Have You Been Removed From The Index?

At some point in time, your website may be removed from the Google index. There can be many reasons as to why this has happened, but for now I am merely focusing on cleaning up issues with a website that is not compliant with Google standards. Here is a rundown of how to determine if you have been removed from Google and what you can do to change this.

First, the easiest way to manually determine if your website has been taken out of Google's index is to run a search with a operator. This is a simple way to determine how many pages of your website a search engine has indexed. For this specific search, we want to add the "site:" operator before the website name in the search bar:

example: "site:www.yourdomain.com"

If you make this search and the results show many, if not all, of the pages of your website, then you are fine and you are not removed from the SERPs. However, if the search produces zero results, this is definitely cause for concern.

So, how to remedy this? If you haven't already, it's time to register your site with Google Webmaster Tools. Once you have verified your domain and have submitted an XML Sitemap, you will gain much information about how Google views your website. Once you are set up in Webmaster Tools, Google will show you any errors they are having with your website and you can make edits to keep things running properly. They will also send you a notice if your site is doing something that is not compliant with their guidelines, and these are the reasons why your site has been removed from the index.

This is the time where you need someone with SEO knowledge to come into play and either fix these issues or advise you on what needs to be done to get your site back to Google's standards. When everything is fixed and you believe that you are ready to have your sit e added back into the index, this is the time to send a letter of reinclusion to Google. This letter needs to be direct and to the point regarding the issues that rang the alarm at google and took your site out of the index, and should be as specific as possible. I have noticed the turnaround time to get your site back into the search engines can be anywhere from 1-3 weeks; however, Google can take as much time as they wish to review and re-include your site.

In summary, being removed from the index is something that could have happened without your knowledge. Proper, constant analysis of your website is necessary to make sure that your website is compliant and is reaping all of the benefits of being found in the natural search results.