Banned or Sandboxed?

I have a prospective client that I think may be banned from Google. How do you tell? Frankly, if he did something intentionally that got him banned and is not telling me, I probabaly don't need him as a client. Can anyone tell me the easiest way to determine if a specific website has been banned from Google.

Thanks!!

You will need to learn the history of the website, information about what was done to the website previously & who did what. The client should provide this to you.

It would be impossible to tell you if the website is likely to be banned without knowing the URL & how old it is etc.

Archive.org (thewaybackmachine) and Copyscape are two useful tools, among others.

Okay, It appears as if the owner of this site, in an attempt to help his rankings, plagerized a "internet gurus" site. His rankings fell off some time after.... I still can't tell whether or not he is banned. g1smd, I checked on Archive.com and he has listings all through 2004 and nothing in 2005. Does that mean he has been banned? If I clean up his site with all new original, valuable content is there anything else I can do to get him back in the graces of Google? Thanks for all your help!!

Be aware thatarchive.org doesn't show data that they recently collected, the newest will be some 6 to 9 months old.

However, from what you say it looks like the site was banned for copying: whether the algo detected it, or the real owner made a complaint will be hard to find out, if at all.

Is it possible for me to get him "unbanned?" I believe the real owner made a complaint...... I will go through his site and ensure that ALL of his copy is original. Can I make a plea to Google somehow???

Yep. Do a search for "reinclusion request" to find out how you action that.

Your site better be whiter then white, as it will be manually reviewed.

Okay, I am really sorry for this question, if it is stupid, but... He does have a Google PR of 3. Could he have a page rank and still be banned......

Okay, I am really sorry for this question, if it is stupid, but... He does have a Google PR of 3. Could he have a page rank and still be banned......

You bet, the web is full of sites that have page rank and appear to be in the process of having their arses spanked.

Best advice IMO: clean up the site, bring in some squeeky clean links and go for the re-inlcusion.