Being penalized for unnatural links, determining the issue, and fixing the problem. What to do?

[Martin_S]

Hi all,

A client has been penalised, having received the message in Google Webmasters last week, along with two more yesterday.

It seems the penalty is for something specific: “As a result, for this specific incident we are taking very targeted action on the unnatural links instead of your site as a whole“.

This is the first time I've had to deal with this so I'll be a bit layman about it

The penalty, firstly, seems to be for the old domain, from which there is a re-direct to the current one. This redirect has been in place since Feb 2012 (no link building has been done for the old domain since then). In Webmasters, I have the old and new domains set up separately and the messages are only coming for the old (but affecting the new, obviously).  I need to determine if it’s the old or new URL I’m being hit for, or would that even matter?

Some questionable links I can see in WM:

There is an affiliate for whom WM is showing 154,000 links (all followed) from their individual products listings to the client’s site (as a related product) but they’re linking to the new domain if that matters. Could this affiliate be an issue?

There is also Updowner, which has added 2000+ links unbeknownst to me but apparently they are discounted by Google.

I see a ton of recent directory submissions - right up until last week - that I am not responsible for. Could that be intentional spam targeting?

I did also use a 3^rd party link building company for Feb, March and April who ‘manually’ submitted the new domain to directories and social bookmarking sites. Could this be issue?

For what kind of time-scale are penalties usually imposed - how far back (or how recently) are they penalising for?  Ranking were going really well until this happened last Thursday.

Will directories with non-followed links effect us negatively - one such one has over 2000 links.

What is the most conclusive way to determine which are the poor, penalty-incurring links pointing to us?

I know I now have to contact all the dodgy directories the site is now listed on to get links removed, but any and all advice on how to rectify this, along with determining what had gone wrong, will be most appreciated.

Cheers,

David

[Martin_S]

Thank you, Irving

From my initial look at things,  there is one particular term that links to one particular old URL across numerous directories that all seem to be connected, which I never sanctioned at all.

I'm starting to suspect part of this problem is related to someone purposefully trying to hinder our rankings, and I'm having the 404 for the affected page (old URL) implemented.

Is having the 404 something legitimate to include in the reconsideration request?

[irvingw]

are these links pointing to the old domain that you mentioned you think is penalized? if so kill the redirect.

if the links building you did (which is the cause of the penalty) is to the new domain then you've got some work ahead of you if those links are pointing to the homepage. If pointing to internal pages then 404 them. If pointing to homepage then work on removing them, keep documentation and periodically submit a reconsideration request to Google each time showing them the progress you are making. what went wrong is too many low quality spammy links also using the same anchor text