Has your website been banned  from Google’s search engine results or penalised in some way?

Learn how to submit a best practice “Google Reconsideration Request”.

If you are responsible for developing or maintaining a website, it is important that you familiarise yourself with the Google Webmaster Guidelines.

In particular you should pay close attention to their  “Quality Guidelines” which detail some of the illicit practices that may lead to your site being removed entirely from the Google search engine results or otherwise penalised.

According to these guidleines the following practices will almost certainly result in your website being penalised by Google:

• Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
• Do not use cloaking or sneaky redirects.
• Do not send automated queries to Google.
• Do not load pages with irrelevant keywords.
• Do not create multiple pages, subdomains or domains with substantially duplicate content.
• Do not create pages with malicious behaviour, such as phishing or installing viruses, trojans or other badware.
• Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines or other “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programmes with little or no original content.
• If your site participates in an affiliate programme, make sure that your site adds value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason to visit your site first.

Although the above cover the most common forms of deceptive or manipulative behaviour, this is not a comprehensive list. Google states that they may respond negatively to other misleading practices not listed here, such as, tricking users by registering misspellings of well-known websites. It is not safe to assume that just because a specific deceptive technique has not been mentioned on this page, Google approves of it.

If your website is judged to be in violation of the editorial guidelines and has been removed from the Google index or penalised in some way, you will need to fix the violation issues and then submit a “Reconsideration Request”, to ask Google to reinstate or stop penalising your site.

What is a “Google Reconsideration Request”?

The following official Google video, featuring Rachel Searles and Brian White, from Google’s Search Quality Team, explains the process and provides tips on how to create a good, best practice  “Reconsideration Request”.

The main tip from the video is that you should check the Google Webmaster Guidelines, before submitting your “Reconsideration Request”, if you are unsure why you have been penalised.

Rachel also mentions that you should include in your request all the changes that you have made to fix the problem, rather than just telling them that your site now follows the guidelines.

Brian states that you should not try and fool Google by submitting misleading information. This will not help your case, as your request will be reviewed by actual humans and if the information you provide is incorrect they will simply disregard your request for reconsideration.

If you are having issues with Google penalising your site, then I would recommend watching this video.

To learn more about other issues that may affect your website and to receive regular Professional SEO Tips, subscribe to my Blog by RSS Feed or Email. Alternatively visit our main Website Promotion website for further information.

It has been well over three years since Ask.com decided to retire Jeeves, the well respected and trusted, search engine butler.

However, just like Take That and Spandau Ballet, Jeeves has been tempted out of retirement. For the time being, Jeeves will be restricting his comeback tour to purely UK search assignments and will be the new (albeit resurrected) brand behind the search engine. Apparently Jeeves has no immediate plans to travel overseas and is content, for the time being, to work diligently and tirelessly on behalf of us Brits.

When visiting Ask.com from within the UK you are presented with an updated 3D Jeeves character, which is a major improvement on the original 2D version.

I asked “Why has Jeeves returned” and received the following response to my search question:

“Jeeves is back!
Jeeves has been travelling the world for the past three years on a quest for the knowledge to answer all your questions. Now he is back with even more answers than ever - so go ahead and ask him anything!”

According to Cesar Mascaraque, managing director of Ask Jeeves Europe, Ask.com polled their UK users and realised that Jeeves still had an incredibly strong brand awareness of 83%, even after retiring, over three years ago. When compared to the current 72% awareness of Ask.com, bringing Jeeves back would seem a sensible move.

Ask.com is once again using its original “Ask Jeeves” brand for the UK market and will shortly be launching a multi million dollar Search Engine Advertising campaign across the UK to promote awareness that the butler is back. Jeeves will also be given his own Facebook fan page and Twitter account to help promote the message that he is back for good.

Do you use underscores or hyphens in your URL’s?

Have you ever wondered if one method is better than the other?

Have you ever considered if Google interprets an undersore differently from a hyphen?

Well, the answer is yes they do. According to Googles, Matt Cutts, hyphens are recognised as a separator and underscores are not.

This may not be important if your URL does not contain any major keywords. However if you are targeting a keyword within your URL, you will need to ensure that the relevant Keywords are separated by a hyphen and not an underscore.

For example www.professional_carpet_cleaning.co.uk would be interpreted as www.professionalcarpetcleaning.co.uk, in the eyes of Google. This is a missed opportunity as their are two primary keywords (”Professional Carpet Cleaning” and “Carpet Cleaning”) that would not be recognised by Google.

However, if this URL had been structured as www.professional-carpet-cleaning.co.uk then Google would recognise the individual keywords, which would help your Web Page Optimisation efforts.

So, there you have it, always try and use hyphens as opposed to underscores in your URL’s, for maximum benefit.

It would appear that Google have now started to list local search results for generic keyword searches, even when the actual search term used does not include a specific town or area. Previously local search results would only appear if the search term included a particular location.

For example, using the search term “electrician manchester” will produce a list of local electricians in Manchester that have registered with Google for a local business listing. However using the single keyword, “electrician” would not have previously produced any local search results. All that has now changed and local search results now appear, even when a location has not been specified.

This change has now made a Local Business Listing even more important.

See my Blog post “The Importance Of Google Local Search Results” for further information and a link to register for your free business listing.

Single keywords that trigger the Google local search results do appear to be limited at the current time. However I am sure that this will be developed and expanded quite quickly.

What appears to be happening is that Google has recognised that my search term has some form of local intent and shows me local business listings based on the geographic location of my IP address. If the local listings do not match your exact location, simply click on “Change Location” and enter your postcode.

Based on my limited research, I was able to see local results for Electrician, Plumber, Restaurant and Doctor. I am sure there are many others.

As an example, here are the local results for the search term “electrician” in my area.

Local business results for electrician near Wisbech, Cambridgeshire PE13 4JW

- Change location - Back to results

		Switch Electrical Solution - maps.google.co.uk 24 Main Rd, Parson Drove, Wisbech - 01945 700896 Directions and more »
		EJ Carter - maps.google.co.uk High Rd, Guyhirn, Wisbech - 01945 450774 Directions and more »
		Anglia Electrical Installations Ltd - maps.google.co.uk High Rd, Guyhirn, Wisbech - 01945 450618 Directions and more »
		More results near Wisbech, Cambridgeshire PE13 4JW »

A Local Business Listing is now essential for every small business!

Appearing on the first page of Google for these incredibly competitive keywords used to be almost impossible without spending a huge amount of time, effort and money on Professional Seo services.

This now offers you the opportunity to achieve a page one listing for competitive single keyword search terms, simply by registering with Google and creating your free business listing.

If you have not already done so, register your business today.

Internet Explorer 8 was launched on 19/03/2009 and according to Net Market Share, has quietly, yet quickly ascended to over 3% usage market share.

I say ‘quietly’ because curiously, Microsoft has not actively promoted the new browser.

Browsers have been released by different companies using different marketing tactics. Google introduced Chrome through a ‘leaked’ report, and followed up with almost no marketing. It almost instantly jumped to 1% usage market share, but it has now been 7 months since the launch and its current market share is just 1.23%.

Mozilla, in contrast, has taken browser feature development and marketing to levels unseen before. Firefox has a loyal and growing following. Upgrades are seamless and well marketed. And, the results have been impressive, with a sustained growth in usage market share currently at 22.05%.

Apple’s Safari has also been growing in usage share steadily, currently at 8.23%. But, that growth has come more from the growth in Mac and iPhone usage than from people switching browsers on the same hardware.

So, it’s curious that Microsoft isn’t taking the Mozilla approach by announcing IE8 with hype and fanfare. That said, IE8 has still gotten off to an impressive start. But, time will tell whether the gains by IE8 come from older versions of Internet Explorer, or if Microsoft can regain some of the lost market share, taken by Mozilla and Apple.

For these and other Net Market Share Statistics, go to netmarketshare.com.

You may also be interested in viewing my blog post “Why Web Browser Compatibility Is Important“.