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A site owner has confirmed reports from a Google Webmaster Help discussion thread that his site was completely removed from the Google index by his previous webmaster.
It seems like this previous webmaster was upset with the site owner and when they parted ways, the site owner forgot to remove the previous webmaster's access to Google Webmaster Tools. Then the previous webmaster decided to use the Google removal tool to drop the site out of Google's index.
Googler, JohnMu, confirmed this indeed took place:
It does look like a previous webmaster removed your sites using the removal tool. I've passed a note on to the team so that they can look into what we can do now. Thanks for posting!
I suspect the site will be returned shortly, but let this be a lessoned learned for all webmasters and site owners. Make sure to remove the Google Webmaster Tools (and Yahoo Site Explorer and Live Search Webmaster Tools) access as soon as you remove their FTP access.
Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.
Comments:
Kerry Dye
02/03/2009 09:31 am
I can't believe any company would be so unprofessional. It is hardly good business practice, even if the fall out was not amicable.
jim
09/14/2009 08:04 pm
How do you remove them after you already approved their google account?
I am Nick
10/29/2009 04:32 pm
I can't figure out a way to remove those that already have access other than to switch servers. Google need to get a handle on this and set it up/ integrate it with GoAn.