You really have to wonder what's going on at the Googleplex these days. It's now been over two months since Swollen Pickles evaporated from the SERPs. Where as once a search for Swollen Pickles would have turned up a number of pages on this blog, you now get a variety of pages that link to Swollen Pickles instead. You have to ask then, how relevant are the Google search results these days if this sort of practice is rife?

According to Webmaster tools, pages from Swollen Pickles are still included in the Google Index, so I know I haven't been delisted totally. I guess what bugs me the most is that there was no warning, and no reason given for whatever action seems to have been taken. I've lodged a reinclusion request, removed the only thing I can think of that may have been deemed as offending the rules (Text-Link-Ads), and yet haven't heard a thing. It's bizarre.

Perhaps the most irritating aspect of all is that now original content I post will theoretically appear a lot lower in SERPs than pages that have scrapped my content (eg. ripped it off). Arrrgghhh! Hopefully the reinclusion request goes through without a hitch and I can put this all down to a learning experience.

WidgetBucks - Trend Watch - WidgetBucks.com