| I think the best scalable thing that you could do would be to generate a lot more useful automated warnings via all registered channels. And then have a process you outline somewhere on timelines and how to correct. I think the biggest hassle from the user perspective is it all feels like a black hole and black box. I understand the argument behind keeping it a black box, but it doesn't need to be as much of a blackhole. For example, in this case the following could have happened: 1) Site triggers some alarm for violating something. 2) Just those site(s) get strongly penalized. 3) Automatic emails go out in the message centers of Google Webmaster tools, analytics, adsense, and Gmail -- wherever the sites show up registered. In my case, it would have been all of the above. 4) The messages indicate the nature of the violation, that there is a penalty in effect. 5) There is a link to click on if you think you've corrected the errors. 6) If you click it, it auto-checks your site in y days and sends you another message that it passed or not. 7) If not corrected, it stays penalized or there are a series of penalties until full blacklisting. That's all automated, i.e. scalable. I understand there are some tricky bits about how much to reveal about why things were penalized and what not, but I think those could be worked around usefully. |
Google attempts to determine whether you deserve a warning; the goal is to notify honest folks, without notifying real "bad guy" spammers that they've been caught. Naturally, the algorithm gets it wrong sometimes... detecting wrongdoing is easier than detecting intent.
Were you blacklisted from Google Search or Google AdSense or both? Google AdSense's blacklist policy is totally separate from Google Search; Google AdSense's policy is to blacklist people on suspicion of wrong-doing (guilty unless proven innocent).