Article by Pierre Zarokian. As a provider of online reputation management services, we often get inquiries about removing negative content and reviews from Google. Often our prospects cannot afford our services because all options for removing content from Google are time consuming and hence expensive. Most often content cannot be removed, but you can push […]
Tag Archives: GOOGLE
Recent Changes to Google Instant Search
Article by Pierre Zarokian Several years ago, Google launched a new feature that would display the results of a search as you type them out. Dubbed “Google Instant” the company was delivering a new idea in real-time search. As of today, this feature is effectively removed from Google’s search engine. We’ve got the scoop, so […]
Project Owl, and Google’s Attempt to Hit Fake News Where it Hurts
Google’s got a big problem, and it’s the same one that’s plaguing Facebook. How do you deal with fake news, when the truth is evolving in real time? A new update from the search engine, codenamed “Project Owl”, aims to try and curb the fake news epidemic. It’s also making some interesting changes to search, […]
Ripoff Report Removed from Google for Several Hours, What Happened?
Written by Pierre Zarokian
We stumbled across something quite amazing this morning: RipOffReport appeared to have been completely de-indexed by Google for several hours. We can confirm that at 11 AM pacific standard time, performing a search for “site:ripoffreport.com” or the Ripoff Report brand name returned no results. Although the site has since shown up in Google’s index, it’s interesting that the outage lasted as long as it did.
Another intriguing aspect of this story is that Google was listing a legal request from ChillingEffects.org on its search page. It’s possible that there was some kind of copyright infringement claim made against the company. It’s not immediately clear as to what the nature of that claim could be, but people try to sue the website all the time.
Was Ripoff Report caught doing something Google didn’t like? And if that’s true, what did Ripoff Report do to get back in Google’s good graces? At this point, the answer is unclear. It’s entirely possible that the site was de-indexed as a result of any one of a number of technical errors on the part of the webmaster. How many SEOs routinely deal with a problematic robots.txt file?
Why the website disappeared, and why it has remained de-indexed for couple of hours remains a mystery. I can speak from experience that a problem like this isn’t something a webmaster wants to put off for very long, so it’s likely Ripoff Report was doing everything in its power to get its listings back on Google, which would also explain why the company had no comment on the incident.
This brings back memories of an incident that took place in 2011. Some tech at Ripoff Report accidentally got Ripoffreport.com deindexed from Google using Google webmaster account. Google recognized that this was a potential mistake and reached out to Ripoff Report in order to confirm the problem. It was an important lesson for all of us on delegating ownership to our accounts.
Is this situation similar, or even the same? It’s hard to say at this point. We have no access to legal documents, and the de-indexing only lasted for a few hours. We have every reason to believe the removal was most likely caused by a technical problem with Ripoff Report’s backend.
KEEPING TRACK OF PENGUIN UPDATES
Did you feel that rumble? Was it another Penguin update? It’s hard to keep track of every time Google makes an adjustment to its Penguin algorithm, or webspam filter. But as far as we know Google usually announces Penguin updates, which means if they haven’t announced it yet, it probably didn’t happen. Search Engine Land […]
GOOGLE ADDS NEW FEATURE TO ADWORDS SEARCH FUNNELS
Google has added a new feature to its AdWords Search Funnels, a set of reports designed to help users make better decisions about their AdWords keywords, ad groups, and campaigns. By using the new Search Funnels columns, users can now more easily integrate the important data into their everyday optimizations, including their campaign, add group, […]
MAJORITY OF WEBMASTER TOOLS MESSAGES RESPOND TO BLACK HAT TECHNIQUES
In a YouTube video published earlier this month, Google’s Matt Cutts addresses valuable questions regarding the types of messages Google sends out via Webmaster Tools. A user in Tokyo, Japan asked: How many types of messages do you (Webmaster Tools) send now? And, how do you decide what message you send? According to Cutts, Google […]