Yes, that’s right. If you run a website, you’re responsible for the content on that site. And if Google de-indexes your site because you’ve been hacked and your site is full of spam links, that’s your problem, not Google’s. Whining to the general internet community about how life isn’t fair really doesn’t help your case, but instead makes you look like what you are: someone who can’t manage your own site and wants to blame Google for your inabilities.
Unfortunately, Matt Cutts lays out the truth on the matter, which indicates that Google took appropriate action, and made it pretty clear what was going on. I applaud Matt and Google for their honesty on this matter, both the initial de-listing of the site as well as the postmortem and public explanation of what happened. When only one side of the story is presented, the truth is often unclear. By seeing both parties perspectives on this issue it becomes clear that Google conducted business as usual, in a responsible manner, and that webmasters need to have a clue what is going on with the sites they manage.
Seriously. What sort of webmaster wouldn’t go look at Google’s webmaster console if they had problems with their Google listing? Or wouldn’t respond to e-mail sent to their domain registrant e-mail?
