Manual Action - When requesting links be removed, how important to Google is the address you're sending the requests from?
-
We're starting a campaign to get rid of a bunch of links, and then submitting a disavow report to Google, to get rid of a manual action.
My SEO vendor said he needs an @email domain from the website in question @travelexinsurance.com, to send and receive emails from vendors. He said Google won't consider the correspondence to and from webmasters if sent from a domain that is not the one with the manual action penalty.
Due to company/compliance rules, I can't allow a vendor not in our building to have an email address like that.
I've seen other people mention they just used a GMAIL.com account. Or we could use a similar domain such as @travelexinsurancefyi.com.
My question, how critical is it that the domain the correspondence with the webmasters be from the exact website domain?
-
Thanks for the thanks, Patrick G.
An amusing sidelight: one company that refused my request for company email had previously entrusted me with use of their corporate credit card -- and continued to do so after refusing my request.
Go figure.
(sigh)
-
Is there any fear that the entire domain would be considered spam, if you use a company domain?
Or is it just that you want to use a separate email address, so it doesn't get intermixed with other items? Seems like some people on the web strongly advise to use a Gmail address.
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2237534/Google-Unnatural-Links-Manual-Penalty-A-Recovery-Guide
What is the Best Email Approach?
Some prefer to use an email address associated with the penalized website: Joe@example.com.The thought is that a domain based email provides maximum credibility. My concern with this approach is getting a domain's email torched by having it marked as spam.
My preferred method is to use Gmail from the Dedicated Account created for the link removal campaign. A cc to Joe@example.com seems to add sufficient credibility. By having all of the email outreach documented there, it's easy to share with Google. Using Gmail canned responses further adds to the efficiency.
-
Thanks for the insights Daniel.
Yeah, it is difficult the bigger the company.
Do you have any insights into whether I need to worry a lot about getting spammed, if I use an email on my domain?
-
I agree is always better to use a company address when representing the company (for link removal requests to third parties... or anything else. e.g.. creating Linkedin profiles or acting as Privacy Officer.)
I have had many "lively" discussions with clients about getting company email addresses.
Bottom line: hopeless with Fortune 500 or large companies with rigid policies. They are not going to make an exception for you, however compelling your case. They are hung up on (often phoney and imagined) compliance issues. Even if you clear that hurdle, they can always fall back on the old "we have to treat all vendors equally" claim.
But I have had some success with medium sized companies. In one case, I offered to let the IT manager monitor my email to ensure I was using it only for agreed upon purposes....on pain of contract termination.
-
Thanks for the insight. Will have to check out your book.
One follow up. Is there a rule of thumb between the time you get a message in Google Webmaster Tools, and the time you get penalized for not getting rid of those links or sending a disavow report?
-
I've done both. If it's possible for me to use a domain email then I do so, not for Google's sake, but rather, so that it looks more official to the people who are receiving the email. If I can't, then I make up a Gmail account like sitenameemails@gmail.com and when I send the emails I include a line saying, "You may have noticed that this email did not come from an @sitename.com email address. Because we are sending a large number of emails out we did not want to risk our domain being flagged as a sender of spam. If you would like verification from a site owner of this link removal request, please email siteowner@sitename.com."
-
Thanks for the note. I really appreciate it.
@William Kammer, get this, my agency admitted they are using Rmoov, and need it for that reason. So you were exactly right.
-
Google doesn't care where the email comes from to request a link removal. I've never seen a disavow report where the email of the requester is even mentioned. All Google wants to see in a disavow report is which links you want to disavow, and how much of an effort your made to get them removed manually.
The reason your SEO is requesting an email address at your domain is likely because he's using software to request link removals, and that software requires the email. Services like Rmoov are great for streamlining the disavow process, but in order to use Rmoov, you have to prove you're part of company, which requires the email address.
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
-
Google didn't show my correct language-version homepage.
I have a website which serves two languages - English and Chinese. My English homepage can be indexed by Google. But when I search the brand term in English, Google returns my Chinese homepage. I already added the hreflang attributes. And I'm working on building the XML sitemap for three languages. What other things I can work on to fix the issue? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | jsteimle0 -
'duplicate content' on several different pages
Hi, I've a website with 6 pages identified as 'duplicate content' because they are very similar. This pages looks similar because are the same but it show some pictures, a few, about the product category that's why every page look alike each to each other but they are not 'exactly' the same. So, it's any way to indicate to Google that the content is not duplicated? I guess it's been marked as duplicate because the code is 90% or more the same on 6 pages. I've been reviewing the 'canonical' method but I think is not appropriated here as the content is not the same. Any advice (that is not add more content)?
Technical SEO | | jcobo0 -
Redirect 'keyword-url' to improve ranking?
I was wondering if a good url, with a keyword in it, can help you improve the position of that certain keyword by redirecting that url to your website. To make it clear: We run the website www.terello.nl, and have the possibility to let the url www.iphonereparatie.nl (translation: iphonerepair) redirect to our website. Would this help us to rank for the keyword 'iPhone reparatie'? I hope that I made myself clear this way:) Otherwise i'm more than happy to clearify myself!
Technical SEO | | Jan-Peter0 -
On our site by mistake some wrong links were entered and google crawled them. We have fixed those links. But they still show up in Not Found Errors. Should we just mark them as fixed? Or what is the best way to deal with them?
Some parameter was not sent. So the link was read as : null/city, null/country instead cityname/city
Technical SEO | | Lybrate06060 -
My wepgages aren't crawled by google
Most of my webpages aren't crawled by google.
Technical SEO | | Poutokas
Why is that and what can i do to make google index at least most of my webpages?0 -
Using the Google Remove URL Tool to remove https pages
I have found a way to get a list of 'some' of my 180,000+ garbage URLs now, and I'm going through the tedious task of using the URL removal tool to put them in one at a time. Between that and my robots.txt file and the URL Parameters, I'm hoping to see some change each week. I have noticed when I put URL's starting with https:// in to the removal tool, it adds the http:// main URL at the front. For example, I add to the removal tool:- https://www.mydomain.com/blah.html?search_garbage_url_addition On the confirmation page, the URL actually shows as:- http://www.mydomain.com/https://www.mydomain.com/blah.html?search_garbage_url_addition I don't want to accidentally remove my main URL or cause problems. Is this the right way this should look? AND PART 2 OF MY QUESTION If you see the search description in Google for a page you want removed that says the following in the SERP results, should I still go to the trouble of putting in the removal request? www.domain.com/url.html?xsearch_... A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt – learn more.
Technical SEO | | sparrowdog1 -
Is it worth disvowing scrappers' links?
Hello guys, Do you think it is worth disvowing scrappers' links on otherwise good linking profile. Sites like Webmaster tools shows that sites like: mrwhatis.net, askives.com prlog.ru bigbozz.com answerparty.com wordexplorer.com scrape our content and generated from 10 to 90 links to our pages. Is removing these links waste of my time? Thanks
Technical SEO | | SirMax0 -
When do you use 'Fetch as a Google'' on Google Webmaster?
Hi, I was wondering when and how often do you use 'Fetch as a Google'' on Google Webmaster and do you submit individual pages or main URL only? I've googled it but i got confused more. I appreciate if you could help. Thanks
Technical SEO | | Rubix1