On the 11th August 2008 this site was removed from the Google Search Index. The following is a diary of the steps that we have taken in the hope that Google will at some point reinclude the site.
For the sake of continuity we have numbered the individual steps taken to provide a running total of the number of changes made.
Our sincere thanks to the following people for the gracious help and advice they have provided thus far:
JohnMu
Susan Moskwa
John Honeck
Phil Payne
Rebecca Sharpe
BBdeath
The initial Google Reinclusion Request (submitted August 18, 2008)
Dear Sir/Madam,
Since Monday 11th August we have seen Google traffic drop to almost zero and our site spicegirlslondonescorts.com appears to have been penalised and removed from the index for keyword searches.
This happened following 72 hours of server downtime due to a hard drive failure. The site is now hosted elsewhere.
Following the disappearance of the site, we posted on Google Groups and received a response from Google’s John Mueller.
After reading John’s comments and those of JLH and other members, it appears that the site was in breach of Google Webmaster Guidelines on Linking and Link Schemes.
Having identified the problems we believe have led to the penalty, Eight steps have been taken to bring the site fully into compliance with Webmaster Guidelines.
1. The Reciprocal Link Exchange Directory
The “Link Exchange” pages have been removed and the following page URLs now return a .410 “Gone” status:
http://spicegirlslondonescorts.com/links//
http://spicegirlslondonescorts.com/links/linking.html
http://spicegirlslondonescorts.com/links/linkingThanks.html
The deleted pages have been removed from the sitemap.
The footer text link “Links” now points to the new links page, http://spicegirlslondonescorts.com/links.htm
2. Paid Text Links
During late 2005 and early 2006, paid links with keyword-rich anchor text were purchased following guidance in the Digitalpoint forums (http://forums.digitalpoint.com). These links were placed on a network of sites based in Canada and the USA and operated by Dale Tudge.
As soon as we knew that this policy was contrary to Google Webmaster Guidelines, the links were cancelled. That was almost two years ago. We have not paid for a link of any sort in almost two years and have never sold links.
Despite numerous emails to Mr Tudge requesting that the links be removed, he has not replied to messages nor acted upon them.
3. Statcounter
The invisible statcounter code has been removed from the homepage as it was technically in breach of Google's "hidden link" policy. The new homepage statcounter is visible.
4. Broken Sitewide Link
The "Contact us" link on EVERY page of the website incorrectly pointed to: http://spicegirlslondonescorts.com/$myEmail
This returned a .404 "not found" for almost 400 links sitewide and was due to a misconfiguration in the Content Management System. This error has been corrected, and the “Contact us” link now points to the correct page (http://spicegirlslondonescorts.com/our-email-address.html).
5. Hidden Text Link
At the bottom of every page on the website, there is the text "© 2005 - 2008 Spice Girls London Escorts".
The designer had hyperlinked the words "London Escorts" to the homepage. This has now been corrected and every hyperlink has been removed from every page of the website.
There are no other hidden links anywhere on the site.
6. Webmaster Tools
Each of the six errors currently reported in Webmaster Tools (as of 15.08.08) has been addressed: http://spicegirlslondonescorts.com/$myEmail – now returns a .410 http://spicegirlslondonescorts.com/&usg=ALkJrhgz6MRDcFkp-kcCoKgNS9ERG-CLtQ - now returns a .410
The remaining four errors are due to server downtime.
7. Broken Links
Xenu identified 122 broken links sitewide – primarily to images. All 122 links have been manually fixed and Xenu currently reports no broken links or other errors.
8. Outbound/External Links
The site has around 500 outbound links to related escort websites and directories. Each of these has been checked and broken links have been removed from the relevant pages. To the best of our knowledge, there are no links to bad neighbourhoods.
Having taken the steps above, we believe the site is now fully compliant with Google Webmaster Guidelines and will ensure that it remains so.
Please accept my apologies for the inconvenience caused.
Yours sincerely,
In addition to the above, the following issues were addressed after the Reinclusion Request was submitted:
9. Outbound Links
We have removed all 36 pages of outbound links from the Links section. The links page now has just six outgoing links – all with the rel="nofollow" attribute.
10. Custom .404 page
A custom .404 page (http://spicegirlslondonescorts.com/notfound.shtml) has been added to the site. All the URLs which have been removed from the site correctly send the visitor to the .404 page.
11. Font size and colour
Each page on the site contains a “unique header” – at the very top of every page. To ensure that this header can better be distinguished from the black background, the font type has been changed to Verdana and the colour changed from dark grey to off-white. The headers are now clearly visible.
12. Footer links
The footer links “box” has been removed from the site - sitewide.
13. Permanent .301 redirects
.301 redirects have been added to the .htaccess file to remove any canonicalisation issues. All pages correctly redirect to the root – “/”.
14. Incorrect .200 Status Codes
The Content Management System had been returning a .200 Status Code for non-existent .htm and .html URLs. This error has been fixed and a correct .404 Status Code is now reported.
15. Incorrect usage of the h1 tag
The h1 tag had been disguised as small text using css. This has now been corrected and the h1 tag is correctly - prominently - displayed.
16. h2, h3 and h4 tags
h2, h3 and h4 tags have been added where appropriate to denote new paragraphs and other relevant content.
17. Footer links
Some 50 footer links have been removed from each page on the site.
18. alt tags
The "alt" attribute has been added to the images on the homepage. It will also be added to the other 300 or so images on the site.
19. Homepage banners
Outbound banner graphics have been removed from the homepage.
20. Homepage Keyword density
Keyword density on the homepage has been reduced as follows:
"London" – 2.12% (from 4.72%)
"escort" – 3.66% (from 5.59%)
"escorts" – 2.6% (from 3.23%)
21. Hosting
The site has been moved to a UK-based server - in London!
22. Google Webmaster Tools
All issues reported by Webmaster Tools have been addressed: 50 Duplicate Title Tags have been fixed.
92 Short Meta Descriptions have been fixed.
4 Duplicate Meta Descriptions have been fixed.
In addition, Webmaster Tools currently reports no errors.
Saturday, 20th September 2008.
Well, today it finally happened: the site has been placed back in the search index!
We have not managed to regain our previous rankings in the index, but hey, that's only fair! We now have something to work toward.
Interestingly enough, the site is better placed when searching in the US than the UK.
Lastly, for all of you folks trying to get your site back into the index: stay optimistic. It can be done. If anything, the experience is invaluable. You need to accept criticism - harsh criticism - and act on it.
For the sake of continuity we have numbered the individual steps taken to provide a running total of the number of changes made.
Our sincere thanks to the following people for the gracious help and advice they have provided thus far:
JohnMu
Susan Moskwa
John Honeck
Phil Payne
Rebecca Sharpe
BBdeath
The initial Google Reinclusion Request (submitted August 18, 2008)
Dear Sir/Madam,
Since Monday 11th August we have seen Google traffic drop to almost zero and our site spicegirlslondonescorts.com appears to have been penalised and removed from the index for keyword searches.
This happened following 72 hours of server downtime due to a hard drive failure. The site is now hosted elsewhere.
Following the disappearance of the site, we posted on Google Groups and received a response from Google’s John Mueller.
After reading John’s comments and those of JLH and other members, it appears that the site was in breach of Google Webmaster Guidelines on Linking and Link Schemes.
Having identified the problems we believe have led to the penalty, Eight steps have been taken to bring the site fully into compliance with Webmaster Guidelines.
1. The Reciprocal Link Exchange Directory
The “Link Exchange” pages have been removed and the following page URLs now return a .410 “Gone” status:
http://spicegirlslondonescorts.com/links//
http://spicegirlslondonescorts.com/links/linking.html
http://spicegirlslondonescorts.com/links/linkingThanks.html
The deleted pages have been removed from the sitemap.
The footer text link “Links” now points to the new links page, http://spicegirlslondonescorts.com/links.htm
2. Paid Text Links
During late 2005 and early 2006, paid links with keyword-rich anchor text were purchased following guidance in the Digitalpoint forums (http://forums.digitalpoint.com). These links were placed on a network of sites based in Canada and the USA and operated by Dale Tudge.
As soon as we knew that this policy was contrary to Google Webmaster Guidelines, the links were cancelled. That was almost two years ago. We have not paid for a link of any sort in almost two years and have never sold links.
Despite numerous emails to Mr Tudge requesting that the links be removed, he has not replied to messages nor acted upon them.
3. Statcounter
The invisible statcounter code has been removed from the homepage as it was technically in breach of Google's "hidden link" policy. The new homepage statcounter is visible.
4. Broken Sitewide Link
The "Contact us" link on EVERY page of the website incorrectly pointed to: http://spicegirlslondonescorts.com/$myEmail
This returned a .404 "not found" for almost 400 links sitewide and was due to a misconfiguration in the Content Management System. This error has been corrected, and the “Contact us” link now points to the correct page (http://spicegirlslondonescorts.com/our-email-address.html).
5. Hidden Text Link
At the bottom of every page on the website, there is the text "© 2005 - 2008 Spice Girls London Escorts".
The designer had hyperlinked the words "London Escorts" to the homepage. This has now been corrected and every hyperlink has been removed from every page of the website.
There are no other hidden links anywhere on the site.
6. Webmaster Tools
Each of the six errors currently reported in Webmaster Tools (as of 15.08.08) has been addressed: http://spicegirlslondonescorts.com/$myEmail – now returns a .410 http://spicegirlslondonescorts.com/&usg=ALkJrhgz6MRDcFkp-kcCoKgNS9ERG-CLtQ - now returns a .410
The remaining four errors are due to server downtime.
7. Broken Links
Xenu identified 122 broken links sitewide – primarily to images. All 122 links have been manually fixed and Xenu currently reports no broken links or other errors.
8. Outbound/External Links
The site has around 500 outbound links to related escort websites and directories. Each of these has been checked and broken links have been removed from the relevant pages. To the best of our knowledge, there are no links to bad neighbourhoods.
Having taken the steps above, we believe the site is now fully compliant with Google Webmaster Guidelines and will ensure that it remains so.
Please accept my apologies for the inconvenience caused.
Yours sincerely,
In addition to the above, the following issues were addressed after the Reinclusion Request was submitted:
9. Outbound Links
We have removed all 36 pages of outbound links from the Links section. The links page now has just six outgoing links – all with the rel="nofollow" attribute.
10. Custom .404 page
A custom .404 page (http://spicegirlslondonescorts.com/notfound.shtml) has been added to the site. All the URLs which have been removed from the site correctly send the visitor to the .404 page.
11. Font size and colour
Each page on the site contains a “unique header” – at the very top of every page. To ensure that this header can better be distinguished from the black background, the font type has been changed to Verdana and the colour changed from dark grey to off-white. The headers are now clearly visible.
12. Footer links
The footer links “box” has been removed from the site - sitewide.
13. Permanent .301 redirects
.301 redirects have been added to the .htaccess file to remove any canonicalisation issues. All pages correctly redirect to the root – “/”.
14. Incorrect .200 Status Codes
The Content Management System had been returning a .200 Status Code for non-existent .htm and .html URLs. This error has been fixed and a correct .404 Status Code is now reported.
15. Incorrect usage of the h1 tag
The h1 tag had been disguised as small text using css. This has now been corrected and the h1 tag is correctly - prominently - displayed.
16. h2, h3 and h4 tags
h2, h3 and h4 tags have been added where appropriate to denote new paragraphs and other relevant content.
17. Footer links
Some 50 footer links have been removed from each page on the site.
18. alt tags
The "alt" attribute has been added to the images on the homepage. It will also be added to the other 300 or so images on the site.
19. Homepage banners
Outbound banner graphics have been removed from the homepage.
20. Homepage Keyword density
Keyword density on the homepage has been reduced as follows:
"London" – 2.12% (from 4.72%)
"escort" – 3.66% (from 5.59%)
"escorts" – 2.6% (from 3.23%)
21. Hosting
The site has been moved to a UK-based server - in London!
22. Google Webmaster Tools
All issues reported by Webmaster Tools have been addressed: 50 Duplicate Title Tags have been fixed.
92 Short Meta Descriptions have been fixed.
4 Duplicate Meta Descriptions have been fixed.
In addition, Webmaster Tools currently reports no errors.
Saturday, 20th September 2008.
Well, today it finally happened: the site has been placed back in the search index!
We have not managed to regain our previous rankings in the index, but hey, that's only fair! We now have something to work toward.
Interestingly enough, the site is better placed when searching in the US than the UK.
Lastly, for all of you folks trying to get your site back into the index: stay optimistic. It can be done. If anything, the experience is invaluable. You need to accept criticism - harsh criticism - and act on it.