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Comment by meatbag | Hacker News Reader

All of the articles I've seen thus far on studiobriefing.net are scraped verbatim from another source, assumedly celebrifi.com. This is against Google's terms of service, and this activity is likely to result in a ban. Instead of whining about how Google is persecuting an innocent website, these guys should have an honest discussion among themselves about what they are trying to do with the website and why their activities might have pissed off Google. Or they should hire competent in-house SEO help. For a 2k monthly retainer, I might be available, as long as I can telecommute (I don't want to move to SoCal).

There's usually a reason for Google bans. It's best to address this reason directly and honestly instead of stirring up drama. If the entirety of HN became consumed with righteous indignation, Google still wouldn't reinclude a low-value affiliate spam scraper site.

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I agree, but the complete lack of transparency on Google's part is still disturbing. I understand that customer service isn't Google's strong spot and that there may even be valid reasons for being a bit opaque when combating black hat SEO, but there's no excuse for not telling you what you're alleged to have done in the termination email.

And there needs to be a better appeals process than the current system of "find someone who works at Google to escalate your issue for you."

OK, quick: Everyone who, upon installing a new piece of software, reads EVERY LAST SENTENCE of the terms of use and prints out the terms for future reference before hitting "install", raise your hand.

As a separate issue from the quality (or more precisely, lack thereof) of studiobriefing.net's content, I do think it's reasonable for studiobriefing.net to want to know what, exactly, they have done that is against the terms of service. Yes, you are in theory supposed to pay close attention to all of the terms of service, understand completely how your web site complies with said obligations, etc. But in practice, people don't always know what the problem is, or understand the legal and/or technical issues involved.

So even if Google is 100% justified in cutting off studiobriefing.net, I think that as a matter of courtesy, Google should be willing to state specifically what studiobriefing.net did to get cut off, i.e. the enumerated paragraph/sentence in the terms of service that governs the issue.

Of course, that is assuming that the studiobriefing.net account is an accurate report of the communications from Google.

If the software is important to you, because, for example, your livelihood depends on it, then yes, I recommend reading the EULA closely :) IMO the same applies to running a business that is reliant to a significant degree on traffic from search engines. Failing to at least achieve basic familiarity with what Google does and doesn't like is equivalent to neglecting vital market research before undertaking any other business venture.

Well here's a place to start reading: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en...

This page on duplicate content might be appropriate: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answe...

In general, if your site does not present any original content then don't be surprised if it's delisted by any of the search engines. Also don't be surprised if the original source sends your ISP a take-down notice for copyright violations.

Yes.

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