Got Google Warning But No Penalty - Should I Ask for Reconsideration?
-
I got the following warning from Google yesterday:
"Google Webmaster Tools notice of detected unnatural links to [...]
We encourage you to make changes to your site so that it meets our quality guidelines. Once you've made these changes, please submit your site for reconsideration in Google's search results.
"
But my website didn't lose any traffic or ranking so far. Anyway, I'm currently cleaning up my link profile.
My question is, since the website didn't seem to have a penalty, should I still submit the website for reconsideration once the clean up is done? If I clean up my link profile, would that warning just go away? Should I avoid a manual review of my website?
Thanks for your help.
-
Stephane - in my opinion, you're right to be confused.
This question demonstrates PERFECTLY the stupidity Google has perpetrated with this latest round of unnatural link notifications.
Up until now, Google has clearly stated that if you get one of these warnings, your rankings are going to be impacted and you must take action. I know - I was in the room at SMX Advanced in June when Matt Cutts stated exactly that.
Now Cutts and Google are backpedaling and saying "actually, just because you received the warning, doesn't mean we are actually going to take any action - you may or may not need to do something about it. and you have no way of knowing unless and until your rankings tank"
I've always respected Matt a great deal, but this last round of notifications and his explanation of it (for better transparency) are absolute bullshit and rather than clarification, have just horribly muddied the already murky waters.
For what it's worth, here's what I would recommend
- go ahead and clean up any obviously spammy links you may have acquired, assuming there are any (but don't panic & go overboard)
- keep careful documentation of your clean up efforts
- do NOT submit a reconsideration request - at this point there's nothing to reconsider as your rankings haven't been affected
- make sure you're tracking your organic search traffic volume and rankings carefully so you can spot any drops as soon as they happen
- continue to try to acquire good-quality, varied, natural links from other good websites (to help offset any questionable links)
- if you see any significant rankings drops, then submit your reconsideration request with the documentation of the link cleanup work you've done (and including the links you haven't been able to clean up because they're outside your control.)
The link warning won't go away because it's just a message that's been sent and can't (to my knowledge) be recalled, but if you do in fact have spammy links and clean them up, you "shouldn't" see any future effects on your rankings - but you'll have no way of knowing. You'll just have to sit and wait to see.
Paul
-
Donnie, I agree with your sharing that link. It is perfect for Stephanie's question. However, I disagree with your conclusion.
For many site owners, the message is a warning. I would advise all site owners to clean up their spammy links, but especially those who received this warning. They MAY be penalized in the future but there is no reason to submit a Reconsideration Request if the site is not penalized.
The link you shared quotes Matt Cutts:
If you received a message yesterday about unnatural links to your site, don't panic. In the past, these messages were sent when we took action on a site as a whole. Yesterday, we took another step towards more transparency and began sending messages when we distrust some individual links to a site. While it's possible for this to indicate potential spammy activity by the site, it can also have innocent reasons. For example, we may take this kind of targeted action to distrust hacked links pointing to an innocent site. The innocent site will get the message as we move towards more transparency, but it's not necessarily something that you automatically need to worry about.
If we've taken more severe action on your site, you'll likely notice a drop in search traffic, which you can see in the "Search queries" feature Webmaster Tools for example. As always, if you believe you have been affected by a manual spam action and your site no longer violates the Webmaster Guidelines, go ahead and file a reconsideration request. It'll take some time for us to process the request, but you will receive a followup message confirming when we've processed it.
-
Yes you should these affects will not take place until a few month from now however they will take place. i would highly recommend fixing the issues and asking for a reconsideration: http://www.seroundtable.com/google-links-warnings-15461.html _read this article. _
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
-
Why Google Search Console Data is different from Moz Data for my website
Hi All I am running a website, I have been using Moz since Feb 2021. Kindly go through these pics My question is why Moz is showing 2K plus backlinks while Google search console is showing just 1253 backlinks. Why fewer links in the google search console is less? How can I increase Google search console backlinks? Also, Moz is showing 90+ DA backlinks but those websites are not showing by the Google search console. What should I do to let google consider them? m0JGjBQ.jpg Cmp8ei3.png
Link Building | | ssubodhsingh0 -
How long does it take my links to get indexed by Google?
How long does it take my links to get indexed by Google? Also Is it possible to get my links indexed faster?
Link Building | | EugeneMot0 -
Hi. One of our competitors is ranking ahead of us on Google. Our site has a much stronger authority and much more quality links than this competitor. Would anyone have any explanations for this? Thanks
Hi Guys - I've noticed recently that one of our competitors is ranking extremely well on Google, while we seem to be fluctuating, along with other competitors, for our main keywords. Our site has a much stronger authority and much more quality links than this competitor and traffic is continuously increasing each month. Would anyone have any explanations as to why we may be seeing this? Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.
Link Building | | barryhq0 -
Backlinks on sites that aren't relevant, how does google determine relevancy?
I have a competitor who I've talked about on here before about how they passed us in ranking for our main keywords and that they were a new site ( less than 6 months old ). Well after further digging a few things were found out: Our site seems to have a penguin penalty causing our keywords ( a group of synonyms as well ) from ranking better than rank 30. As well our competitor has been using this weird backlink tactic of using SEO sites ( a friend? ), a parent site to prop it up ( footer links and others ) as well has links inside articles that aren't relevant as in having a commercial niche page inside a lawyer site page talking about phone dialing. Then the low DA directory sites. I'm curious as to if penguin algo will catch them once it comes out, if not penguin a manual review would certainly catch their tactics, but this site is doing everything else other than proper SEO. What do you think?
Link Building | | Deacyde0 -
Google Disavow Tool: which kind of links do harm and which do not harm my site?
Recently a guy asked at GoogleWebmasterHelp: Should I be worried if a couple of sites that I don't want to be associated with are linking to me? In this case there have been 2 porn sites linking to his site... that clear.
Link Building | | inlinear
But my question is if for example sites like e.g. : http://www.linguee.de Linguee is one of the best dictionary sites where you can search for phrases and receive common translation examples which are very helpful. Liguee set some links to my site because they take texts usually from multilingual sites to gather examples.
A dictionary site does not have nothing to do with my business but also I don't consider that this might my harm my site? What do you think?0 -
Dmoz & Google
If I submit an inner page/category of Dmoz to Google will it get crawled quicker? Same question for other directories paid and free.
Link Building | | ianpaine0 -
Link Building: Asking for links versus building links
I am currently delving into link building for SEO having started out from a social media marketing side. From that angle, it was always my belief building high quality links came from engaging targeted bloggers and sites in my market and related verticals for product reviews and/or providing expert advise and opinion for posts they are creating. As I am learning more the "technical" side of SEO, I've read a lot of posters on here talk about asking from links from websites. While I get the concept from a strategic stand point, are links really asking for or is better to continue to pursue the long term investment of pitching to get coverage from well known bloggers and sites?
Link Building | | joshuaopinion1 -
Google cache my backlinks two days ago but i did not see results
I got some backlinks in quality sites, and google crawled this sites something like couple days ago, but until now i did not see any results, im stuck in second page, i got backlinks with the exact keyword. Do i have to wait a little more? Do i have to worry bout it? Thanks
Link Building | | Ex20