This website has been penalized by Google under suspicious circumstances. The penalty causes our web pages to appear at lower positions in Google’s search results than what they’ve earned on their merit. It is an intentional, hidden, manual penalty executed by Google against this site.
Publicly, the company says that websites can discover and fight these manual penalties via a tool they provide. What they don’t disclose is that Google can and does execute hidden penalties against sites. Since they’re hidden, there’s no way for site owners to respond to – or even know about – the fact that Google is intentionally limiting visitors to their sites. Websites live or die based on people visiting the site. This means that Google kills websites in private, with no recourse for the site owners. And there is no oversight or accountability.
To my knowledge, Google’s ability to destroy websites in this manner has not been disclosed before.
I was only made aware of the penalty after a whistle-blower informed me of it.
Separately, when confronted about this hidden penalty, a Google employee lied to me and to the public about it. That Google employee is Matt Cutts, the former head of the Google team that executes penalties against websites. He quietly left the company after an extended “sabbatical” and, tellingly, no one has been hired to replace him.
Many taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts use Google services, including Madison.