Google Dropped My Site From Their Index
After going through nearly 4 months of frustration with Google's G Bot, I finally got indexed on 02/09/2007 for the second time. When I first started this blog, I made the mistake of submitting duplicate articles to EzineArticles. To do such a thing is against Google's TOS, because of duplicate content issues. They dropped my site from the index, and even after deleting the Ezine articles, it took around 2 months for Google to “favor” my site again.
The long wait paid off. Now, Investor Trip has a Google Page Rank 4.
Work hard to get on Googlebot's Good Side
If you make a mistake like I did, then work hard to figure out the error and improve your results. Some of my friends give up sooner than they should when faced with difficult obstacles. A good friend of mine dropped out of college when school was becoming too much to handle, but I knew in high school he was capable of achieving anything.
For these tough situations, I remember my father's old adage – “A setback is a setup for a comeback.”
When things go awry, only you have the power to change the results for the better. Even though I broke Google's TOS rules, that was not the biggest mistake I could have made. The biggest mistake would have been to give up on this blog and Google's index. I knew the reward was much greater than the wait, so I continued on. When the reward is not worth the effort, spend your time elsewhere.
Failure is a learning experience
“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them” – Albert Einstein
In the end, I learned a lot about search engines and how they read web pages. While I was trying to figure out the problems with my blog, I was really gathering extensive information on search engine optimization. I wouldn't have read so much material on Google if my site was properly indexed. Sometimes you gain unexpected knowledge from the most undesirable circumstances. It's funny how life works that way.