Suppose you do something like put text on your page that's the same color as the background. Maybe quite innocently. Someone then reports you as spam...

 

So you fix the text, but how do you fix the negative reporting?

This is a minefield.

 

I had some recent experience of this: I did a site for a client. Couple of weeks later they contacted me saying their mail had been blacklisted. I contacted the hosting company who were no help at all - "nothing to do with us" was as much as they offered.

 

Eventually I found out my client had been running an extremely naive marketing campaign involving bulk emails. They had'nt looked in to the proper way of doing this.

 

So, you need to contact the people who've blacklisted you. Assure them you're not a spammer and that the whole thing was an innocent mistake. They'll then review the situation and eventually remove you from the list.

 

But I have to ask, how do you innocently put text on a web page that is effectively invisible. That's a real no no in terms of SEO.

 

Geez, I'm beginning to sound like I know what I'm talking about ;-)

But I have to ask, how do you innocently put text on a web page that is effectively invisible. That's a real no no in terms of SEO.

Indeed, google also does not like this, and has ways (mystical) to detect you are doing this. If it doesn't serve a good purpose, like when you want to have more keywords on your site without them clogging up your desing (keyword stuffing), you could be blacklisted by google. Which means that you will be removed from the search results. Google webmaster central article

Right, so how do you reverse that?

 

And how do you even know it's happened?

 

 

EDIT: Ah, thanks to Drewster I've found my answer to the first question http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35843

 

Is there a way of answering the second?

How do you even know it's happened?

Well for google its quite easy, just try to find your site in google search results. If you can't find yourself it either could mean that you haven't been indexed yet or you were removed. If you were removed then you can resubmit you site. I don't think your email will be blacklisted for hidden text in your site. Also, I wouldn't know how "someone" could report you to google or any other search engine, this proces is mainly automated.

Cheers!

 

I think it's best to stay schtum about any new ways that mischievous folk can make trouble for you...

Sorry, forgot to say, in your case you need to contact Google and ask for a review.

I dunno if it's even happened.

 

I notice WOT have given me a less than 100% rating, but that could just be disgruntled competitors, or folks who think my site should rate them higher, or just idiots. Lots of them about.