Partial Manual penalty to a URL
-
Hi Mozers,
I have a website which has got a partial manual penalty on a specific url. That url is of no use to the website now and is going to be taken off in 3 months time as the website is going to be completely redesigned. Till then I dont wont to live with the partial manual penalty for this url. I have few things in mind to tackle this:
1. take out the url from the website now (as the new redesign will take 3 months)
2. take out internal links pointing to this url in question
3. file for reconsideration with google stating we have taken off the url and have not generated any backlinks and the backlinks are organic. (no backlinking activity has been done on this website or the url)
Please let me know if this works or i will have to get the backlinks removed then the disavow then the reconsideration.
Looking forward for ur response
-
I'm in agreement Robert. Hitesh, it does feel like we're missing some part of the story. I have reviewed hundreds if not thousands of sites that were dealt unnatural links penalties and I have yet to see one that was given unfairly. I have seen the occasional example unnatural link given that truly was natural, but I've never seen a site get a penalty when all they had were natural links.
Again, if you'd like to share the url I'll take a look and give you my thoughts. But other than that I think any answer that you'll get here is going to just be speculation.
-
Hitesh,
I have looked at this and read your other comments like those to Marie. Unfortunately, a feeling remains that I am not seeing everything. From your reply to Marie you show a bit more of the Google message: "Some links may be outside of the webmaster’s control, so for this incident we are taking targeted action on the unnatural links instead of on the site’s ranking as a whole."
Then you name some of the sources for the links and you also state that this page has some info regarding IP's in various countries and people are linking because of that, "which is totally natural." Also, "There are no unnatural links to this url but for the fact most of them are coming from forums and spammy sites."
I really get the feeling you are trying to define or redefine what "natural" is instead of realizing the problem you have and that it may shortly involve much or all of your site. You have been warned by Google and the easiest thing to do is to read what Jane Copeland wrote on the 30th and follow that direction:
I'd do a combination of trying to remove the links, disavowing what I couldn't remove, removing the page with a 410 and filing for reconsideration explaining what I did and how I've tried to fix it. I'd also explain that the page was obsolete to begin with and was always destined for the scrap heap.
Failing to take this action very soon could really negatively impact your site. Defining what is or is not natural will not help you.
Good luck,
Robert
-
I think the best place to start would be to contact the site owner, and see if they would be willing to remove the link pointing your way. If not, then use the disavow tool in webmaster tools.
If you have a bad feeling about a link, there is probably a good reason for that feeling. Try using Blacklistalert.com to see if the domains your site is listed on are blacklisted with any dns providers. You can also try MXtoolbox.com to see if thier IP address has been compromised. If you see any of the sites in question fail the test, then I would immediately remove the link by either of the methods mentioned at the start of this post.
Best of luck, I really hope you get it figured out.
-
Interesting. That type of penalty, to just one url is uncommon. Can you tell that there are unnatural links there? You can pm me the url if you'd like me to take a look. Can you tell why they were created?
I would probably still clean up the links to this page which means making efforts to remove them and then disavowing what you can't get removed. While Google says that they are no longer counting these links, we still don't know 100% whether they could affect you algorithmically such as in the eyes of the Penguin update.
-
the screenshots
-
Hi Marie,
Thanks for the response!
Yes the links are gained naturally. No efforts are taken for link building in our case. It was a useful file which users linked previously.
I have attached screenshots of the inbox message and the manual actions tab. Please have a loom and let me know, if the link removal needs to be done for the whole site or just the URL.
In my opinion i feel just the url as the penalty is only on the url and clearly google mentions that in both the messages
"As a result, Google has applied a manual spam action to ixx.xxxxxxxxxxg.info/node/view/54. There may be other actions on your site or parts of your site."
and
"Some links may be outside of the webmaster’s control, so for this incident we are taking targeted action on the unnatural links instead of on the site’s ranking as a whole."
Looking forward for your response
-
Hi Robert,
I agree and will do the clean up act, disavow and reconsideration. But now the question is do i have to clean the links pointing to the whole site or just the url? As i have received manual penalty just for the url which is a sub-domain on the site and not the whole site.
have a look at the screenshot for the warnings received in both inbox and manual actions tab!
It clearly states it is just for the sub-domain url
Let me know your views
-
Is it possible you could post a screenshot of what you are seeing in your manual actions viewer? Or, tell us what wording is in there? Does the message tell you that it is just one particular page on your site that is being affected? Is it an unnatural links warning?
"...have not generated any backlinks and the backlinks are organic. (no backlinking activity has been done on this website or the url)"
The vast majority of the time when a site owner gets a penalty and says that there are no unnatural links to their site, they actually HAVE created links that are unnatural. A good example is a site that has done widespread guest posting for links. Many site owners have a hard time understanding that those links are actually unnatural. However, if you are certain that you have done no link building to this page (assuming it is a single page that has been targeted) and you have an unnatural links warning, then is it possible that someone else has been building links to it? An example would be if you wrote a story about a particular company that put that company in a favorable light and then that company built links to your site in order to boost their story higher in the SERPS.
If you'd like to PM me the url and the details of your penalty I'd be happy to take a look.
-
I would say that it depends on why the penalty happened in the first place, but if it's a manual penalty then removing the resource probably won't get rid of the penalty overnight. I'd do a combination of trying to remove the links, disavowing what I couldn't remove, removing the page with a 410 and filing for reconsideration explaining what I did and how I've tried to fix it. I'd also explain that the page was obsolete to begin with and was always destined for the scrap heap.
-
If you first remove the url, even with the 410, I do not believe you will get any action on the penalty in terms of a reconsideration. Remember, with a reconsideration Google wants to see penance. Removing the issue is not penance, it is easy in their eyes.
Yes, these actions remove the issue, but I am not sure they will have an affect as far as reconsideration.I am certainly open to being wrong.
Best -
1. Make sure you have no internal links pointing to that page
2. Put a rule in place with a 410, meaning GONE before filing the reconsideration request.
3. Do not redirect the page with a 301 or any other method. Remember, you want the page to disappear, not redirect.Also, what is the message you received stating that only that one URL was penalized? Very strange to hear that only one was affected. Run a link check to see what other sites or listings are pointing to that URL, and if possible, log in to the citation or platform and change the link to one you know is not affected.
-
Hitesh,
Just so I am clear, you got a partial manual penalty on a single url? While it seems odd to me, most who come to us have partial or full penalties that are affecting their entire sites. My concern with not taking an effort to clean it up, file a disavow.txt file covering any remaining links, and requesting consideration is that it might leave you open for further urls and even affect the new site. This would be assuming you are going to 301 the old url's to the new site. Even without the "bad" url, there is the potential for carryover IMO around the site having been assessed a penalty and never addressed it.
So, if you have the time, clean it up and then file for reconsideration.
Best
-
unfortunately taking the url out and taking internal links away will not get the penalty removed you need to work on getting external links removed for it as that's where the penalty has come from. You can disavow them (I also recommend dropping them an email) if you don't want the page. There are some great guide here on Moz if you take a quick search.
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 Important is it to Use Keywords in the URL
I wanted to know how important this measure is on rankings. For example if I have pages named "chair.html" or "sofa.html" and I wanted to rank for the term seagrass chair or rattan sofa.. Should I start creating new pages with the targeted keywords "seagrass-chair.html" and just copy everything from the old page to the new and setup the 301 redirects?? Will this hurt my SEO rankings in the short term? I have over 40 pages I would have to rename and redirect if doing so would really help in the long run. Appreciate your input.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | wickerparadise0 -
Are businesses still hiring SEO that use strategies that could lead to a Google penalty?
Is anyone worried that businesses know so little about SEO that they are continuing to hire SEO consultants that use strategies that could land the website with a Google penalty? I ask because we did some research with businesses and found the results worrying: blog farms, over optimised anchor text. We will be releasing the data later this week, but wondered if it something for the SEO community to worry about and what can be done about it.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | williamgoodseoagency.com0 -
One page with multiple sections - unique URL for each section
Hi All, This is my first time posting to the Moz community, so forgive me if I make any silly mistakes. A little background: I run a website that for a company that makes custom parts out of specialty materials. One of my strategies is to make high quality content about all areas of these specialty materials to attract potential customers - pretty strait-forward stuff. I have always struggled with how to structure my content; from a usability point of view, I like just having one page for each material, with different subsections covering covering different topical areas. Example: for a special metal material I would have one page with subsections about the mechanical properties, thermal properties, available types, common applications, etc. Basically how Wikipedia organizes its content. I do not have a large amount of content for each section, but as a whole it makes one nice cohesive page for each material. I do use H tags to show the specific sections on the page, but I am wondering if it may be better to have one page dedicated to the specific material properties, one page dedicated to specific applications, and one page dedicated to available types. What are the communities thoughts on this? As a user of the website, I would rather have all of the information on a single, well organized page for each material. But what do SEO best practices have to say about this? My last thought would be to create a hybrid website (I don't know the proper term). Have a look at these examples from Time and Quartz. When you are viewing a article, the URL is unique to that page. However, when you scroll to the bottom of the article, you can keep on scrolling into the next article, with a new unique URL - all without clicking through to another page. I could see this technique being ideal for a good web experience while still allowing me to optimize my content for more specific topics/keywords. If I used this technique with the Canonical tag would I then get the best of both worlds? Let me know your thoughts! Thank you for the help!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jaspercurry0 -
Do searchs bot understand SEF and non SEF url as the same ones ?
I've jsut realized that since almost for ever I use to code first my website using the non sef for internal linkings. It's very convenient as I'm sure that what ever will be the final url the link will always be good. ex: website.com/component1/id=1 Before releasing the website I use extensions to make the url user friendly according the choosen strategy. ex: website.com/component1/id=1 -> website.com/article1.html But I just wondered if google consider both urls as the same ones or if it consider just as a 301 redirection. What do you think is the best to do ?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AymanH0 -
How long we can keep 302 redirection for a webpage url?
Hi Friends, I have a webpage featuring a product. I have created a new domain featuring the same product and the page is under construction. I am planning to do 302 redirection from the new domain to the existing domain for the time being. How long can I keep the 302 redirection from the new domain to existing domain? Is there any fixed time period/ duration that we can keep the 302 redirection for a webpage? I am planning to make few more pages (privacy policy, about us, etc) from the new domain 302 redirected to the existing domain. Is it possible? If so, how long can I keep the same? May I know which redirect is safe to use in this case, 302 or 301 redirect?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | zco_seo0 -
Starting fresh on a new url after serious Penguin update down rank
Hi friends My site www.acupunctureclinicvictoriabc.com was recently hit by the penguin update and i dropped to page 5 of local searchs for my key words. A while back I had some bad link building done and now paying for it:( I thought the disavow tool (used 4 months ago) would deal with this issue but apparently not The current url is feeling like a lost cause. My question is if I start fresh on a new url, can I use my old content (or even clone the site and move it to a new url) without being punished for duplicate content on the new site? Any recommendations for starting fresh? I really appreciate any thoughts on this matter, as I am feeling a bit lost and bummed about this issue thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Silasrose0 -
Identifying why my site has a penalty
Hi, My site has been hit with a google penalty of some sort, but it doesn't coincide with a penguin or panda update. I have attached a graph of my visits that demonstrates this. I have been working on my SEO since the latter part of last year and have been seeing good results, then all of a sudden my search referrals dropped by 70%. Can anyone advise on what it could be? Thanks! Will XBvZq2e
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | madegood0 -
My attempt to reduce duplicate content got me slapped with a doorway page penalty. Halp!
On Friday, 4/29, we noticed that we suddenly lost all rankings for all of our keywords, including searches like "bbq guys". This indicated to us that we are being penalized for something. We immediately went through the list of things that changed, and the most obvious is that we were migrating domains. On Thursday, we turned off one of our older sites, http://www.thegrillstoreandmore.com/, and 301 redirected each page on it to the same page on bbqguys.com. Our intent was to eliminate duplicate content issues. When we realized that something bad was happening, we immediately turned off the redirects and put thegrillstoreandmore.com back online. This did not unpenalize bbqguys. We've been looking for things for two days, and have not been able to find what we did wrong, at least not until tonight. I just logged back in to webmaster tools to do some more digging, and I saw that I had a new message. "Google Webmaster Tools notice of detected doorway pages on http://www.bbqguys.com/" It is my understanding that doorway pages are pages jammed with keywords and links and devoid of any real content. We don't do those pages. The message does link me to Google's definition of doorway pages, but it does not give me a list of pages on my site that it does not like. If I could even see one or two pages, I could probably figure out what I am doing wrong. I find this most shocking since we go out of our way to try not to do anything spammy or sneaky. Since we try hard not to do anything that is even grey hat, I have no idea what could possibly have triggered this message and the penalty. Does anyone know how to go about figuring out what pages specifically are causing the problem so I can change them or take them down? We are slowly canonical-izing urls and changing the way different parts of the sites build links to make them all the same, and I am aware that these things need work. We were in the process of discontinuing some sites and 301 redirecting pages to a more centralized location to try to stop duplicate content. The day after we instituted the 301 redirects, the site we were redirecting all of the traffic to (the main site) got blacklisted. Because of this, we immediately took down the 301 redirects. Since the webmaster tools notifications are different (ie: too many urls is a notice level message and doorway pages is a separate alert level message), and the too many urls has been triggering for a while now, I am guessing that the doorway pages problem has nothing to do with url structure. According to the help files, doorway pages is a content problem with a specific page. The architecture suggestions are helpful and they reassure us they we should be working on them, but they don't help me solve my immediate problem. I would really be thankful for any help we could get identifying the pages that Google thinks are "doorway pages", since this is what I am getting immediately and severely penalized for. I want to stop doing whatever it is I am doing wrong, I just don't know what it is! Thanks for any help identifying the problem! It feels like we got penalized for trying to do what we think Google wants. If we could figure out what a "doorway page" is, and how our 301 redirects triggered Googlebot into saying we have them, we could more appropriately reduce duplicate content. As it stands now, we are not sure what we did wrong. We know we have duplicate content issues, but we also thought we were following webmaster guidelines on how to reduce the problem and we got nailed almost immediately when we instituted the 301 redirects.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CoreyTisdale0