

My legitimate co.cc site was deleted from Google, what do I do? - beatpanda

I've had a legitimate blog at http://beatpanda.co.cc for several years(1), and Google just removed all co.cc domains from its search results, including my blog. Who do I appeal to in this case? Am I better off just getting a new domain, and if so, how can I recover the traffic that was previously coming from Google before they removed my site?<p>Thanks for any help you all can provide.<p>(1) I know some of you will go there and see that the posts only go back to 2011- the fact that my archives aren't up right now is a separate issue.
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patio11
There is essentially no one to appeal to, unless someone on the Google webspam
team takes a personal interest in this when it hits the top page of HN. (Which
has been known to happen.) That will be to avoid the PR hit rather than out of
the moral persuasiveness of avoiding collateral damage. Google does collateral
damage on a fairly frequent basis.

They prefer to deal with it by "scalable communication methods" rather than by
speaking to you about it. For example, to a certain philosophy within the
borg, that blog post should teach you your lesson about being in a "bad
neighborhood." (This euphemism has become a term of art in the SEO community.
Google recommends you not link to websites in bad neighborhoods.)

 _how can I recover the traffic that was previously coming from Google before
they removed my site?_

You seem to be under the impression that that traffic was yours to begin with.
I think the borg believes it is their traffic, though they would be
circumspect about saying that in as many words. They'll sell it to you, for
example. (Google makes _scads_ on selling brands their own branded keywords.)

Most professional SEOs of my acquaintance would note that, if one has a site
burned, redirecting that site to a new site is a fairly risky endeavor for
that new site.

P.S. If one needs a new free web host and one is worried about getting smacked
down again for being in a bad neighborhood, a cynical person might recommend
blogspot.com. You'll still be in a bad neighborhood, but you'll be in a bad
neighborhood which is highly unlikely to get hit with the orbital ion cannon.

~~~
rlander
"Most professional SEOs of my acquaintance would note that, if one has a site
burned, redirecting that site to a new site is a fairly risky endeavor for
that new site."

I don't think so. If that were the case (and we were competitors) then all I
would need to do in order to hurt your rankings would be to stuff a website
with a multitude of buy-viagra-penis-enlargement-type of spam/malware and then
301 to your site.

~~~
Hisoka
One thing wrong with your logic is that this sort of stuff does happen, and
Google's algorithm does let cracks like this through.

~~~
wisty
OK, what about another form of redirect? Would a simple message be best?

This site has moved. Please go to the new site (no href - don't let google
see) www.example.com.

~~~
srl
The lack of an href is not required. Google explicitly will not fault you for
links /to/ your site from "bad neighborhoods" (for the obvious reason).

An automatic redirect (w/ javascript) would probably be the best way to go,
with a message explaining the move while the reader waits the 5 seconds for
the redirect to take effect. (Google doesn't evaluate javascript, to my
knowledge.)

~~~
pig
Googlebot evaluates Javascript.

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qeorge
Honestly, I would buy the .com and just move on. There's not much you can do
except protect yourself going forward. If you own your domain you can always
pick up and move to a new host.

For what its worth, people will probably search for you upon not finding your
site. With an exact match domain, you should rank really well and your fans
can find you. Maybe throw a HelloBar.com style message at the top explaining
what happened, so they know they've found your new home.

Best of luck. Hate that this happened to you.

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eli
_If your site isn't appearing in Google search results, or it's performing
more poorly than it once did (and you believe that it does not violate our
Webmaster Guidelines), you can ask Google to reconsider your site._

[http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answe...](http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35843)

~~~
beatpanda
Thanks, this was the answer I was looking for.

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melvinram
You can appeal through the Google Webmaster Tools (GWT)
<http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools> but I wouldn't bother in your case.
They are not likely to make an exception. I would recommend getting a new
domain.

On possible way that an appeal might work is if you 301 redirected all content
to the new domain and then go into GWT and do an appeal to be re-included
stating the case that you were collateral damage from the .co.cc ban.

I would only do this if your site is without a doubt a legitimate site (if it
seems even slightly fishy, I don't think they'll help and you're better off
starting fresh) and doesn't have even a hint of shady SEOing.

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beatpanda
I want to state for the record that I am meticulous about keeping my blog
updated and thus hack-free, I do not use it for any kind of nefarious SEO
purposes, and I don't even run advertising. It's just my blog.

In that case, would 301 redirects help or hurt? Am I better off just starting
fresh, and hoping that anybody who cares enough about my content just updates
their links?

~~~
blahedo
It must depend in part on how people use your site and what you hope to happen
with the move. If most of your users just go to the top front page every day
to read what you've posted, you could almost certainly post the new URL on
your front page (maybe not even link it and make them copy-and-paste it), a
one-time slight inconvenience for your users and you start from zero on
accumulating new Google juice. After a little while, you'll start showing up
in Google rankings again.

If a lot of people have bookmarks and/or on-page links to your site, and you
have a bunch of regular users that you want to transition, a 301 is the web-
standard right way to do that; but the cost is that you'll have a longer walk
in the Google wilderness. I have to assume that the "transferred from a bad
neighbourhood" poison isn't permanent (especially if you take down the 301s
after a few weeks or a month) but it seems like it would start you off with
negative Google juice.

Which might be worth it, or might not. How many referrals were you getting
from Google before the co.cc thing went down?

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lincolnwebs
Get a new domain (second-level, that you actually own this time) and
accurately 301 all your URLs to the new domain. You cannot "regain" your
Google traffic. You'll need to rebuild, but 301s will at least help put your
inbound links back on solid footing.

~~~
patio11
This has an _excellent_ chance of contaminating the new domain. Consider Big
Daddy G's view of the world: they've just declared *.co.cc persona non grata.
301 redirecting is designed to tell them that foo.co.cc is now doing business
at example.net. I would not do that to a domain I didn't want to lose.

~~~
josefresco
Google can't take this extreme position as competitors could do this to your
site as well. While I would personally not 301 to the new site, technically
the benefit should outweigh the possible negatives. See paid links and
directories for past reference on this subject. If getting a site down-ranked
was as easy as linking TO them from a bad neighborhood, black-hat SEO would be
all over it and would abuse the technique enough to make Google adjust (which
most likely has happened many times)

~~~
patio11
It is _certainly_ possible to burn a new domain by pointing a penalized domain
at it. If domain #2 contains the same content as domain #1 pre-burning, and
domain #1 301s to domain #2, that's almost proof-positive that they're under
the same control. Google's standard of proof isn't neaaaaaaaaaaarly that high.

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mtogo
Whoops, you were collateral damage.

Yeah, google does not care about you. Sorry.

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davidcollantes
I do not think appealing (or trying to) will get you anywhere. But you might
try contacting them (<http://www.google.com/contact/>)

If being searchable through Google is really important for you, get a new
domain. If the contents of your site where that important, Google will index
it and will be available sooner than you think.

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VuongN
Have you contacted Google with you question yet? I would imagine if enough
people ask them about this, they would have to come up with a solution
somehow. Perhaps you might start a campaign requesting Google to provide a
tool for legitimate businesses and companies to "migrate" their .cc traffic to
a new domain name. Again, it wouldn't happen if you don't ask and if you don't
ask, it would never happen. If there are enough people asking --> publicity
--> Google will answer. But sometimes, all it takes for things to change is
one person. That person can be you :)

~~~
beatpanda
Yes, I have, but Google makes it especially difficult to direct a message to
an actual person as opposed to a message board. I figured it was more likely
they would catch wind of the complaint if it was here.

~~~
Matt_Cutts
beatpanda, if you haven't seen this article in Technology Review, it's a good
read: <http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/37718/> and discusses co.cc.
It's definitely the case that we saw a ton of spam on co.cc, which is one of
the reasons why I posted at
[https://plus.google.com/u/0/109412257237874861202/posts/eanX...](https://plus.google.com/u/0/109412257237874861202/posts/eanXpZKMDSf)
to remind people that if we see enough spam on a freehost, that can affect the
reputation for the entire domain and result in us taking action on that
freehost.

It remains to be seen to what degree co.cc can remove or clean the amount of
spam on their domain. In the mean time, if you want to have a long-term
presence on the web that's also in Google's index, you could get your own
domain name or check out other freehosts such as WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger,
Posterous, etc.

~~~
beatpanda
Props to you for getting back to me. I'm not mad, and this isn't even the
first time being on co.cc has bitten me in the ass, so maybe now's a good time
to move on.

What about 301 redirects though? Am I going to be penalized for directing
traffic from the old domain to a new one?

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MrBlue
1) Spend the 10 bucks on a real domain (beatpanda.com,.net, .co and .org are
all available).

2) Diversify your traffic sources.

------
jawns
One interesting point this brings up is that it's sometimes difficult to tell
whether you're in a "bad neighborhood" or not.

In other words, if I'm considering using co.cc to host my (legitimate) blog,
there's no realistic way for me to browse through all 11 million
subdirectories; notice that some 6,000 are spammy; and conclude that the site
has a high risk of being burned by Google.

Of course, there are indirect methods of discerning a host's reputation and
likeliness to attract spammers -- starting from the fact that co.cc is a free
service -- but they may be too difficult for a layman to pursue.

Hence, I am going to start offering Google Burn Insurance. For a low monthly
premium, you'll have peace of mind knowing that if your legitimate, non-spammy
site is ever banned as "collateral damage," you'll get a tidy lump-sum payment
that you can use to rebuild your site somewhere else.

Any takers? :)

~~~
wccrawford
Here's a hint: If it's free on the internet, spammers and scammers will try to
take advantage of it. If you can't see anything to stop them, then there's
probably something you can't see that will stop them. Like Google delisting
the entire domain.

Pay for your own domain and hosting service and this won't happen to you.

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rawsyntax
beatpanda.com is available, better go ahead and buy it

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sek
Who your DNS provider is counts.

This topic came up very often in the last months. bit.ly is not just a cool
name, it is the Lybian official domain and when Gadaffi has a problem with it
he can shut it down.

There has been a case where a free-subdomain hoster linked everyone to an
advertiser one day.

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damir
I am sorry to see you get hit like this, but relying solely on one company's
ability to send traffic your way is also a bit blunt.

Like I said, it's sad, but they got the power over their traffic and can do
whatever they see fit with it - even cancel it.

While sounding harsh, say "lesson learned" and diversify your traffic sources
into more baskets. If one does the lemming thing, you still got others sending
visitors your way.

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getsat
Get a real domain, have your old domain do 301 redirects to the new.

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vondur
Move it to a different domain. Not much else you can do.

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ArtemZ
>what do I do? register new domain

