"Unnatural links to your site" manual action by Google

[ishais]

Hi,

My site has been hit by a "Unnatural links to your site" manual action penalty and I've just received a decline on my 2nd reconsideration request, after disavowing even more links than I did in the first request. I went over all the links in WMT to my site with an SEO specialist and we both thought things have been resolved but apparently they weren't.

I'd appreciate any help on this so as to lift the penalty and get my site back to its former rankings, it has ranked well before and the timing couldn't have been worse.

Thanks,
Yael

[MarieHaynes]

Yes. It will often take me 3-6 weeks to do a thorough job on a manual penalty. I can do it faster if I dedicate all my time to it, but yeah...it's time consuming.

If you don't get example links it usually means that you have a large number of unnatural links still not addressed.

[ishais]

Thanks Marie for your input and advice. I didn't get any examples from Google despite asking for them twice. As you've suggested I'll create a spreadsheet with the list of domains, contacts etc. It's tricky to understand which domain needs to be taken down and which is valid, I don't want to make mistakes and dig a deeper hole for my site if and when it comes out of penalty.

I did get a sitewide manual action so I just hope to get it resolved as quickly as possible. Obviously contacting dozens or hundreds of sites would take some time to complete.

[ishais]

I'm working now to get as much information as I can to understand and cope with the issues that caused the penalty. I'm sure I can get the best advice here on Moz. Which site link auditing services would you recommend?

[MarieHaynes]

When you failed on your first two requests, did Google give you any example links? Those usually hold the key to why you are not passing.

Also, when you get a manual action it is vitally important to make attempts to try to remove links and not just disavow them. If you have links that can't get removed, then you need to show some sort of effort. I usually include a Google doc spreadsheet with the domains and the contact info and notes on how many attempts I have made at contact. Sometimes, if I have a site where I can't get any links removed I'll make a comment as to why. But usually, there are some that can still be removed. For example, you can report spam domains to Blogger or Weebly and they'll probably remove them.

It may be a good idea to have someone else review your links as well to see if there are more that could be removed/disavowed. Sometimes it is obvious which links are unnatural, and sometimes it is not.

I'd appreciate any help on this so as to lift the penalty and get my site back to its former rankings, it has ranked well before and the timing couldn't have been worse.

If you have a sitewide manual action then yes, when your penalty is removed you should see a good return in rankings for brand terms. But, if it is a partial match then you may find that not a lot changes unfortunately. I wrote an article on Moz about this which you can read here: https://moz.com/blog/after-penalty-removed-will-traffic-increase. Sometimes with a partial action I'll see some improvement, but sadly it is usually not dramatic. With that said, if your site has a really good base of truly naturally earned links then you have a good chance to see good improvement.

Hope that helps!

Marie

[ClaytonJ]

"Your seo specialist" may have got you into the pickle... have you also obtained independent advice and run a deep site link audit?

[ChrisAshton]

Hi Ishai,

There are a few steps I typically run through in this instance to get the issue resolved.

Firstly, rather than just submitting a disavow file, spend some time actively trying to remove as many links as you can without paying for them. Fixing a penalty isn't as simple as submitting a text file and Google wants to see that you're actively trying to fix the problem before they will lift the penalty.

It's often said they don't read the comments in your disvow file but I always add these in anyway. I mention what I've done to resolve the issue (contacted all possible low-quality sites requesting the links be removed) and even having a separate section for the particularly dodgy sites that want me to pay for removal.

Being able to demonstrate that you're legitimately trying to fix the mistake rather than waving the magic Disavow wand goes a long way to them removing your penalty.

Another tip that you may or may not be aware of - always disavow at the domain level rather than individual links. This way, if some of the dodgy directories shuffle their site structure and link to you from a different page, the links are still disavowed.

The syntax for this is simple: domain:badwebsite.com

This info is all covered in Google's Search Console Help section

EDIT: I should also mention, just pulling Link to Your Site from Search Console isn't going to give you  a very comprehensive list. Consider combining this list with an export from Ahrefs or Moz's Open Site Explorer as this will give you a better idea of exactly what sites are linking to you.

Frustratingly, Search Console only seems to show a selection of referring domains.