I sent a reconsideration request after submitting a disavow list. Response to the reconsideration request had examples of the very same domains listed in the submitted disavow list. Was my disavow list not taken into consideration? What next?

[promodirect]

We had received a partial penalty message. Post which we did a link clean up process and submitted a list of domains in disavow list and put in a reconsideration request. Post this reconsideration request we have seen a drop in ranking and traffic. The response to this reconsideration request had examples of the very same domains we had listed in the disavow list. Was the disavow list not crawled? Should we resend a reconsideration request? What next steps should be taken? We need to overcome this partial penalty.

[Dr-Pete]

Wish I could add some clarity, but I'm seeing what everyone else is seeing - the process is opaque, inconsistent, and takes time. If you've made an effort to remove links, disavowed properly, and outlined the removals in the request, then I'd give it time. What was the time lapse between the disavow and the reconsideration request?

[promodirect]

Hi all thank you for sharing your experiences. Whilst we submitted x number of links for disavow we have worked hard and removed twice as many ourselves. Yes and we did submit a link to list from where we had successfully removed poor back links... Guess I will have to wait a bit longer and them resend a reconsideration request.

[jake372]

Same thing happened to me.  I followed up again to let them know these domains or URLs were in my disavow file and a couple of weeks later I was notified the penalty was lifted.  Once the domains in your disavow file start to get filtered through, they should not show on the Spam team's radar.  When you file your reconsideration, I would make sure to give them a link to your disavow file as well as a link to your records where you tried to get links manually removed before disavowing them.

This will not be a popular statement but when in doubt, take sledge hammer to your back links.  When in doubt, get it removed or disavow it.  Better to be safe than sorry.

[GPainter]

Also Google likes to see you work if you just send a list of domains they tend to ignore it more. Send them a list of how you tried to remove the links prior to disinvow e.g email webmaster no response etc.

If the links are your fault its also good to put your hand in the air and say they were a mistake and your sorry. Don't forget whilst this is going on its good to keep building high quality links  to help counter it to a degree. Unfortunatly you do need to sit on your hands for a bit which can be a good time to look at your backlinks and work on getting good content on your site.

Did you just send them a list of domains or did you put some work in to try to remove them ?

Good luck

[Dave_Schulhof]

The disavow does take anything up to 8 weeks to go through and that's if it goes through at all. I have seen instances where it has been ignored and instances where it went through in just a couple of weeks. It all depends on what Google thinks of your site. Make sure any link building is legitimate and high quality as if you are still building poor links and disavowing then Google will not look kindly on your website.

[ColumK]

As I understand it they are treated differently. I think the disavow takes a month or two to actually get processed. But do not take my word as gospel, just something i had heard.