A new one for us, trying to obtain rankings for "Brisbane Removalist" and similar terms. An interesting job, because we went right through the site, and though there were problems, there was nothing we could find that would be causing the low rankings, they were not even in Google.com.au's top 100 for their target terms, and the terms are not that competitive, and the site not that bad.

Then, we did a historical check as to how the site had looked to Google 6 months before, and then we spotted the problems. The web developer had done some funky things, but thought better of them and removed them. Google had also spotted them, and we believe had added a "We believe you are trying to scam us" penalty.

Though the problems have been removed, Google penalties often have a time period before they expire. Sometimes, Google will remove them, if you fall on your sword and tell them you did wrong and ask for forgiveness. We decided this was likely the best course of action.

So our course of action is as follows:-
(1) Fix the small problems the site still as – done 03 August 2009
(2) Start working on increasing the popularity of the site – done 14 August 2009
(3) Apply to Google to get them to reconsider the penalty – done 16 August 2009.

Brisbane Removals

I am happy to say, the site has had the penalty lifted and had now shot to page 4. For "Brisbane Removalist. Not too spectacular, but evidence that the site penalty has now been lifted and that our efforts to gain higher rankings now for the site, will not be hampered by a penalty.

Update
18 December 2009
There are some things, that we just can not achieve.  We can't achieve top rankings, if what we recommend a client does, just does not get done.  The main issues with this site are lack of popularity, and duplicate content.  The webmaster for this site, has decided the best way to dominate Google, is to republish much of the website on another website…..and thus try and get TWO sites into the top ten.

Ba-bow. Google is far too clever to be tricked by that.  the other site has an obvious penalty, and the main site remains stuck on page four of Google.

I