Oh, the irony. Google is hosting the very articles that contain links that Google is telling us that they want removed. Wait. What?!? That’s right, in what can only be a unique twist of irony, Google is playing web host to thousands of low quality spammy articles, the exact same type of articles that Google wants us to remove. And the links that they’re penalizing websites for having.
Let’s first take a look at this ‘article directory’ website:
If you look at the screen shot, you’ll see that it’s an “article directory” that’s similar to the what Matt Cutts talked recently talked bout. In fact, he said not to build links using article directory websites. Let’s take a look at the video that Mr. Cutts posted about article directories:
So, we’re not supposed to get links from these article directories. I’ve known that, and we all have known for quite some time now that Google Penguin most likely targets links from these sites. In fact, I have actually seen notices from Google in Google Webmaster Tools that give examples of article directories where these low quality links live. Once such notice pointed out links from an article directory as part of a warning based on a reconsideration request that was made.
So Google is serious about these article directories and links pointing to sites that are pointing to your website. If you have links from article directories like this one, you could get a manual penalty from Google for having unnatural links pointing to your website. Here’s a sample article directory that would fall into this category:
http://ez9articles.appspot.com/
That’s the article directory, with 71,900 pages indexed in Google. But again, it’s a low quality article directory, like the ones that Google is penalizing us for having links from…
So, it turns out that these low quality articles with all these bad links (worthy of a Google manual penalty), is actually being hosted by Google themselves. Oh, the irony!
Take a look at who owns appspot.com where this article directory is hosted:
Domain Name: appspot.com Registry Domain ID: Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.markmonitor.com Registrar URL: http://www.markmonitor.com Updated Date: 2013-10-29T11:31:53-0700 Creation Date: 2008-03-20T00:00:00-0700 Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2014-03-09T18:27:55-0700 Registrar: MarkMonitor, Inc. Registrar IANA ID: 292 Registrar Abuse Contact Email: [email protected] Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.2083895740 Domain Status: clientUpdateProhibited Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited Domain Status: clientDeleteProhibited Registry Registrant ID: Registrant Name: DNS Admin Registrant Organization: Google Inc. Registrant Street: 2400 E. Bayshore Pkwy Registrant City: Mountain View Registrant State/Province: CA Registrant Postal Code: 94043 Registrant Country: US Registrant Phone: +1.6503300100 Registrant Phone Ext: Registrant Fax: +1.6506188571 Registrant Fax Ext: Registrant Email: [email protected] Registry Admin ID: Admin Name: DNS Admin Admin Organization: Google Inc. Admin Street: 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Admin City: Mountain View Admin State/Province: CA Admin Postal Code: 94043 Admin Country: US Admin Phone: +1.6506234000 Admin Phone Ext: Admin Fax: +1.6506188571 Admin Fax Ext: Admin Email: [email protected] Registry Tech ID: Tech Name: DNS Admin Tech Organization: Google Inc. Tech Street: 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Tech City: Mountain View Tech State/Province: CA Tech Postal Code: 94043 Tech Country: US Tech Phone: +1.6506234000 Tech Phone Ext: Tech Fax: +1.6506188571 Tech Fax Ext: Tech Email: [email protected] Name Server: ns4.google.com Name Server: ns1.google.com Name Server: ns2.google.com Name Server: ns3.google.com
So, how is it that Google is hosting low quality article directories and then actually penalizing websites for having links from a site that they’re hosting? The site owner is using Google’s apps to host the site. I don’t believe that Google knows about this site, but I bet they will know about it pretty soon thanks to this post.
But really, the question is this: how is a website supposed to contact the REAL site owner of this website, since it is sitting on a domain name that Google owns? Are site owners who want these links removed supposed to contact Google to get these links removed?