Google Recon Request 4 Failed - This is crazy. HELP!

[smckenzie75]

We run a niche website selling sunglasses at www.aluminumeyewear.com.

I've been trying to resolve a 'Failed Quality Guidelines' message since May. My 4th recon request has just failed and I've exhausted all changes that I believe I need to make. I rely on this site to pay my bills etc so obviously I really need to get this resolved. I would be grateful if someone from Google could actually point out whats wrong instead of an unhelpful auto response.Steps taken.1. Rewrote content as it was a bit thin. Recon failed.2. Removed old products that couldn't be reached from every page. Recon failed.3. Submitted back link audit and added 'sitemap' link to footer. Recon Failed.4. Removed 40+ old urls that existed from old Yahoo! store (didn't realize they still existed). Recon failed.I felt sure #4 would resolve the issue so feeling pretty low right now that it didn't. That being said doing a site:aluminumeyewear.com it looks like I missed one of them which was http://www.aluminumeyewear.com/demora/black/, however it just returns a 404 which would seem harsh to penalize me for.The only other pages that I can think of are some dynamic pages that the store uses to create reviews such as:www.aluminumeyewear.com/product-reviews-add.aspx?product=2www.aluminumeyewear.com/resize.aspxI'm pretty sure that the reviews page is blocked via robots txt. The resize.aspx is a blank page with javascript as its needed by the PowerReviews Express system to work, and many many merchants use that platform so it would be hard to think its that.Thanks in advance.

[MarieHaynes]

Thanks Ryan.  That was my thought - address the links and resubmit.  Then, if there is still an issue go after the duplication issue.

[RyanKent]

I have worked with dozens of sites penalized for link issues and I have never once seen a notice state "some or all of your pages" violate the quality guidelines. That notice is sent when there are on site issues.

I would welcome the experiences from the community to see if anyone else has experienced anything differently.

You can always address the link issue first and then submit a Reconsideration Request, then proceed from that point.

[MarieHaynes]

Hi Ryan,

I was wondering how we can be certain that "this notice clearly involves a second issue not related to links?"

Is it not possible that the reason that "some or all of your pages" violate the quality guidelines is because of the bad links pointing to them?  Do you know for certain that it has to be an on page issue?

[RyanKent]

Ideally you want to copyright your home page and a few of your main product page. The process takes time but it relatively cheap. This process will not stop people from copying your content but it will make it easier for you to prove you are the original content owner when issues like this arise.

Generally speaking using Google Authorship can help but often companies will not want to identify an author for product pages.

Steps to take:

1. Contact the site which posted the content. Inform them you are the content owners and require them to take it down immediately.

2. If the above request does not yield immediate results, file a DMCA with the site's host.

3. Inform Google of the issue: http://support.google.com/bin/static.py?hl=en&ts=1114905&page=ts.cs. When asked to specify the nature of your request, select " I have a legal issue that is not mentioned above".

The only risk in the above process is if after step 1 the site owner spins the content a bit more but tries to keep it. If you are concerned about that possibility, I would contact both the site host and Google immediately after contacting the site owner. The process is supposed to be to use Google as a last resort, but when dealing with unscrupulous site owners you need to protect your business.

Of course hiring an attorney may be a good step but they can get very expensive fast.

[smckenzie75]

Wow - what is it with people? Yes - they've copied that text from our site. They probably think we are Gatorz and hence copied it. Thankfully they have left our product descriptions alone.

Whats the best way to deal with this?

[RyanKent]

The images you shared are perfect. Thank you.

Based on those images, it appears your site has been hit with two manual penalties. I am sorry to share the bad news.

The first manipulative links warning came on April 18th which was before Penguin and before Google was handing out "warnings" which were not penalties.

Your reconsideration request specifically states "some or all of your pages" violate Google's quality guidelines. This notice clearly involves a second issue not related to links. Both of these issues need to be resolved. I would recommend approaching each separately.

I cannot review your site's content fully but even a quick search indicated your site is duplicating / "spinning" content from another site. It could be the other site has taken your content but whatever the issue, it needs to be worked out.

Which of the below two sites has the original content and who copies / spun whom?

http://www.aluminumeyewear.com/gatorz.aspx

http://risqueattitude.com/sunglasses---hats-gatorz.html

[smckenzie75]

I've spoken to Marie privatly and she does feel its a back links issue, she's going to take a proper look tomorrow and get back to me.

Very frustrating because some of the issues have been created by the firms that were hired to help me.

Attached are some of the info from GWT.

0xQHe

[RyanKent]

Marie shared some helpful advice. We are frankly flying blind here and we need to understand exactly what penalty we are dealing with. Can you please post the exact Google response from your last reconsideration request? It would also be helpful if you can post the very first Google notice which mentioned a problem with your site along with the date it was received.

[MarieHaynes]

Yes, that's a good idea (the spreadsheet plus the links to the Google Doc that documents every single email.)

I really think it's a moot point whether it is manual or algorithmic because you got a message in your webmaster tools and then you got a response from your reconsideration request saying your site still doesn't pass.  Now it's possible that you could have both but nothing is going to change until you get past the reconsideration.  Then, if you do have an algorithmic penalty, the changes that you make for your reconsideration request should be enough for the algorithmic penalty to be gone the next time Penguin/Panda refreshes.

[smckenzie75]

Yes, it would seem that way. I've been in ecommerce since 2005 but never had hassle like this before.

Whats the best way to document everything? I'm guessing I can put a spreadsheet together stating success or failure in getting the link removed, but not sure about emails? Perhaps in a word doc and post them all on Google docs and include links to them in the recon request?

Lastly, how do I know its a manual penalty and not an algorithmic one?

[MarieHaynes]

Oh man...I really feel for you.  You're trusting SEO companies and getting deeper and deeper in a hole!

[quote]we used the services of another SEO whose advice was to dilute the crap links with good links and swing the link ratio.[/quote]

This is something that may work for Penguin recovery.  The reason for this is that Penguin is algorithmic, so the belief is that if there are a higher percentage of good links than crappy links, then the next time Panda rolls around you may escape the penalty.

But, if you've got a manual warning, there is no dilution that is going to work.

As mentioned in the other thread, if you've got a manual warning then you've got to fess up to EVERY single link that you (or your SEO company) have built with the intention of helping your site (as opposed to natural links).

The problem is that it is sometimes hard to know what is a good link and what isn't.  The BBB links may have been good.  Hopefully, when you had them change your business category (from internet business) you managed to still keep a link from them.

Most likely you will do well on reconsideration if you address every single backlink on your site and what you have done to deal with it.

For the article sites that have republished your spun article, you still need to attempt to contact them to get the link removed.  If they don't respond, or you can't find an email address (either on the site, in the WHOIS or no contact form) then you need to document your attempts (including a copy of the emails you have sent.)

It is also a good idea to mention in your reconsideration request that you may have fallen victim to a bad SEO company and mention the SEO company's name.

[smckenzie75]

Hey Marie,

I saw some of your other posts and was hoping you would reply!

Yes, we did receive two of those notices but firstly a bit of history.

We never did any actual link building ourselves however at the start of 2010 an 'SEO' wrote an article for us (back when that seemed ok) and submitted it. The article had exact anchor text in it and it got spun to several article directories. Things seemed fine so we left it at that. Then in mid April this year we got whacked with the unnatural links notice.

At the time GWT reported that our biggest source of inbound links was from the Better Business Bureau, around 90. This is because we are listed in their business directory as an internet business, and for internet businesses they list you in every city in your state with a link to your primary domain. Thinking this was the links they were referring to we got in touch with the BBB and got it amended. We then contacted the guy who had written the article and requested he get it removed. He replied said he had gotten it removed from the directories he had submitted it to, but couldn't do anything about the other sites that had spun the article.

Not long after all this we started getting the other message from Google re quality guidelines, so naturally we started thinking it was something to do with the content on the actual site.

Fast forward a couple of months and we used the services of another SEO whose advice was to dilute the crap links with good links and swing the link ratio. So we hired them to do that. In July we got another unnatural links notice so we had an audit done by the same company. Their audit recommended getting rid of links from sms-jok.com as there were over 500, but here's the kicker, those links were from an article THEY HAD POSTED BY MISTAKE! arrghh - why can't people just do their jobs?

So they got rid of the article from that site and it seems the site has now been de-indexed. We submited the rest of the audit along with a recon request to Google but it still failed.

So now I'm in a situation where paying the mortgage is getting very difficult because of the lost revenue we are experiencing.

I also don't know who to trust.

[MarieHaynes]

Did your message in webmaster tools mention anything about unnatural links?  A quick look at your link profile shows some sites that look like spam.  One site I tried to go to in your backlink profile gave me a virus warning.

Part of the quality guidelines have to do with your backlinks too.  Any links that were made solely to increase your rankings is considered unnatural.

This question has a good discussion on how to deal with backlinks when dealing with a reconsideration request.