

The Day Google Erased Me From the Internet - markbao
http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com/?p=1436

======
tx
_... But I’m a blogger, web developer and evangelist. I don’t know the
security side as well as I should and I don’t have time to make sure
everything is rock solid ..._

Wow, nice to know that the basics of web security isn't in his understanding
of web developer's job and apparently beyound what an "evangelist" should care
about. If web developers "do not have time" to secure their own shit, why
would the world need them?

Besides, what does he want? Google kills thousands of fake spamming sites an
hour, how on earth would they implement his idea of "heads up warning" before
wiping them off the index?

And what would Microsoft/Yahoo do? The same goddamn thing, because spamming
sites degrade search quality which hurts us all in the end.

------
geofffox
Good grief I feel your pain! I had the same thing happen to me.

Some hacker inserted a single randomly named php and new .htaccess file in
every directory on my Movable Type blog - www.geofffox.com. We’re talking
thousands of directories.

The .htaccess file was amazingly clever. It sprung into action on 404 errors,
and only from search engine referrers. I originally thought it was Google’s
problem, because I couldn’t make the pages appear by typing them in.

By the time I’d begun the cleanup, Google thought I had over 330,000 pages
(actually around 16k) on my site. My most cited keywords had to do with porn
and game cracks.

The hack left all .html files in a single directory. My real pages are all
php, making it easier to eliminate the scourge from search engines. It took a
long time.

Since cleaning up my act in January, my traffic is down by 2/3! MSN Live is
referring more traffic my way than Google. I am still a PR4, but with little
to show for that. That’s one reason I’ve cited my site on this comment and
hope it’s not ‘nofollowed’ out. I’m hoping for some Google love.

My biggest complaint is, Google is not answerable to anyone. You can fill out
forms, and beg (and I begged), but Google will neither tell you what you did
wrong or how to rehabilitate yourself. I had to find those out on my own.

They have gone beyond a simple search engine. If you’re not on Google, you
don’t exist!

~~~
Hexstream
What's with the new "I screw up and then blame mighty Google" pattern?!

I don't know, my reaction to your situation would be something like: "Oh fuck,
I really need to learn how to secure my stuff properly! Thankfully Google
prevented my mistake from affecting everyone else also!"

~~~
Tichy
The problem is that there really is no way to make a 100% secure site.

~~~
pmjordan
Indeed, but if your site is important to you, you should probably be
monitoring its health. I mean, everyone makes backups, right. _right_? Doing
the occasional (1x/week?) check on the files that changed between backups is
pretty straightforward and will give you a good idea of whether there's foul
play going on.

------
wallflower
I think this article just shows how co-dependent some of us are on the
network. Other bloggers leaving comments in this post showing empathy "how
horrible" it must have been. I have an addictive personality and it scares me
how much you can live your life on the net. Which is why I try to avoid
twitter/RSS readers/FB. Remember when Angela in the movie The Net (played by
Speed's Sandra Bullock) had her identity erased by the bad guys?

------
mojuba
Also... be careful when buying domain names that were used previously. I once
picked up an just-expired domain name that I thought was nice and then it took
me 2 years (!) to get Google to index it. I don't know what the problem was,
because archive.org showed it was just a generic search page previously. At
that time I registered a company with the same name and I didn't want to give
it up. 2 years wasted struggling for an identity! (Fortunately my business did
not depend much on search.)

------
greyman
The title is very misleading, Google erased him from their index, not from the
internet. I don't know why exactly, but a lot of webmasters thinks that
somehow Google have to include them in the index, otherwise it's unjust
towards them. But they don't have to, it's their property and they really can
include or exclude websites as they wish, and it's just their good will that
they publicize some of the criteria for getting in.

------
scrod
This is why you should not rely on search engines for revenue. Create a name
for yourself in a community mediated by humans instead of search bots.

~~~
delano
And that's why you always leave a note.

