Chris.C
Top Contributor
I wholeheartedly agree.
I know over the years I have learned a lot more from my failures and set backs than I have my successes. If nothing else it will be a great learning experience.
The important thing to remember is that Google doesn't "define" anything and they like keeping everything ambiguous.
Whilst the AdSense policy is that you are allowed a maximum of three ad units that doesn't mean that the Google search algorithm that ranks your site doesn't take into consideration the ad to content ratio, and may deem it to high.
My understanding is that most areas of Google work independently, i.e. the AdSense team work separately to their search quality team which work separately from the youtube developers. Each team is aiming to improve their section of Google, "largely" regardless of what implications that has of the other sections.
My point is that the policy of one part of Google doesn't validate another part. They work independently achieving independent goals.
The fact it is "unique" doesn't make it "good" quality.
I'm not saying it's bad quality, I'm just saying that most leading experts are chatting about Google becoming increasingly aware of the subtle differences between good and bad quality content and no doubt they will begin to start factoring these qualitative indicators more.
To each their own I guess.
They are not obligated to. Their secrecy is essential otherwise gaming the system would be that much easier - and let's be honest, that's exactly what we are all trying to do.
Agreed.
Though with that said there are huge number of sites whose "unofficial objectives" are to increase AdSense revenues, but as I mentioned in a previous post the majority of these sites do a good job of at least giving the "impression" that making money is not the main objective.
I think these are good suggestions.
I'd also like to throw in there that link units tend to be quite effective when well-positioned and they are small enough that when glancing at a site they don't make you think MFA.
Also from what I have been reading lately (yes John I do a lot of reading) is that having ads on your site isn't an issue in itself, but where they are positioned can matter (particularly above the fold).
So for example if you have large ad blocks at the top of your page above your content with link units and maybe a large header image the people who come to your site are initially only seeing ads, maybe a picture and some navigation links, which will be great for ad CTRs, but is bad for user experience as Google is directing them to your site because Google believes that your site has the content they are looking for.
I know I personally am moving to designs that avoid putting large ads above my content and I'm opting for the larger ads appearing directly below content and within navigation bars.
These can achieve good CTR without the site looking like an MFA.
Of course this isn't the official line from Google, but from what I'm reading and what I've experienced personally I would be surprised if this wasn't the case.
It was only my opinion that it "looks" like a MFA site. And I'd expect that a Google website reviewer would probably think the same, not to mention that a number of people within this thread also seem to agree that it looks like an MFA.
Now I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that, but one has to be realistic about the likelihood of success when asking for reinclusion request when this is the case.
I think djuqa runs allot of sites, has a lot of experience and obviously does well for himself - so from that perspective alone, anyone who doesn't at least "listen" to him is probably doing themselves a disservice.
I'm not saying I agree with everything he says or act on it, but he is definitely someone that I will at least listen to.
You can call me ignorant if you want and if you really think that I don't know what I'm talking about I'd encourage you to block my posts via your forum settings.
You're definitely not obliged to listen to what I have to say.
And at the same time I'm more than happy to dedicate more of my time to working on my own business if people don't get any value from what I have to say.
Your damn right I paraphrase, cite and even quote those that are the leaders in their respective fields whether it be Jeremy Schoemaker or Aaron Wall (who are the biggest proponents that a key ingredient to success is not making Google look stupid).
And, yes, I stole a term Jerry Shoemaker coined years ago, but that's why I used the term in inverted commas.
I don't claim that all my thoughts are original, they're not, nor that I have perfect knowledge, I try to talk with caution because there is so much ambiguity in internet marketing.
Most importantly I'm not out there repackaging an info product and pushing it on gullible people. I know that there are smarter people than I that have all said it before. I was just trying to help Geo understand why a Google reviewer might not feel compelled to push the site back into the index.
I don't disagree that Google may not penalise a lot of crap sites out there, but in my experience Google operates largely on one strike and you're out policy.
They have always been ruthless with the quality of their search index just like the rest of their products and services. So you can bet your bottom dollar that when it comes to reincluding sites they are not just going to reindex junk just because there is other junk already in there.
If you don't get that, then I think you're missing the bigger picture.
I think you're looking at this from the wrong perspective. You're saying why "shouldn't" this site be included in the index. The Google reviewer is looking at the site from the perspective that it has already been kicked out, why "should" this site be included in the index.
When coming at it from the other way the is case a lot harder to win because the site isn't of what I would call "high value".
Now this is a bit of an unusual case in that the site was built on a domain that was already kicked out. Truth be told if this sort of site and content was on a fresh domain that had no black marks with Google it most likelihood it would still be in the index and ranking well.
Even I have sites that are worse looking with less value than this site that still rank, and still rank well, but they get the benefit of the doubt because they haven't been kicked out yet.
