I operate www.sprayonmud.com, which was featured in the Guardian last year and around the world. Google gave us top ranking for sprayonmud until December, then suddenly wiped us from their radar, and our sales have fallen dramatically as a result. How does one redress this? Colin Dowse, Sprayonmud Limited
Your site has incoming links from high-ranking sites such as the BBC, the Guardian, Wired etc, so it should show up well. However, searching Google for your address brings the response: "Sorry, no information is available for the URL www.sprayonmud.com". Since Google does not offer to show you its cache of the site, your pages must have been removed and this could only have been done deliberately. Usually this happens only if a site uses underhand "search engine optimisation" (SEO) techniques such as keyword-stuffed doorway pages, deceptive redirects and spam blogs. For details, see the Google advice page: www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html.
First, you need to find out what you have done wrong, if anything, and correct it. Second, you must email help@google.com with the subject line "reinclusion request" with a brief description of the problem. You will get an automated response but it is possible that your site will be restored eventually.
Google recently removed BMW Germany from its index for using redirection code so that search engines saw a different, text-heavy page at bmw.de from the one seen by users, as explained by Google's Matt Cutts. But BMW was soon restored. It is harder for the many small firms who must now depend on Google's search results for their survival, especially since Google is the police force, sole witness, judge, jury, court of appeal and executioner.
I therefore asked Google UK one simple question on your behalf: "How can he find out what, if anything, he has done wrong?" I will let you know if I get an answer.
Update: I asked this question at 2:07pm on Monday March 6, 2006. Although I have exchanged numerous emails with Google, it hasn't actually answered the question. I understand Google UK is awaiting a response from the US.
Update, Thursday March 16, 2006: Still no answer, but Google has referred me to a blog entry by the employee I mentioned last week, Matt Cutts, called Filing a reinclusion request. This says the procedure has changed "from an email address to a web form. The best location to go [to] is http://www.google.com/support/bin/request.py. You can select 'I'm a webmaster inquiring about my website' and then select 'Why my site disappeared from the search results or dropped in ranking'. Click Continue, and on the page that shows up, make sure to type 'Reinclusion Request' in the Subject line of the resulting form."
As for the basic question - How can you find out what, if anything, you've done wrong? - it seems you can't.
