Don’t be alarmed if you get an email by Google stating that you’ve violated their guidelines and are about to be de-listed from the search engines.
It has been reported on several occassions over the last couple months that Google has been trying out a new program to inform webmasters whom they feel are breaking Google’s guidelines. Some thought it was a hoax when they received an email from Google.
Google confirmed this pilot project’s existence and the primary communication so far with webmasters is via email. Emails are sent to selected websites flagged for removal from the Google index. Google’s engineer Matt Cutts says, “Google is trying out a pilot program to alert site owners when we’re removing their site for violating our guidelines. JavaScript redirects are the first trial, but we’ve also sent a few emails about hidden text, I believe…Personally, I think opening up a line of communication to let webmasters know when we’re taking action is a really good thing–a site owner doesn’t have to guess about what happened”.
This would certainly be a step in the right direction for webmasters wondering if their site is on the border of being being penalized. Corrective steps can be actively taken to remedy the situtation before the site gets de-indexed. This initiative saves webmasters a lot of emails and forum posts going back and forth guessing what really happened. It also combats the overall negative impression that Google doesn’t communicate it’s intentions to webmasters. It’s still in trial so it’s likely we won’t see a roll-out to the truly questionable and black-hat websites anytime soon, if at all.
You can see a sample of what an email would look like here at Threadwatch.