News: Tunecaster.com De-Listed from Google Search

UPDATE THREE — Google removed the ban for a second time on August 6.

UPDATE TWO — That was Fast! Google Reinstates Tunecaster Then Blocks the Site Again!

UPDATE ONE — You Can’t Make This Up: Google Manually Bans Site While Google’s Own Bots Say Site is Safe.

Hi everyone. This is Dave from Tunecaster. I see that we have more visitors here at the blog since Google has de-listed our site at Tunecaster.com for “sneaky redirects.”

I had never heard of such a thing, so I had to look around. Apparently, sneaky redirects are where a mobile site sends users to a different URL than the one expected.

As the webmaster for Tunecaster, I can assure everyone that Tunecaster disapproves of such things. In fact, Tunecaster has always maintained a policy of minimal advertising — no sliders, no pop-ups, no pop-unders, no audio, etc. We have always insisted that advertising be clear and obvious, and not anywhere that clicks might be accidental.

We think that the text data tables in Tunecaster make it unusually easy for people to know where advertisements are, and also make those ads stand out nicely.

Google suspended our AdSense account nearly four years ago. Despite big changes and three appeals, Google refused to reinstate it or even explain what went wrong. We were accused of “encouraging clicks” even as the CTR was falling. Very strange.

Since then, Google has repeatedly placed malware warnings on the site. Each time, we had to work long hours to find and fix any potential problems. Today, there is virtually no active code at Tunecaster except for its advertisers — advertisers that were chosen precisely to replace the Google AdSense ban. Now Google completely removed the site from search.

To put it simply: Google banned Tunecaster from AdSense for vague reasons, refused to reinstate the site after big changes, then repeatedly penalized the site in search for using its advertising competitors, and now has entirely removed the site from search.

I removed the entire website from the server yesterday and re-posted a clean version and disabled the ads by Google’s competitor, Bidvertiser. Then, I applied for a “reconsideration.”

If Bidvertiser is the problem, it’s gone. It only took a few minutes to remove it. Now, I have to wait weeks? What is Google doing? There are plenty of Americans that could use jobs and Google has the money to hire a few.

I commented a bit more on the situation here.

I don’t know what else to do.

Please send me your comments below. Are you seeing “sneaky redirects”? Did you see them the other day? What do you think of the situation?

If you know someone at Google, please explain that there are honest people out here being caught up in the policing of “made for AdSense” scams. Thank you!