User talk:TeaLoverDenise

Newbie seeks help-I've been blocked as a spammer. I am not a spammer!

My husband and I just launched an online tearoom directory which lists tearooms around the country. We accept no paid advertising, nor do we charge for our listings. We make no money on this website.

Although I had seen the name Wikipedia show up in search engines, neither I nor my husband was familiar with what it actually was. I had sent out Press Releases about our website to several tea-related organizations, and then came over to Wikipedia to see what it was about.

I confess that I didn't read much about how it works, other than I saw something about "anyone can edit things". I thought it would be okay to add a link to our website on certain Wikipedia pages that related to tea, i.e., scones, crumpets, clotted cream, etc., etc., etc. because people who are interested in tea are going to be interested in tearooms. I did most, if not all, adding of these links in one night from one computer: my laptop.

Now - just as we are beginning to get ranked in the search engines - we have seen our url show up in a Yahoo search in a "Spam Blacklist" message.

Could someone please tell me what I need to do in order to get our name off the blacklist? What happened was an honest mistake by me. I am not a spammer!

Thanks,

Denise

You weren't very specific, I'm afraid, but I think your website is greattearoomsofamerica.com/. You added this link to at least 20 pages that I've seen, which is considered spam - Wikipedia articles should only contain a small number of directly relevant links that add more information that the article cannot cover. Your site may have qualified in the tea room article, but certainly none of the others. I'm sure you can imagine what our articles would be like if we allowed anyone to post a link to their website on any vaguely related page. (See Wikipedia:External links for more.)

To stop people who add their links indiscriminately there is a m:spam blacklist which prevents these sites being added to articles and your site has been added to this list. If you don't want your site showing up in search engines on this list then we may (I have no authority over this) be able to do so. I will ask User:Mindspillage (who added it) if she'll consider removing it on condition that you don't start adding it to articles again and it was a mistake in the first place. If not then you'll have to formally request removal at m:Talk:Spam blacklist. I hope this ends happily for you.--Cherry blossom tree 23:47, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that is our website. I did add it to all those pages because I thought as long as it was related, it would be okay. I didn't think it through but you are right, if everyone were allowed to post a link, Wikipedia would be a mess.

I really am sorry about this! We have worked so hard on our website, I don't want it to be blacklisted.

I will gladly agree not to add it anywhere else in exchange for removing it from the spam blacklist.

Thank you very much for all your help!

Denise

Your site's been removed from the blacklist now ([1]) and it should disappear from the search engines soon enough. Good luck with it. --Cherry blossom tree 17:44, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very, very much for your help, and for the good wishes! Denise