The Google Ban is Over

To All,

This evening, Mon, April 28, 2008, the Rational Recovery website is back in the Google index, ranking first on the key search terms as usual. For exactly one month, since March 28, 2008, we were invisible to searches for Rational Recovery and AVRT.

I haven’t got a clue as to what really happened, whether it was a fluke, an accident, or malicious prank. Many also wonder why Google would pick on Rational Recovery. I have only speculated that possibly a low-ranking employee committed an “oops” that wiped us off the Google index. A more likely explanation is proxy hacking, but I doubt I’ll ever know what really happened.

We have been busy for the last several weeks sending out inquiries, pleas for help, and filing complaints about the vulnerability of small businesses to Google error or negligence. I’m not sure what we’ve learned from this crazy experience other than how dependent we are on a giant corporation that has outgrown its original purpose.

Thanks to everyone who expressed concern, and particular thanks for the contributors who referred me to important resources for webmasters who have gotten banned. Yes, it truly was a ban, and the result some reported above was a paid/sponsored ad with a yellow background.

Existential crisis
Since discovering the ban, I pushed as many buttons as I could. Maybe one worked; I doubt I’ll ever know.

To me, the Internet is a mystery. The Google algorithm is a gigantic, self-serving monstrosity that is probably the closest thing I can think of to the sci-fi tales of artificial intelligence in cyberspace. Although it may be written somewhere in code, it travels autonomously as an electronic entity in a universe consisting of servers and clients, arranging data in such a way that its own existence is insured. It has an innocent skin, seeming to serve the clients, but ultimately has the predatory mission of corporate profits = power.

In sci-fi, the drama centers around man versus monster, and the AI entity, seeming to have consciousness, works its magic and destruction as it zooms through cables, antennas, and receivers while hapless humans fret, wildly pushing buttons and double-clicking to stop the madness before the entity gains control over the world.

Oh, well, crisis over for now. Back to work, but I keep searching for myself to make sure I really exist. Do I really exist, or am I a figment of Google’s imagination? Oh, dear!

Jack Trimpey

Rational Recovery?
You Can’t Get There From Here!

©2008, Jack Trimpey. All rights reserved.

I propose that this title, above, be adopted as Google’s corporate slogan. Their real slogan is “Don’t be evil.”

If you Google “Rational Recovery” right here, you’ll discover a truly frightening fact about today’s Internet. Bottom line: If Google thinks you’re evil, Google can get you. The famous, controversial, widely-acclaimed Rational Recovery website can no longer be found on Google!

Rational Recovery was a steady customer of Google for several years, buying key words to reach people desperate for information on independent recovery from addiction. Our ad campaigns were successful, bringing a message of hope to many thousands of families trapped in the world of addiction and recoveryism.

The ads were expensive, however, so as 2008 began, we discontinued our Google ads. As we expected, web traffic tapered down to a healthy baseline of activity that has made the Rational Recovery website a high-profile Internet resource since 1995, practically since the birth of the Internet, long before Google had even been thought of.

Then, on March 28, 2008, nothing. As far as Google clients are concerned, the Rational Recovery website, including the crown jewel of addiction recovery, AVRT®, do not exist. Our competitors, detractors, imitators, infringers, and critics now have top rank for those key words. This website is zeroed out, nowhere to be found, as you can see for yourself. Only a paid, “sponsored” ad may appear.

Google denies blacklisting Rational Recovery. Since that false reply, they will not respond to my emails, nor speak to me by phone. I don’t exist. Clients of Yahoo, MSN, AltaVista, and other search engines still rank Rational Recovery first or very high on the key search words people use to get help with addictions. However, the New Behemoth, Google, now owns 70% of the search engine market. Google is a virtual monopoly aiming at 100% market share. This is a new age when one giant corporation has enormous control over the business world, and occasionally uses that power by blacklisting sites it deems unworthy of existence. While this power can have beneficial uses, such as in the control of illegal operations, it can also be abused according to the whims of low-ranking employees possessed by a keen sense of social justice.

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You Can’t Get There From Here!’