How do I presuade Google to re-consider my site?
-
A few weeks ago I got an emai from Google that my site is suspected to violating Google guidelines-->suspected links manipulationg Google Page rank.
My site dropped to the second page.
I have contacted some of the top webmasters who link to me and they have removed the links or added a nofollow.
When I asked for re-consideation I got an answear that there are still suspected links.
What do I do now? I can't remove all of my links?!
BTW this happened before the offical Pinguin Update.
-
You got a manual link penalty i think. I have dealt with such penalties 3 times now (2 turned successful and 1 is in the go). Here is what you should do:
1. Get rid of spammy links (low quality and medium quality too) When you're manually reviewed, even the good links can become bad (algo can't detect them, but humans do)
2. Use disavow tool to ignore the remaining medium/low quality links you couldnt delete ( and the one you deleted too). Try to disavow domains either than simple urls. Struggling in taht penaly is worse than over-disavowing links, as it's easier to build ne links again.
3. Build a link asset onsite and try to grab some high quality and natural links (this should be done before reconsideration request). If your site is deserves to rank high, it should still receive High Q links even if it's not showing in G results.This sounds logic, right ?
4. Wait 4-6 weeks after submitting the diseavow file to google, and then send reconsideration request.
Bear in mind, you wil be most likely denied for the first and 2nd request like to 80% of the times, but the 3rd one can turn to be successful more often. So you have to be patient.
One last piece of advice: if recovering your website doesnt pay off the amount of work, time and money you will invest, just throw it away and start over with a new domain. And if you need someone with experience to handle the problem and take a closer look (audit) on your link profile, don't hesitate to call me back.
Wish you good continuation
-
Hey Ofer
There are different kinds of penalties and if you had this before penguin then you have a manual penalty and unfortunately, you have to work a bit harder to dig your way out of this hole as it will be manually reviewed.
So, if we just review what you said above:
"I have contacted some of the top webmasters who link to me and they have removed the links or added a nofollow."
Imagine how that looks to Google, you are almost saying:
"Hi Google, I have contacted some of the sites with dodgy links, but not all of them and some of these have removed or no followed them. Can I start ranking again where I was before and carry on benefiting from the rest of my manipulative links?"
I am really sorry to sound so harsh, but if you have a manual penalty, then you are going to have to do a little better than that if you want to get out of this and unfortunately, when these links are removed and you are no longer benefiting from them, depending on how much of your link profile this makes up, you may well rank lower than where you were.
Lets just look at something else you said:
"What do I do now? I can't remove all of my links?!"
Unfortunately, if you have followed short cuts to the top, and not invested in content and safe link building then the days of easy ranking are over and if all of your links are manipulative, you may do better to burn this house down and start again.
Really sorry to be the barer of bad news but with a manual penalty, we need to be transparent and show you have done your very best to sort this situation out which at the moment, you have not done.
Marcus
-
I would assume they stick to their word
-
In the Google guidelines they state that making a link a nofollow link is good enough from their point of view to not consider the link as trying to manipulating google ranking.
Is it true? Or do you need to actually remove the link?
-
Slow down Ofer, or you will cause more damage to yourself
I know you want to fix this as fast as possible, but don't ask until you are sure you got everything.
If you fix a little bit but not all and keep asking, they may stop responding to you.
You should also thoroughly check things on your own site. I could be wrong, but I think a page rank drop penalty will not be because bad sites link to you or that strong sites link to you, but more likely that you sell links based on your PR, so google's way to stop you is by hitting your PR. Certainly your PR could drop because of the loss of incoming PR due to their sites being hit, but that would just be ranking, not a penalty. Even if you made no money, but you did a trade, it amounts to the same thing.
Did you sell paid links? If so, either nofollow or remove them.
Did you do a lot of multiway links? ( that was stupid) Remove them
Did you trade links with bad sites? ( that was stupid) Remove them
Did you spin content and point links to your site? ( that was stupid) Try to have it removed.I think removing them is better than no following them, but if you have a quick way to nofollow, then remove afterwards, that might be useful to do.
Make sure your site is clean, then try to have other sites remove links. You need to go after the ones that don't make sense - unrelated sites.
Good luck - and don't ask for reconsideration until you fixed the problem.
When you do ask, document the changes you made, so write them down as you do them..
When you make hundreds of changes, you will never remember them all. -
I think this may help you. It was a popular blog post from a few weeks ago.
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/unnatural-link-warnings-blog-networks-advice
-
I read in the blog that it's a good practice not to add new links while you are planning on sending Google a re-consideration request.
-
Wow! You were quite that you shouldn’t be!
Try to plan the removals and don’t go for reconsideration that quick! I would highly recommend using open site explorer or Majestic SEO to extract your complete backlink profile and make the links that you feel are SPAM… then send the request for removal to all webmasters try not to play and request them to remove instead of no follow… as somehow Google still somewhere count no follow! (No follow still can indicate your bad link hood)
On a ground state, not all bad links can be removed from the Google’s profile… so before you ask for reconsideration request try to add some great links in your link profile… links from high authority blogs, magazines and press links can help you regain your rankings…
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
-
No-Indexing on Ecommerce site
Hi Our site has a lot of similar/lower quality product pages which aren't a high priority - so these probably won't get looked at in detail to improve performance as we have over 200,000 products . Some of them do generate a small amount of revenue, but an article I read suggested no-indexing pages which are of little value to improve site performance & overall structure. I wanted to find out if anyone had done this and what results they saw? Will this actually improve rankings of our focus areas? It makes me a bit nervous to just block pages so any advice is appreciated 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
Mobile First Index: What Could Happen To Sites w Large Desktop but Small Mobile Sites?
I have a question about how Mobile First could affect websites with separate (and smaller) mobile vs desktop sites. Referencing this SE Roundtable article (seorountable dot com /google-mobile-first-index-22953.html), "If you have less content on your mobile version than on your desktop version - Google will probably see the less content mobile version. Google said they are indexing the mobile version first." But Google/ Gary Illyes are also on the record stating the switch to mobile-first should be minimally disruptive. Does "Mobile First" mean that they'll consider desktop URLs "second", or will they actually just completely discount the desktop site in lieu of the mobile one? In other words: will content on your desktop site that does not appear in mobile count in desktop searches? I can't find clear answer anywhere (see also: /jlh-marketing dot com/mobile-first-unanswered-questions/). Obviously the writing is on the wall (and has been for years) that responsive is the way to go moving forward - but just looking for any other viewpoints/feedback here since it can be really expensive for some people to upgrade. I'm basically torn between "okay we gotta upgrade to responsive now" and "well, this may not be as critical as it seems". Sigh... Thanks in advance for any feedback and thoughts. LOL - I selected "there may not be a right answer to this question" when submitting this to the Moz community. 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mirabile0 -
Google is alternating what link it likes to rank on wordpress site and
Hi there, I'm experiencing a problem where google is pick and choosing different links structures to rank my Wordpress site for my main keywords. The site had pretty good #1 rankings for a long time but recently I noticed Google is choosing to rank the page in one of two ways. Let me just say that the original way where it held good rankings looked like this for example: flowers.com/the-most-beautiful-wedding-bouquets/ this is just an example it' is not my site. And when google decides to switch it up it uses this link structure:flowers.com > weddings (this still points to this link flowers.com/the-most-beautiful-wedding-bouquets when I hover my mouse over it) however this link structure that never appeared before and now does, usually has much lower rankings. Please note it's not both link structures being ranked at the same time for the keywords. It's one or the other that google is currently alternating in ranking and I believe it's hurting the sites position.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | z8YX9F80
I'm not sure if this is a wordpress settings thats gone wrong or what the problem is but I do know when shows the expanded and descriptive link structure flowers.com/the-most-beautiful-wedding-bouquets the rankings are higher and in 2nd place. I'm hoping by rectifying this I can regain back my position. I'm very grateful for any insight you could offer on why this is happening and how I could fix it. Thank you. PS Wordpress site has several SEO plugins0 -
I have a general site for my insurance agency. Should I create niche sites too?
I work with several insurance agencies and I get this questions several times each month. Most agencies offer personal and business insurance and in a certain geographic location. I recommend creating a quality general agency site but would they have more success creating other nice sites as well? For example, a niche site about home insurance and one about auto insurance. What would your recommendation be?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lagunaitech1 -
Network Of Sites...
Hi Guys, Just wondering if anyone can help me out... We have recently been hit by the Google penguin update and I'm currently working though all the bad / spammy backlinks that previous SEO companies have built for us. I have come across 1 particular domain www.justgoodcars.com they seem to have a lot of different domain names: <colgroup><col width="390"></colgroup>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ScottBaxterWW
| http://www.justpulsarcars.com/nissan-pulsar-warranties/1/United_Kingdom/all.html |
| http://www.justpumacars.com/ford-puma-warranties/1/United_Kingdom/all.html |
| http://www.justpuntocars.com/dutch-site/fiat-punto-warranties/1/United_Kingdom/all.html?selectcountry1=United_Kingdom |
| http://www.justpuntocars.com/fiat-punto-warranties/1/United_Kingdom/all.html?selectcountry1=United_Kingdom | Now all of theses domains names have exactly the same IP Address?? Above is just a few I would say there are 100s of them. Do you think this could have an affect on us? Thanks, Scott0 -
Domain Favoured by Google
Hi there, We have just launched our website in Ireland .ie and was wondering would the .ie website be favoured by Google over a competitor with a .co.uk or .com domain? Kind Regards
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Paul780 -
Google isn't displaying the www. for my site in the SERPS
I noticed that every other site url in the serps for my main keywords has a www. on their display url except mine. I have the site set to display the www. Can this potentially hurt my SEO and what can I do to fix this? Thanks Aaron. www.png
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | afranklin0 -
Working out exactly how Google is crawling my site if I have loooots of pages
I am trying to work out exactly how Google is crawling my site including entry points and its path from there. The site has millions of pages and hundreds of thousands indexed. I have simple log files with a time stamp and URL that google bot was on. Unfortunately there are hundreds of thousands of entries even for one day and as it is a massive site I am finding it hard to work out the spiders paths. Is there any way using the log files and excel or other tools to work this out simply? Also I was expecting the bot to almost instantaneously go through each level eg. main page--> category page ---> subcategory page (expecting same time stamp) but this does not appear to be the case. Does the bot follow a path right through to the deepest level it can/allowed to for that crawl and then returns to the higher level category pages at a later time? Any help would be appreciated Cheers
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | soeren.hofmayer0