Was Greg Boser responsible for REW penalties?

[MarcinSarasota]

The web guerillas first post on REW was in July of 2006. Then he had no posts until April 27th, 2007. Which was about 12 days after many Advanced Access sites were penalized by Google. Then he made a few posts until his last one on May 19th, 10 days after many REW sites get hit with a penalty. He has not posted since then.

Ryan Ward has Google analytics showing the following visitors to his website:

April 17th and 18th - I was visited by Greg Boser. Do you think he said something to Google? Because....

April 20th - Google AND Greg Boser aka, webguerilla, llc paid a visit.

April 24th - Google came back again.

April 30th and May 1st - Advanced Access - Who do you think told them?

May 3rd - Google one more time and my state pages had been removed by then.

May 9th (Day of Penalty) - Greg Boser, coincidence?

May 11th - Greg Boser - Maybe checking to make sure?

[Ryan Ward]

I have screen captures of all of these visits. I just don't know what they mean.

[MarcinSarasota]

A visit by Boser does not mean he is responsible for the penalty. However, the whole time line of events makes him look suspicious.

[Micheal Pannell Realtor]

who is greg

[MarcinSarasota]

Web Guerilla

[WebGuerrilla]

A visit by Boser does not mean he is responsible for the penalty. However, the whole time line of events makes him look suspicious.

Pretty impressive detective work Marc. I have never denied the fact that during my time as a consultant for AA that I gave both Yahoo and Google examples of other companies engaging in the same kind of behavior that got AA penalized. It's part of the job when you are doing reinclusion work. You clean up your mess, say your sorry, and promise not to do it again. You also respectfully ask them to apply the same standards to everyone in the space. That doesn't always happen, but you always ask. Doing anything less than that would be the equivalent of SEO malpractice.

To take that and say I'm somehow responsible for you getting banned I think is making some attempt to imply that I have some type of ability to convince Google to take action against sites that aren't actually violating their guidelines. And that's about the most rediculous thing I've ever heard.

There have been people on this and other forums trying to explain to those who would listen that no search engine feels that all reciprocal linking in the real estate space was acceptable long before I ever posted here. That being the case, the only one you have to blame is yourself.

[MarcinSarasota]

Pretty impressive detective work Marc.

Greg, give credit to Ryan. He pulled this from his analytics data. I would have done the same but there was an error in my analytics account.

I have never denied the fact that during my time as a consultant for AA that I gave both Yahoo and Google examples of other companies engaging in the same kind of behavior that got AA penalized. It's part of the job when you are doing reinclusion work. You clean up your mess, say your sorry, and promise not to do it again. You also respectfully ask them to apply the same standards to everyone in the space. That doesn't always happen, but you always ask. Doing anything less than that would be the equivalent of SEO malpractice.

Interesting. I suppose that is the natural thing to do - clean up, apologize, promise never to do it again and then point the finger at everyone else. Is it safe to say that you are admitting that you pointed Google over to the various REW sites that were penalized?

To take that and say I'm somehow responsible for you getting banned I think is making some attempt to imply that I have some type of ability to convince Google to take action against sites that aren't actually violating their guidelines.

Ahhhh....no. I never implied that you could convince Google to penalize sites that were staying clean. As far as I could tell every site that got penalized were in violation by having state pages and excessive reciprocal links.

There have been people on this and other forums trying to explain to those who would listen that no search engine feels that all reciprocal linking in the real estate space was acceptable long before I ever posted here.

I don't disagree with you there.

That being the case, the only one you have to blame is yourself.

I do blame myself. I have control over my website and could have deleted those stage pages and reciprocal links. However, those of us that have been penalized didn't need you waving a huge red flag over our sites yelling Google's name.

[webmaster]

Although it is simply semantics, I think the question you meant to ask Marc was "Was it Greg Boser that reported my website to Google" - The answer to was he responsible for your penalty has already been addressed and that answer is no, anyone with a website is ultimately responsible (Whether knowingly or unknowingly) for their own website. You have already agreed with this, and I don't think it is the issue you meant to bring up (Of course correct me if I'm wrong)

Now moving on to your comment Greg:

You also respectfully ask them to apply the same standards to everyone in the space. That doesn't always happen, but you always ask. Doing anything less than that would be the equivalent of SEO malpractice.

Stating it this was seems quite harmless, and is almost redundant - if you or your clients are hit with a penalty it is likely because Google is already attempting to apply a penalty to all websites fairly - Google are not bullies out there to pick on one or two webmasters, they implement algorithms and apply penalization the best they can and in as fair a way as they can feasibly come up with. If in fact they chose certain high profile websites to send a message, is not really the issue, I am of the opinion they did, and I certainly understand why they would want to as it sends a message that reaches much further and effects many more webmasters than the few that are affected. (It's actually quite brilliant)

That being said: If it is as Marc suggests, and you have reported only certain websites (You cannot have reported them all) then that is not doing what your statement suggests - there is nothing wrong with requesting to Google that they treat everyone equally (They seem to attempt to do that anyways) but if you only reported certain websites (1,5,10,100) whatever the number may be, then the question then becomes why would you single out those webmasters, or their websites? (Again this is only assuming you reported them which at this point I do not think you have admitted to)

You claim that not requesting fair treatment when doing re-inclusion work is the equivalent of SEO malpractice: Fair enough - but if you are now singling out webmasters or individual websites then you are not doing what you are defending, reporting individuals is no more "fair" than when your own client is singled out. I think (Unless I read this wrong) that this is the heart of the matter - do you really need to single out certain websites to do your job? (Again not saying you have done this) - I have handled re-inclusion successfully for certain members here and I did not report a single competitor of theirs when doing so, am I guilty of SEO malpractice? I don't think so (Huge difference of opinion here) - My job as an SEO is to look out for the best interest of my client and their web properties, and when dealing with an issue with Google it is the right thing to do to identify and correct the issues, apologize to Google for violating their TOS and promise to never do it again - but to say reporting competitors is the right thing to do is certainly not a fact, it is an opinion.

I guess anyone who is ever reported to Google by someone else inevitably asks themselves "What did I ever do to you" - When it is a direct competitor and you are below them, what was the quote "spam: Websites that appear above me in the serps" sure you can likely gain one spot, but having the guy above you removed. But handling re-inclusion is (I think) helping someone deal with "their" website, and "their" problems - not going after other webmasters who have nothing to do with the reason your clients website is penalized.

[MarcinSarasota]

Although it is simply semantics, I think the question you meant to ask Marc was "Was it Greg Boser that reported my website to Google" - The answer to was he responsible for your penalty has already been addressed and that answer is no, anyone with a website is ultimately responsible (Whether knowingly or unknowingly) for their own website. You have already agreed with this, and I don't think it is the issue you meant to bring up (Of course correct me if I'm wrong).

I am simply trying to get clarification from Boser about something he said. I will take responsibility for my website violating the Google webmaster guidelines but that does not mean Boser had nothing to do with me being penalized. If he sent in a spam report to Google then he had a hand in it.

I have never denied the fact that during my time as a consultant for AA that I gave both Yahoo and Google examples of other companies engaging in the same kind of behavior that got AA penalized.

Perhaps I should be more direct.

Greg: Did you file Google spam reports on a bunch of REW websites?

[JennSellsFast]

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