sue]

Hi Hunter,
If you have hidden text in your website or text the same color as your background color, that is considered spam.

U mentioned that u had some hidden text, so may be it is the problem.
Otherwise, IMO ur title, desc. and keywords tags are fine. I also, don't think that the other 2 tags are imp.

best of luck,

[glengara]

Couple of things, you seem to have very few links, even Y! only shows 12 IIRC, and I'd move that bit of script from beside the Title tag, it seems to be stopping G from "seeing" it.

IMO your Metas are a bit spammy, particularly when you add-in your Alt tags, but I doubt that would cause any dramatic effect with G.

How old is the site, BTW?

[crocodile hunter]

Couple of things, you seem to have very few links, even Y! only shows 12 IIRC, and I'd move that bit of script from beside the Title tag, it seems to be stopping G from "seeing" it.

IMO your Metas are a bit spammy, particularly when you add-in your Alt tags, but I doubt that would cause any dramatic effect with G.

How old is the site, BTW?

The site was launched in Apri-May 05.

Hi, I am not sure i am following - what "bit of script" are you talking about? I don't use any java script on the site at all.

I am not sure that you would know anything else about the site (i.e. alt tags, etc) since i've never told anyone the site url?

[crocodile hunter]

Hi Hunter,
If you have hidden text in your website or text the same color as your background color, that is considered spam.

U mentioned that u had some hidden text, so may be it is the problem.
Otherwise, IMO ur title, desc. and keywords tags are fine. I also, don't think that the other 2 tags are imp.

best of luck,


The hidden text isnt exactly text - I use dots '.' the same color as the background of the table row to produce a color block on the page:

<td bgcolor="#d3e0ea" colspan=8>
<font color="#d3e0ea">.................................................. ....................
.................................................. ................................................
.................................................. ................................................
</font>
</td>


Would this be considered spam?

[glengara]

Is Sendusoff.com not the site in question?

Anyway, that bit of script has now gone...

[sue]

The hidden text isnt exactly text - I use dots '.' the same color as the background of the table row to produce a color block on the page:

<td bgcolor="#d3e0ea" colspan=8>
<font color="#d3e0ea">.................................................. ....................
.................................................. ................................................
.................................................. ................................................
</font>
</td>


Would this be considered spam?

I don't think using dots would be considered spamming since it is not real text.

On the other hand, I think that ur serps has dropped back due to G. latest updates and changes, some people face that case now with Google after these changes. You might find ur site still there but ur results just retreived to further away pages.

I would suggest; enhancing your page rank since it becomes one of the imp. factors for G., keep on increasing your site contents.

I also read something about G. heading towards paying more attention towards Adsense, so you might consider this too.

If you wish you can mail me ur website url,& keywords, I'd like to help as much as I can.

[calebw]

crocodile hunter:

In my opinion your hidden text is just not a good idea. You can create the same effect - filling that space so that you have the block background - by using a transparent gif image that is 1 pixel wide and as many pixels tall as you need to produce the desired hieght. While there may be merit in thinking Google wouldn't penalize because the dots aren't "Text", that is just speculation. What we do know to be fact is that Google abhors text that is the same color as the background behind it.

Those are my thoughts :). I know the thread is a bit dated, so maybe you've fixed the issues to your satisfaction already. If not, I urge you to drop the hidden dots.

-Caleb