I received an email yesterday that KeenandGraev.com would be delisted from the Google index because we broke their rules. The rule that we broke was that we were modified by a third party without our knowledge to include a hidden link to some advertiser within our page source. I can only assume that this happened during one of the times where WordPress patched itself to fix a vulnerability and I wasn’t quick enough to update before getting hit. The problem with this form of being hacked is that it doesn’t hurt the blog at all. Google, in order to “preserve the quality” of their search engine, decided that it heart them enough to remove our blog without a warning. The only way to be relisted is to fix the problem (which I have already fixed) and then submit a request pleading that Google reevaluate and consider us worthy of once again being listed in their pages (which I have also done).
So, that’s why you can’t find us on Google anymore. Yahoo lists is perfectly and so do all the other search engines. If this has affected the way in which you get to our blog, I urge you to Bookmark us, add us to your readers if we are not already, or simply remember our url (keenandgraev.com) until we are able to get relisted. You can view our “Feeds & Stuff” section on the sidebar for easy links to adding our feeds.
Traffic means nothing to us. We don’t profit from this blog (in fact we lose a great deal) but the ease by which our content reaches our readers does matter and this is an extremely harsh way to handle something completely out of our control — no warning, just a “good bye” letter from the most popular search engine available. If you write a blog and use wordpress I urge you to ensure that you have not been attacked by hidden link injectors so that you can preserve your listing with Google.
Guys,
I travel for work, so I read your blog on my blackberry. I noticed about a month, or a little less, ago that your page had some wierd random sentances (probably about 50) before you logo. Thought it was wierd but figured you had just sold some shady adverts.
long story short, if you have a blackberry, or maybe any mobile, you can watch for this in the future. I enjoy your blog and will be sure to let you know if I see it again.
Thanks Dave! Yeah, there should be nothing shady looking and definitely no advertisements. If anything looks broken or out of place please let us know.
Wow, that totally sucks. Google are damn tough when it comes to this sort of thing and don’t seem to show much mercy for people who are the victim of hackers and the like.
I’m sure you’ll get it sorted soon. And don’t worry, if you type in Keen and Graev into Google you still get a ton of links pointing to your site so I’m sure people will still find you.
Let us know how it goes with Google!
While I sympathize, I think you’re being unfair in your criticism of Google. Google has a vested interest in preserving the integrity of their search index, and if errant links/code on a site threaten that they ought to take action immediately. How else other than an immediate and automatic process could Google prune their results? How many blogs are sitting out there abandoned using vulnerable publishing technology that allows for spammers to effectively hijack the blog? Instead of issuing warnings and presuming innocence, it seems like the only manageable solution for Google is to take immediate action and let legitimate users seek resolution later once they have fixed the underlying issues. It sucks, it’s inelegant, but it seems the best alternative for now.
If google wants to preserve the “integrity” of their search engine why can you google any word that might have a TINY amount of sexual innuendo in it, and get about a billion porn results, 90% of which are laden with trojans and other viruses?
~Skryre
@Sean: I think that’s a great way to look at it… unless you’re the one banished from google without so much as a warning.
You know what would really spruce this blog up, Keen? Some flashy gold selling advertisements…. Honestly I avoid sites that advertise such things.
This blog is my favorite for a few reasons. You don’t advertise for cyber sweat shops, and you don’t rely on dramatic pot stirring to generate traffic. Never compromise your integrity, and this blog site will remain a cut above the rest imo.
Well, at least you can reach your old blogspot site through google — and use the link there to reach your new site. O.o
It really sucks, but Sean makes a valid point.
The trouble is it just shows again how important Google has become as a search index.
I hope you bother to contact Google to fix this. You have a lot of entertaining thoughts to offer for fellow gamers.
I can appreciate that Google have no way of knowing if this sort of thing was intentional or not. Hopefully they have a procedure for re-establishing sites quickly and some sort of ‘three strikes’ policy or something to determine if it’s been done maliciously or not.
@Skryre
That would be because you turned safe search off. Secondly, Google does a pretty good job of cutting off sites that have direct vulnerabilities when being opened (Keen’s post showing this). I would challenge you to find a Google result that links directly to a trojan/virus infested website and Google’s search results don’t warn you first.
Does Google really generate you much traffic? I figured that most of our blog traffic comes from other blogs that have us on their blogroll. I know I visit every blog on my blogroll every day, and than I see other snippets on other blogs from their blogrolls that I visit.
Google is about 20% of our traffic. It brings in new readers who search for random things like “Darkness falls” or “Darkfall sieges” or stuff like that. 50% of our traffic comes from directly typing in keenandgraev.com. The rest comes from a mix of search engines, links from major gaming news sites, links from content of popular blogs, and the occasional blog roll hit.
I’m in a different boat on my site – about 80% of my traffic comes from Google. Mostly because I put up a bunch of news and press releases from a variety of MMO’s along with my original writeups of my game experiences. That’s why Google is so critical to my blog (I do advertise with Google Adsense – which is a nice extra source of income when you have kids).
That said, I was also hit with some sort of hidden link injector less than a month ago. I noticed my traffic drop substantially and started looking around the site, didn’t notice anything at first but when I looked at the page source I started seeing all these hidden links to casino sites. It took some work but I cleaned it up and thankfully I did it in time for Google to not de-index me – that was my biggest fear and I feel your pain. I did read a lot about the getting re-indexed process and understand it may be awhile before they get around to rechecking your site, I hope it doesn’t take long but given that it isn’t your major source of viewers I wouldn’t fret to much. It’ll come back.
UPDATE: Google has brought us back into the fold. I have to admit, I am very, very happy the speed in which they enacted our reinstatement. Thanks Google.
Were all your pages re-indexed? After my fiasco my indexed pages was cut and half and is only slowly climbing back up – granted I never got an email from Google stating I was being penalized so I never had anything to appeal.
Traffic is still fairly high and income is growing every month so I can’t complain….but I still do. 😉
No, we’re still not fully indexed like we once were. We used to be in the top results for many, many MMO related things. We’ll get back there though. 🙂