Do I have a chance to recover from penguin?

[giftbasket4kids]

Hello All,

I am an internet retailer www.giftbasket4kids.com  hit by Penguin and have made many changes to my site since first being hit on May 2011. It seems I lost my ranking in some keywords on the two following landing pages. I am OK on my other keywords /landing pages.

http://www.giftbasket4kids.com/shop-by-category/gift-basket.html  keyword “Gift Basket Ideas”

http://www.giftbasket4kids.com/pages/birthday-gifts.html Keywords “Birthday gift for kids, boys, Girls, Children” it seems all keyword that includes “Gift, Gifts” and “birthday”.

Note: sometime most of the lost keywords come to 2^nd page for a day or two then they disappear again

I received a Google notice first week of August that there are unnatural links pointing to my site. There was couple of paid banner advertising. I stopped the links and request reconsideration. A week later I got response that there are still unnatural link pointing to the site. I request for reconsideration again and asked Google to let me know which links are in question.it is over 3 weeks I did not get  answer yet as I suspected.

I have optimized most of my product (80 fresh content well optimized product pages) and added a lot new content. I am making links differently. I am using Squidoo lens to promote my products. I do not know what else I can do.  I have been told maybe I should restart new site! All my other keywords are ok . I do not want to start over. Can I make new landing pages and promote them? Would it work or the site is penalized for those keywords?

I appreciate your advice in advance.

If anyone knows of recoveries of a site like mine? I am looking for an SEO who has experience with relates to sites like mine.

Do I have a chance to recover from penguin?

[giftbasket4kids]

can you please. share you finding with me as what is the problem with link profile. how I can improve it. is there any chance for me to keep the site?

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey,

Quick point but an important one - if you have had an email in Google Webmaster tools you have a manual penalty. Now, that does not mean you have not picked up a Penguin or Panda problems since but in your case, things are worse than that.

With regards to starting over, you can just change domain and kill your old links that way, you don't need to start your whole site over again.

Really though, you have a pretty nasty link profile, so if you get past the manual penalty, you may still find yourself with penguin issues so setting up the site on a new domain may be the best course of action and then doing some good quality link building and content marketing to take this site forward.

Hope this helps
Marcus

[giftbasket4kids]

Thank you for guidance.  I have already looked at all links. There are no paid links in my profile since May 2012. There are some low quality directory sites with repeated anchor text that I cannot change them.  If I make new quality links with different anchor text would it help? If I delete the landing page and promote new page with the lost keyword would it work? Or the site is penalized for the keyword?

[JamesNorquay]

My advice is to wait for the reply from Google after they look at the reconsideration request, it can take longer then 3 weeks from my experience.

Furthermore if they knock it back again you may have to export all your links in webmaster tools and go over them one by one too see what is paid or non natural, annoying but these are the lengths Google are going to in today's market.

Sites can recover, I have seen a few who have been hit by Penguin and after 3 or 4 reconsideration requests they have come back somewhat in the ranks, it just takes time.