Stuart McHenry - My Internet World

I must get a few emails and PM’s a week form people asking me how they can get there site back in Google. Here is an example of the type of email I get:

Dear Site Sift Guy,

My site was banned in Google a few days ago and Joe Blow (name changed) from Digital Point Forums said I need to speak with you. Can you tell me how I can get all 200,000 pages back in Google? My site is only a six months old but it would be nice to know how you got back in so fast.

Thanks,

Igotbanned

So my first thought is WOW 200,000 pages in six months probably why you got banned but who am I to judge the guy wanted to know how I got back in so here it goes.

First off there was a lot of speculation on why Site Sift Web Directory was banned. Nobody knows for sure but the people at Google and anyone that says different is guessing.

The first thing I did was send an email to Google inquiring about the ban. I got back a very template like email that mentions the common reasons why people get banned. Then I waited a few weeks after the ban to take in all the debates and to figure things out. In that time we worked on organizing some categories and taking care of what I felt might be the issues.

About three weeks into the ban I felt like we did a good job of identifying issues that lead to our ban. Around the same time I read a post on Matt Cutts blog about filling a reinclusion request. I also did a bit of research on what to say in the email for reinclusion.

I didn’t keep a copy of my original email but it went a little something like this:

Dear Google,

On Aug 26, 2005 my site www.site-sift.com was banned from the Google index. After careful review of the webmaster guidelines we have made the following changes to our site.

1) Change number one.
2) Change number two
3) Change number three
4) Change number four

The changes we made are permanent and we plan on strictly adhering to the webmaster guidelines going forward. We appreciate your consideration for reinclusion into the Google index.

Thank you,

Stuart McHenry
Site Sift Media, Inc.

So I sent a communication off via the Google form and labeled it attention: reinclusion request. I heard back from Google a few days later saying they had received my email and forwarded to the right department.

At that point I figured it would take a few months to get back in the index. A few days later I was doing my regular routine (checking Google daily) and I saw that Site Sift was back in. I really didn’t believe it at first and I thought something was funny and Google was serving up old data. Then I realized that Google is improving webmaster relations and this is proof of it.