Google Hosts Low Quality Article Directory with Links They Want Us to Remove

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?