Manual Spam Action Revoked... Finally!
-
Just got this:
Dear site owner or webmaster of http://www.
We received a request from a site owner to reconsider http://www. for compliance with Google's Webmaster Guidelines.
Previously the webspam team had taken manual action on your site because we believed it violated ourquality guidelines. After reviewing your reconsideration request, we have revoked this manual action. It may take some time before our indexing and ranking systems are updated to reflect the new status of your site.
Of course, there may be other issues with your site that could affect its ranking without a manual action by the webspam team. Google's computers determine the order of our search results using a series of formulas known as algorithms. We make hundreds of changes to our search algorithms each year, and we employ more than 200 different signals when ranking pages. As our algorithms change and as the web (including your site) changes, some fluctuation in ranking can happen as we make updates to present the best results to our users. If your site continues to have trouble in our search results, please see this article for help with diagnosing the issue.
Thank you for helping us to maintain the quality of our search results.
Sincerely,
Google Search Quality Team
-
Hi Stephane, I'm wondering if you've seen any rebound at all since the penalty was revoked back in May?
-
Well think of it: If you keep your old site, you'll have to clean it up first and then start building links again almost like it's a new site. And nothing guarantees that it will be ever successfull as it once was. Chances are, it will never be.
If you start a new website, you'll also have to build links again but you won't have to clean it up first. You'll also get to monitor your link building campaign so that you can keep your link profile clean.
So no matter if you keep your old website or build a new one, you'll have to build links and that will take the same amount of time.
My advice to you is to start building a new website and keep cleaning up the old one for a while but try to minimize the lost as much as possible. If the old site ever gets back on track 100% before the new one gains traction, just redirect the new site to the old one. If the new one gains traction and starts getting profitable, kill the old site or whatever but don't redirect it to the new one to avoid passing bad link juice.
I think it's best to play it safe.
-
Wow. These are very unfortunate news...!
Can you please PM me the old site.
I'm on the same dilemma... I got the approval but nothing happened.We already spent so much time on it that if in fact we had done what you suggest we could have been way better off. But it is an old site so we hope for the best.
I do know that I need to fix many other things but still...Thanks
-
To sum up things, the site has pretty much gone to hell since so I'm abandoning it.
Don't waste time an energy recovering from a penalty, it's faster (and more profitable) to build a new website from scratch.
-
Hi Stephane,
You are now 2.5 months over. Are you back up? Is it truly over?
On that note, how long did it take you from the penalization to the RR approved?
During the penalization, did you have pages de-indexed?
Thanks
-
Great work, I don't think you're so lucky, perhaps a bit but it appears you did what was necessary to clear your link profile many would shy from as it's laborious and difficult. But not impossible.
Excellent feedback from you, so many thanks. I've gotta go through the process for a client very shortly.
-
I should also add that when submitting the reconsideration requests, I explained everything that's been done, from the SEO services / softwares used to build the links to everything you did to clean it up.
I included the full list of back links in a Google Docs spreadsheet as well as the list of disavowed links. I also printed all the emails I sent in PDF format and uploaded that as well to Google Drive. I shared both documents and included them in the reconsideration request.
Don't forget: the Google team will not open documents from anywhere else than Google Drive.
-
It took me about 50 to 60 hours to go through approximately 6,800 links. What a f*cking pain.
Here's how I did it if ever it helps someone:
1. I gathered all the back links from the following sources:
- Google Webmaster Tools (Sample Links + Latest Links)
- Link Detox (http://www.linkresearchtools.com/)
- ahrefs.com: Make sure to include sitewide links and nofollow links too (you can't be too careful)
- opensiteexplorer.org
2. I merged all the backlinks into one single Excel spreadsheet and removed the duplicates.
3. I uploaded the backlink list in CSV format into Link Detox (http://www.linkresearchtools.com/). It verifies if the links are still there and gives you back lots of details about each link like text anchors and the destination url.
4. You will be able to export 3 reports from Link Detox: Healthy Links, Suspicious Links and Toxic Links. Merge all 3 in one single spreadsheet.
5. I identified the obvious links first by sorting the Link Detox spreadsheet by anchor text. You can easily spot the exact match anchors.
6. Next, sort the spreadsheet by destination URL. You know the URLs to the pages you've spammed
7. Finally go manually through all what's left. Have fun!
8. When you're done putting all the bad links in another spreadsheet, rerun the Link Detox report by uploading the full link list as well as the list of links to disavow. This will allow you to see what's left and if you forgot anything.
I identified about 1,500 bad links from nearly 1,000 unique domains and emailed each of them when possible (about 300 - 400 emails sent).
It took two reconsideration requests before the penalty was finally taken off. The first time, I only used the links found in GWT and Link Detox. The second time around, I used ahrefs.com and opensiteexplorer.org also. I found about 100 more links the second time.
-
How long did it take you to do this?
How many RR's did you submit as well?
-
Congrats Man. You are one the few lucky guys who has done this.
-
Feels good, doesn't it!
I have two reconsideration requests in the queue right now waiting for a response. I keep refreshing WMT all day long to see if "Message(1)" is going to appear.
Congrats!
-
Congratulations!
I am sure getting the manual penalty revoked involved some hard work. Keep us updated on how long it takes for your search performance to improve.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How i can Reduce Spam score of my website
Hi everyone, I'm reaching out to the community for some advice on improving my website's spam score. I've been using the Moz Spam Score Checker and my website, sngplbill.pk, currently has a score of 7%. While this isn't exceptionally high, I'd like to take steps to bring it down as low as possible, ideally under 1%. One factor I've identified that might be contributing to this score is a number of backlinks pointing to my site has a much higher spam score (over 80%). (screenshot attached)sngplbillscore I'm wondering if the community has any recommendations for how to address this situation. Here are some specific questions I have: Does disavowing the backlinks from spamy site seem like the best course of action?
Link Building | | Faizali.786
Are there any other potential reasons why my website might have a spam score, even with these backlinks?
What general strategies can I implement to improve my website's overall SEO health and reduce its spam score?
Any insights or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!0 -
Inherited site with high Spam Score backlinks
When building backlinks myself I have been conscious to avoid going over the 30 spam score as recommended on Moz somewhere. But one of the sites I have recently started working on: https://www.osborneplanning.uk/
Link Building | | Donsimong
has a number of very high spam score backlinks, 5 above 50. Some are follow some nofollow.
I am wondering if its a good idea to disavow them, or should I just leave them as they are, I have read some suggestions that Google will just ignore the majority of spammy backlinks, and its better just to keep them, I dont want to start deleting links if they don't cause any problems.0 -
Spam links - what would you do?
Hello, A few months back our website was hacked which we noticed quickly and got fixed. However, there still is a lot of dodgy backlinks, linking to the spam pages. They come up in Webmaster Tools, Moz and SEM rush. According to the Moz Spam tool, a few of them have been given 7 flags which Moz suggests gives a 30% chance of being penalised by Google. The website has great rankings (position 1-3 in most targeted keywords) so I am scared of doing something that will harm the rankings, however I also aware that Google may do an update which could take these spam links into account. I have no experience of using the disavow tool but from reading up about it, it should only be used as a last resort. So my question is - what would you do?
Link Building | | N2Digital0 -
One page hit with 10K no follow spam links, should we disavow?
Hi everyone, I'd like your opinions on the best way to handle this situation: One particular site page just got hit with 10,000 no follow spammy backlinks over 10 days time. I've read that it's pointless to use the disavow tool on no follow links (since it basically does the same thing) but we want Google to be aware that this WAS NOT US and we don't want to be penalized for these spammy links. Couple of questions: 1. Do we send backlink removal requests to each domain webmaster? 2. Should we skip removal requests and move right to disavow? 3. Should we take other action? As a site we have NEVER used any black hat SEO tactics over a 15 year history and have many HQ do follow and no follow links to the site and this particular page. Thanks for any suggestions in advance!!
Link Building | | geteducated0 -
Would a Web Cam Cause Link Spam?
We posted a streaming video cam we own of a popular surf break in Capitola (foxxr.com/cam) and it's getting picked up by web cam directories. We have quite a bit of traffic from these cam directories, so we posted a site audit tool in on that page to generate some leads. Our website is about internet marketing. Our concern is about irrelevant link sources appearing spammy to Google. Would a web cam link do more harm than good in this case?
Link Building | | bchilders220 -
Removing spam back links (Using GWM and SEOMOZ)
Hi, I have noticed that I have got some unwanted spammy back-links. I want to get rid of them. From what I read on Internet, there are two ways to doing it. Using disavow tool in GWM. Contacting individual webmaster and asking them to remove the mentions or links. I have already added the links in the disavow tool and Google has accepted the request. Is it necessary to ask those webmasters to remove the link as well?
Link Building | | tradestreet0 -
How do I identify spamming links in Google eyes?
Hi How do I tell which links are spammy to get them removed. Is there a piece of software which I can upload our incoming links to and it will identify which ones are spam???
Link Building | | jj34341 -
Concerned about quality of backlinks - should I take action?
I regularly work on websites to which previous SEOs have built questionable backlinks. This morning I've just been analysing some backlinks - found 40 odd were coming from 20 odd websites which all had the same gentleman as personal registrant, who happens to be the boss of an SEO company. The SEO company name is mentioned in registrant details too, and often on the websites in question (including weblinks from some of these 20 odd websites to the SEO company). I did note the IP addresses / hosting for these websites did vary though, as did the postal address of the individual in question, perhaps throwing Google off the scent a bit. I should add that these websites are virtually all tourism related/themed, with up to a few dozen backlinks per page - usually articles. It's very clear they are backlinking to keyphrases. Now, this kinda thing<a></a> sets the alarm bells ringing. Firstly, this looks like an infringement of Google Webmaster Guidelines. Secondly, it doesn't sound like a White Hat technique for building links! Am I correct? I guess it might be denied they are partner pages due to the quality of content, perhaps, which isn't as spammy as it might've been. However, I suggest these are at least paid links because there is no other clear way of getting content on these pages, as far as I can see.<a></a><a></a> Should I demand these backlinks are taken down? What level of risk is posed do you think? I don't want this website to suffer a Google penalty at some point, particularly not after I've started work on it. Thanks and I look forward to hearing from you.
Link Building | | McTaggart0