Google Manual Penalties:Different Types of Unnatural Link Penalties?
-
Hello Guys,
I have a few questions regarding google manual penalties for unnatural link building. They are "partial site" penalties, not site wide.
I have two sites to discuss.
1. this site used black hat tactics and bought 1000's of unnatural backlinks. This site doesn't rank for the main focus keywords and traffic has dropped.
2. this site has the same penalty, but has been all white hat, never bought any links or hired any seo company. It's all organic. This sites organic traffic doesn't seem to have taken any hit or been affected by any google updates.
Based on the research we've done, Matt Cutts has stated that sometimes they know the links are organic so they don't penalize a website, but they still show us a penalty in the WMT.
"Google doesn't want to put any trust in links that are artificial or unnatural. However, because we realize that some links may be outside of your control, we are not taking action on your site's overall ranking. Instead, we have applied a targeted action to the unnatural links pointing to your site."
"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 areconsideration request. If we determine that the links to your site are no longer in violation of our guidelines, we’ll revoke the manual action."
Check that info above at this link: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2604772?ctx=MAC
Recap: Does anyone have any experience like with site #2? We are worried that this site has this penalty but we don't know if google is stopping us from ranking or not, so we aren't sure what to do here. Since we know 100% the links are organic, do we need to remove them and submit a reconsideration request?
Is it possible that this penalty can expire on its own? Are they just telling us we have an issue but not hurting our site b/c they know it's organic?
-
Hey There
I would download all of your link data from;
- webmaster tools
- ose
- majestic
- maybe ahref too
And pull it together and comb through it for bad links. I think you'll really have to look through them to see what's going on. Maybe something was missed? First you need to confirm there actually are no spammy/bad links
In a removal / disavow situation the goal is to remove/disavow ONLY bad links - which there could only be 10 out of 100's - so you should sort through them.
-Dan
-
You say that all the links to the second site are "organic". What do you mean by that? Do you mean that the client never purchased links, did blog comments, did forum posts, engaged in article syndication, has followed links in guest blog posts... The list could go on and is pretty extensive. Are you saying that none of the links have been manipulated in anyway?
Also, have you analyzed the link profile for the site? Something is causing Google to think you are trying to manipulate things. Have you figured out what they may have an issue with?
Did you have question about the first site? I don't see one.
Kurt Steinbrueck
OurChurch.Com -
In my opinion if you get a warning about action to specific links and you have Basically a clean backlink profile and your rankings are not hurt you dont need to do anything. You should focus your energy instead on creating great links with natural anchor texts and providing a great web experience to your users.
-
Even if the penalty doesn't seem to be affecting things right now, I would definitely go through the "sustained effort" Matt talks about in the video and start contacting the webmasters to have them removed. Matt also mentioned that "we might take action on some of those anchors." Have you seen traffic to any individual pages that have these links pointing to them decrease at all? What if in a future update these links to start to affect traffic.
Even though overall traffic seems to be OK now, I'd say better safe than sorry, go through the effort to get those links removed and do the reconsideration request. That way, they won't become an issue in the future.
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
-
Is Chamber of Commerce membership a "paid" link, breaking Google's rules?
Hi guys, This drives me nuts. I hear all the time that any time value is exchanged for a link that it technically violates Google's guidelines. What about real organizations, chambers of commerce, trade groups, etc. that you are a part of that have online directories with DO-follow links. On one hand people will say these are great links with real value outside of search and great for local SEO..and on the other hand some hardliners are saying that these technically should be no-follow. Thoughts???
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RickyShockley0 -
Client wants to show 2 different types of content based on cookie usage - potential cloaking issue?
Hi, A client of mine has compliance issues in their industry and has to show two different types of content to visitors: domain.com/customer-a/about-us domain.com/customer-b/about-us Next year, they have to increase that to three different types of customer. Rather than creating a third section (customer-c), because it's very similar to one of the types of customers already (customer-b), their web development agency is suggesting changing the content based on cookies, so if a user has indentified themselves as customer-b, they'll be shown /customer-b/, but if they've identified themselves as customer-c, they'll see a different version of /customer-b/ - in other words, the URL won't change, but the content on the page will change, based on their cookie selection. I'm uneasy about this from an SEO POV because: Google will only be able to see one version (/customer-b/ presumably), so it might miss out on indexing valuable /customer-c/ content, It makes sense to separate them into three URL paths so that Google can index them all, It feels like a form of cloaking - i.e. Google only sees one version, when two versions are actually available. I've done some research but everything I'm seeing is saying that it's fine, that it's not a form of cloaking. I can't find any examples specific to this situation though. Any input/advice would be appreciated. Note: The content isn't shown differently based on geography - i.e. these three customers would be within one country (e.g. the UK), which means that hreflang/geo-targeting won't be a workaround unfortunately.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | steviephil0 -
Can Google penalize your site without sending you a Manual Spam Action?
I had a massive drop in traffic in Mid 2013, and a slow reduction since then. It has sort of leveled off now, but it's not exactly climbing I've never received a manual spam action. The answer to my question seems pretty obvious, now that I write it out... but have you heard of anyone getting penalized, without specifically receiving a warning? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DavidC.0 -
Site wide links - should they be nofollow or followed links
Hi We have a retail site and a blog that goes along with the site. The blog is very popular and the MD wanted a link from the blog back to the main retail site. However as this is a site wide link on the blog, am I right in thinking this really should be no follow link. The link is at the top of every page. Thanks in advance for any help
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Andy-Halliday0 -
How long for Google Webmaster tools to update/reflect link changes
Hi all, Does anyone know or have experience of how long GWMT takes to update its data?, we did some work on our link profile back in October/November but are still seeing old links (removed) showing in GWMT. Thanks in advance,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | righty0 -
Link Acquisition - link building
When using Site Explorer to find out my competiters links so I can do some link aquisition SEO do I look for the "inbound" links or or "linking domains"? Also, what filters should I choose? I want to make a spreadsheet as Rand suggested in his video and start to prioritize my link building.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | musicforkids0 -
The missing link?
Hello and Welcome Moz friends! Thanks for taking the time to look at my problem. On my website I've optimized our content to match the keywords I have selected for the site. I constantly am Re-writing articles, reading SEOMoz on tips and tricks how to make link juice flow. Yet only one of my keywords ranks decently, the rest never show up. I have the hardest time getting traffic to my site, and sales after that. Maybe I am implementing something incorrectly or there is something I am not doing. www.FrontlineMobility.com If you have any tips or anything to give me I would gladly accept it, any criticism is also appreciated. Thank you Friends, hopefully you can help me.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FrontlineMobility0 -
Increasing Internal Links But Avoiding a Link Farm
I'm looking to create a page about Widgets and all of the more specific names for Widgets we sell: ABC Brand Widgets, XYZ Brand Widgets, Big Widgets, Small Widgets, Green Widgets, Blue Widgets, etc. I'd like my Widget page to give a brief explanation about each kind of Widget with a link deeper into my site that gives more detail and allows you to purchase. The problem is I have a lot of Widgets and this could get messy: ABC Green Widgets, Small XYZ Widgets, many combinations. I can see my Widget page teetering on being a link farm if I start throwing in all of these combos. So where should I stop? How much do I do? I've read more than 100 links on a page being considered a link farm, is that a hardline number or a general guideline?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rball10