Have i got a manual action on rankings?
-
Hi guys, so recently Google released the 'manual actions' tab under 'search traffic' in Google webmaster tools.
Recently hit by panda i checked this and got:
"
Unnatural links to your site—impacts links
Google has detected a pattern of unnatural artificial, deceptive, or manipulative links pointing to pages on this site. 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."
However was this not the message before saying it was not a complete manual ban, just affecting a few bad links?
I was hit badly in the rankings but still have some good terms and traffic is not that bad still from organic non-brand.
I have fixed many of the bad links (horrible articles submissions that went out of control in 2009) - do i do a reconsideratikn request? i have disavowed the bad links that are left 3 weeks ago? so do i wait to see if disavow works or do a reconsideration request?I was sure this was like the message sent out before which meant it wasn't that bad for your site, just a few links ignored?
Any advice much appreciated, thank you.
-
Many thanks all for your responses and advice.
I am going to give it another 2 weeks, but i believe a reconsideration request is in order.
-
I just saw this in the Google Webmaster Tools help section:
If you see this message on the Manual Actions page, it means that Google has detected a pattern of unnatural, artificial, deceptive, or manipulative links pointing to your site. Buying links or participating in link schemes in order to manipulate PageRank is a violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines.
If you don't control the links pointing to your site, no action is required on your part. From Google's perspective, the links already won't count in ranking. However, if possible, you may wish to remove any artificial links to your site and, if you're able to get the artificial links removed, submit a reconsideration request. If we determine that the links to your site are no longer in violation of our guidelines, we’ll revoke the manual action.
This was on the following page: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2604772?ctx=MAC
-
I haven't seen that specific message from Google before, so I'm just giving my best guess, but I would say it wouldn't hurt to do a reconsideration request. I don't know if it will do any good since it sounds like Google is just devaluing some links, but the worst Google would do is just respond saying there was no need for the request.
Something to keep in mind, though, is that fixing the link situation isn't going to get the rankings back. The whole point of Penguin was that sites had rankings Google didn't think they deserved, so they sought to deal with the spammy links. Those links get devalued and the site no longer get's the authority boost from them. If a manual penalty has been applied, getting that lifted will help, but it will not put the site back where it was in the rankings.
Think of it this way. If you had 100 authority points, but 40 of them were from spammy links. Google comes in and devalues those spammy links and slaps you with a 40 point penalty. So, now your site has lost the 40 points from the spammy links and another 40 points due to the penalty. The site has 20 points. So, you clean up the links and get the penalty lifted. That still only puts the site back to 60 points, not the 100 points from before. The missing 40 points are just gone because those links have been devalued. The only way to get the site fully back to where it was is to just work to build authority naturally through good content and good service.
Kurt Steinbrueck
OurChurch.Com -
I have already removed 119 domains manually and kept records, theres about 40 left i just cant move. I have kept a record of all of this and i like the idea on your site to upload the details of this to google docs to include on the reconsideration request - thank you for advice.
So basically I feel we got hit because a bad seo agency did article submissions on mass for the same anchor text which got ditributed over and over again, giving us a non-brand term with huge amounts of referring links. I have been working hard to sort that and stop replications from awful scraper type sites also.
I just do not know what is for the best here, i have disavowed 3 weeks ago, perhaps i should give it until end of August and if no luck on rankings I will do a reconsideration request explaining all of this and hope they value us once again.
-
Hi sounds like a rough situation,
I remembered watching this longer Matt Cutts video when we had the same sort of problem http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=393nmCYFRtA, and i think he mentions a couple of minutes in about using the disavow links tool which apparently can take a couple weeks, but then mentioning that you have current links you would like to disavow in your reconsideration request text
Hope this helps
James
-
Hi I would recommend using a tool called Remove'em by Virante
http://www.virante.org/Virante is a Company that is endorsed by Moz http://www.removeemThat way when Google gets your the submission request you will simply be able to have a very complete record of every webmaster you attempted to contact whether or not they contacted you back and what occurred. This is crucial Google will not let you out of a penalty by removing links in the manner in which you are speaking that cool actually is to remove links from the search engine view is the way Google shows the web sight to people when it's queried. It is not for actually link removal in the manner were speaking about here to relieve for a penalty. I hope I've been of help.Sincerely, Thomas
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
-
ECommerce Tracking in Analytics - Should I use a plugin or do it manually?
Hi, I have a WordPress site (woocommerce integrated). I would like to know should I use a plugin to enable e-commerce tracking in Google Analytics or I should do it manually with GTM. Which is a better way? Will using a plugin to enable e-commerce tracking slow down my site? Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.
Reporting & Analytics | | Mr.Suren0 -
Keyword Rank Dip - Estimated Wait Time to Return to Higher Spot?
The organic traffic to our site (fairly new) took a ~50% hit about a month ago due to the drop in our most important keyword. The numbers have come back up and are now exceeding the number before the dip. While this is all fine and dandy, we're still not ranking in the top 50 for our most valuable keyword. We've put out a number of guest post on reputable outside sites and are building a regular cadence of those posts, but my question is, what is the realistic wait time for those organic rankings to increase again?
Reporting & Analytics | | smf434340 -
Are Click-Through rates & Bounce Rates as Ranking Metrics ?
There are lots of articles around but I would prefer to see what everyone here has to say about it. Are they ranking metrics ( directly or In-directly )? If they are then how to get it right? Can i depend on Google In-page analytic? What is an acceptable Bounce rate for a home page ? What is an average click through rate for your landing page ? thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | conversiontactics0 -
Page Optimization score is An A but Rank is dropping
New to company in SEO and they wanted a page to rank high for certain term : knowledge management on this page: http://www.apqc.org/knowledge-management Ran SEO Moz optimizer and did suggested changes. Moved score to A and ranking was on google first page but now it's dropped considerably last 2 months as the bounce rate has gone through the roof. I'm at my wits end and don't want the higher ups on me for the drop. I'm not sure what to try next.
Reporting & Analytics | | inhouseninja0 -
When one of my sites returns a ranking that consistently reads "No Data", what does that say about the site?
I am getting "No Data" reads for some of my sites - I personally think it has to do with the site's construction - especially the landing page... I inherited this site to do SEO - it was not created with on site SEO in mind - please help if you can sites are: www.storagesanangelo.com www.storagemidland.com Should I get webmaster to remove the big map graphic and add text and pics instead... Sure appreciate brilliant thoughts - even about yetis and beer
Reporting & Analytics | | creativeguy0 -
500 errors and impact on google rankings
Since the launch of our newly designed website about 6 months ago, we are experiencing a high number of 500 server errors (>2000). Attempts to resolve these errors have been unsuccessful to date. We have just started to notice a consistent and sustained drop in rankings despite our hard sought efforts to correct. Two questions... can very high levels of 500 errors adversely effect our google rankings? And, if this is the case, what type of specialist (what are they called) has expertise to investigate and fix this issue. I should also mention that the sitemap also goes down on a regular basis, which some have stated is due to the size of the site (>500 pages). Don't know if they're part of the same problem? Thanks.
Reporting & Analytics | | ahw0 -
Weird drop in ranks... google.fr
Hello folks, Before our domain: <cite>www.convertisseurvideo.net</cite> Keyword: convertisseur video ( convert your video ) is at the first(page) google.fr for this keyword search. Right now, its at second page, really dropped. And our CTR = 1% . How can we improve the CTR? Any toughts ? Thanks. ss.JPG
Reporting & Analytics | | augustos0 -
Drop in rankings
Hey Mozzers, In the past week 8 of my keywords have drastically dropped and I have no idea why. We had been doing link building campaign and things were lookign good. We stopped it and crash, all the kerword rankings dropped. Would be awesome if someone couls shed some light onto this one? the site in question is www.gunshotdigital.com thank you so much!
Reporting & Analytics | | vijayvasu0