Traffic Equalizer - Banned from Google?

We received a very concerned email from a fellow subscriber who writes:

Q:  "My main business site used to have a pagerank of 4 and was listed on page 1 of Google at one time. Today, it has a PR 0 and appears to not be listed in Google at all. Is this a sign of being penalized/banned? What could have caused it? The only 'questionable' thing I've ever done is use TrafficEqualizer pages for my sitemap. Thank you for any advice."
 

A:  Oh yikes! Well, let's put it simply: "Don't do the crime, if you can't do the time."

But seriously, I cannot definitively say why a site has been dropped from the Google index. No one can. I do suggest you read over the Google Webmaster Guidelines and you'll find a lot of information about what you can possibly do to be considered to be very naughty by the almighty Google. I took a brief look at this subscriber's website on Yahoo (it's still listed) and the site has lots of sites linking to it...so Google isn't likely to have dropped it because he couldn't find it.

SIDE NOTE ---> If you don't have other sites linking to you, that is a sure way to be dropped for a search engine. It's not a penalty or that you've done anything wrong, but it means the search engines can't find you.

So, back to this case. Other reasons you can be dropped:

--> The site was down when Google dropped by

--> or the webmaster has been naughty and here you have it..straight from the Google powers that be:

"We will not comment on the individual reasons a page was removed and we do not offer an exhaustive list of practices that can cause removal. However, certain actions such as cloaking, writing text that can be seen by search engines but not by users, or setting up pages/links with the sole purpose of fooling search engines may result in permanent removal from our index. If you think your site may fall into this category, you might try 'cleaning up' the page and sending a re-inclusion request to help@google.com. We do not make any guarantees about if or when we will re-include your site."

So, let's talk about the Traffic Equalizer program mentioned in the question. This is the program my dear subscriber used to create extra pages for his site map. In case you don't know what Traffic Equalizer is, let me briefly tell you. It is a program that quickly generates hundreds or thousands of pages designed to rank well on search engines for huge lists of keyword phrases. You've probably seen this pages before...they have an ad on top and then listings that appear to be like a directory or a search engine.

Here's an example -- I make a big list of keywords related to doll making. Let's say I have keywords like "easy doll making", "porcelain doll making" etc etc. I plunk them into Traffic Equalizer and the software crawls search engine data to produce the top results for that keyword. It then lists those sites and inserts your site at the top...and voila! It creates pages, theoretically designed to rank well for search engines. If you click the "Traffic Equalizer Page screenshot" you can see a screenshot below.

So, let's be serious...is this good content? Or does it cause you to question what Google writes in it's guidelines?:

"Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"

Now, don't get me wrong..I am not placing judgment and I'll let you in on a secret -- Traffic Equalizer IS in my software library. I also know that Google rules are not law and I cannot go to jail for breaking them. But I do know you can be dropped from their index, which brings us back to my advice about not doing the crime if you can't do the time. If you employ tactics like this, you have to expect that things may eventually come to an end for you. :( So, don't put stuff like this on your life's work --- i.e. your main website that you NEED to stay listed on search engines.

But here's a few tips for working with Traffic Equalizer --->

1. Always, always put Traffic Equalizer pages on a separate domain, on a separate IP, on a separate server. Keep it as far away from your "most precious" website as possible.

2. Traffic Equalizer provides you with a very basic (and ugly-looking) template. I didn't believe it at first, but my research today seems to confirm that if you use that original template --- your pages and possibly your whole website will be dropped from Google's index. Create a new template, with graphics, different colors and add a bit of content...don't make it this plain, highly-recognizable pages.

3. Search and ask questions at the Traffic Equalizer support forum...for product owners only. You'll find people who have been banned from search engines, but look for people who are getting tons of traffic from Traffic Equalizer and find out what they say about how to use the program.

If you're site has been dropped from the Google index, I suggest it's time to do a serious clean up. Remove all the questionable pages from your site, email help@google.com as they suggest...but you'll probably just have to wait and see if they include you again. And good luck!

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