Google updates

I feel the need to move updates on the Google situation here, since it might involve a radical change to the site itself. Turns out the number one recommendation from folks on getting Philly Future indexed by Google is to give up - to actually get a new name and domain for the site. That's something that would impact you here. Maybe we can have a name Philly Future contest. But not yet. I'm not quitting yet.

A quick summary of the situation: We are not indexed by Google. An old version of the site still is.

Typically it's easy getting on Google - you post good content that people link to. You follow their webmaster guidelines. Don't attempt to pull any stupid tricks. And did I mention post good content? That simple.

The problem with Philly Future is that I let the domain go almost three years ago.

Here goes what I posted September 30, 2001. Just three days after 9/11 my nephew died. I couldn't see maintaining the site any longer. I couldn't find writers and the technology wasn't there for me to do what we're doing now here now - at least not with a radical commitment of time.

The site was well indexed by Google and the porn spammer that bought the site domain must have known that. The porn spammer abused the phillyfuture.org domain name. It's during this time that I figure Google blacklisted it.

I couldn't keep from trying to get our regional scene together and during that time I experimented with aggregation - RSS and Atom were becoming ubiquitous. When the domain became available again - I decided to give Philly Future another try. I bought the domain back. Here goes my joyous announcement of the relaunch February 01, 2004.

Since that time I followed the standard procedures to get us back in Google - submitted the site to be indexed. Submitted queries thru their support forms. Submitted the site to DMOZ (a very important directory to Google). And most importantly posted content that people wanted to link to.

Now there is a team doing that. And folks who I've never met! It's terrific.

Philly Future was picked up by all of the other major search engines - but not Google.

These past few weeks I have decided to pursue this matter with all my spare attention.

Beyond what we've tried above, here goes some threads I've started asking for help:
SearchEngineWatch
WebmasterWorld (I need to repost since they TOSed my thread)
Ask Metafilter (Ask Metafilter, by far has been the best source of ideas)

Someone who saw the Ask Metafilter thread added us to DMOZ which I am very greatful for. This might be what fixes the situation, but I can'nt be sure yet.

I emailed help@google.com with a subject line of 'reinclusion request' (this was passed on to me in one of these forums) and got an automated reply to go back and submit to their help forms again. Which in turn told me the same old thing - sit tight. If you are following guidelines we will index you.

You can understand my frustration. We've been following guidelines, as far as I can tell, the whole way thru.

I've been speaking on and off to a great Google employee blogger who has been terrific to talk to - but he told me that this is not his area - he will do what he can - but so far doesn't see what the problem is.

These following great folks have spread the news of our situation and there threads are ones to watch as well:

Dan Gillmor
Shelley Powers
Scott McNulty

This is not typically what you need to do to get in Google. Typically - it's all about the quality of the work you are doing and if people are linking to it. Really. This is a bug. An anomaly.

There is a saying in software engineering: "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow". Given the attention of enough people - we'll find a solution.