A post today at the Google Webmaster Central Blog announced that Google’s Search Quality Team will resume sending notification emails to violators of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
The notices started in 2005 as a courtesy to let webmasters know that pages have been temporarily removed from Google’s index but over the past few months Google stopped sending them because fraudulent emails (that supposedly came from Google) were scaring webmasters half to death.
Google has resumed sending these notices to everyone because their current system only allows them to provide notice to website owners that have verified their site at Webmaster Central. By only using Webmaster Central they left many webmasters in the dark which had, I imagine over the past few months, increased Google’s complaint file.
By sending these reports to those outside of Webmaster Central, Google is likely to re-energize the fraudulent emailers out there but that can’t be helped – the unsuspecting webmaster needs to know if they have stepped over the line. Even if they are not a patron of Webmaster Central.