Hi Peter,

I sympathize with your situation. Since the home page is blank with just a login feature you have no information about the site or its purpose. A Google search for the site shows nothing but the home page. A WHOIS search shows the site owner is private.

There is no way to know the reason behind the traffic. Someone could have shared a "free stuff" post and for whatever reason provided a link to your site. When users arrive at your site they are of course disappointed then leave.

Some options:

• contact the site owner via the WHOIS e-mail. Ask the site owner to remove the link.

• block all traffic from Bangladesh. This option will work if all or most of the traffic is from that site.

• block all traffic which shows that site as a referrer. I have never implemented such a solution but your web host can likely offer options in this regard. You may have to implement a firewall.

Best wishes

In December 2011 when I encountered this issue for the first time I suspected it was a manual penalty. I contacted Google via the Reconsideration Request tool and they confirmed the site was indeed manually penalized. After the initial wave of cleanup, Google confirmed the reason for the manual penalty was the "inorganic" links.

In our post-Penguin world, I would presume the issue is algorithmic but since we are all so new to Penguin I would still use the Reconsideration Request tool if the client approved.

Francisco is dead right.

On a personal level, I do not like the BBB. A few years ago they had a scandal where it was uncovered they were basically selling ratings. If you paid them money, you received a good rating, negative feedback could disappear, etc. Since that time they claim to have cleaned up their act.

The BBB is NOT a non-profit organization. Sure, the head office might be, but all the local offices are privately owned franchisees who operate for-profit businesses. Once again, I don't care for the lack of transparency where they present themselves as a non-profit business.

With the above said, I encourage clients to join the BBB. Why? Because the public sees the BBB as a positive organization and for the reasons Francisco shared.

The challenge with contacting a host is their hands are tied. There are only two ways I can think of for a host to potentially help you:

1. Provide the site owners contact information. That would be a breach of confidentiality. There is simply no reason for a host to share this information with you.

2. Remove the links to your site. If you filed a DMCA complaint regarding a copyright infringement, then a host is likely to help you. They may also assist with trademark complaints. Otherwise the site owner is free to link to any site they desire. The site owner is not breaking any laws by linking to your site. Therefore the web host is not able to take action.

Thanks for the feedback Robert.

The main site to which I refer had a manual action placed in November 2011. Looking back, I would say it is was a prelude to Penguin. This site exceeded 99% of the links being manipulative so it is pretty clear any reasonable threshold would have been triggered.

What surprised me was how determined Google was about all the links being removed, and the level of documentation required. It is possible I simply received a hard-nosed Google employee but I really trust Google's manual team has a high degree of manual calibration in these cases. I think back to the leaked Google Panda notes and the tests to become a Google tester. They are extremely calibration focused. That's my two cents. It's just speculation but that would be my best guess.

**So Ryan in your opinion if they saw some major drops in rankings you would think it would be a safe bet that the site was penalized? **

Not necessarily. There are numerous issues which can cause ranking changes. A page could accidentally be blocked via "noindex" or robots.txt.

Diagnoses of a problem normally requires the highest level of skill. When you go to see a doctor with a problem and he or she can't figure out the cause of the problem, you are stuck....until another doctor comes up with the correct diagnosis. The pharmacy has all the right meds, but a diagnosis is required. The same holds true for SEO. When your business or health is on the line, you don't want to play guessing games.

You can complete a Reconsideration Request. In the initial case, Google confirmed there was manual action taken. After the 100+ duplicate sites were taken down, Google then confirmed the remaining issue was due to the manipulative links.

With the recent Penguin update, Google may have automated part of this process into their algorithm.

None of these sites are linked at all, and all 28 of the sites are under the same hosting account (all are subdomains of root domain of hosting account).  Question, should I link these sites together at all and if so how?

What you are asking about is creating a link network which violates search engine guidelines, and therefore is not advised.

A link is supposed to be an "independent vote" and unbiased in nature. You are simply taking a bunch of sites you own and linking them together. If you sincerely feel it is a benefit to link the sites, use the "nofollow" attribute to avoid a penalty.

I have tremendous respect for Pete and I can understand his thought process. I'll share a different viewpoint.

I am fully understanding of a client's past history. If they practiced black hat techniques in the past, that is not my concern. The past is the past. If I work with a client, they must agree that going forward they will not use any black hat SEO, and they will actively work to resolve any issues so their site complies with Google's Guidelines.

Based on the above, I complete the Reconsideration Request. I have nothing to fear from Google. I would have already reviewed the client's website. I would have identified and be actively working on any outstanding issues. I practice full transparency with Google. This approach is how I choose to operate, and I believe I am more successful because of it.

What's the alternative? Hide from Google? At best, it's only a matter of time until they catch up.

Perhaps I am naive. But if you do have a manual penalty then the fastest way to resolve it for the client is the Reconsideration Request tool. Google can actually help you identify the issue and they can tell you exactly what is required to resolve it. I'll share one example.

When I was reviewing the manipulative link issue mentioned above, I found many free directory sites and I initially classified those links as being ok. Based on the information shared from Google, I re-evaluated those links and removed them. I firmly believe if we are fully transparent with Google and sincerely try to resolve violations, they will be helpful. That is my experience. Many others share different experiences. When I question them and review their communications, I quickly determine they fall short of full transparency so I can understand why they are struggling.

Steven, the first response shared remains the answer to your inquiry. You offered further clarification, and EGOL responded very nicely. The only thing we can do at this point is to continue to repeat ourselves.

With respect to practicing different areas of law, you have a very unique perspective that is not in alignment with the best user experiences or search engine practices.

Take any store...let's use Walmart....they have groceries, clothes, furniture, and tv's and so forth. They also offer a single website, walmart.com.

The law firm is a single business entity. It likely should have a single site.

At this point my impression is you clearly know and understand the advise which has been offered, but you fear the ranking loss. That is understandable. It will take a significant amount of SEO skill and investment to merge the sites without losing rankings.

What exactly are spammy links or "inorganic links"? Can you (or anyone) explain in simple terms what that means?

Organic links are links you earned. They are usually links which are editorially added. Inorganic links are ones which were created to manipulate Page Rank. There are various examples and details which can be offered to further clarify the distinction but at a high level, that is the distinction.

People say the other problem is having too many links with the "exact same anchor text". Does that mean having too many links pointing to the same page (like home page) using the same text in the URL - like MYHOMEPAGE.COM?

No. If you use a URL link then the concept of exact match anchor text does not apply. If you sell sports watches and then build 10 links to your page with the anchor text "sports watches" that would be an indicator the links are not organic.

The measurement Google uses to determine if a directory is ok or not is not whether or not the directory submission is automated, although I would share I am not aware of any directory which accepts automated entries that is compliant with Google Guidelines.

The question Google will ask...is this link you created on the directory truly helpful to users? Would you have created the link even if search engines did not exist? Or does this link seem like it was created mainly to manipulate page rank?

The concept of anchor text manipulation deals with replacing the URL with text which is more targeted to the keyword for which the site is trying to rank. Editorial links mostly do not use ideal anchor text. Many simply use the site link while others use text that is not ideal for SEO.

When the site owner or a SEO builds links to their own site, one of the many signals that point towards manipulation is when the anchor text is perfect. Try this...check OSE for Google.com. Look at the anchor text. Filter out the image alt text and just focus on the anchor text. Of course you will see "Google" a lot but you will see a nice variation of terms used to link to the same page. That is because those links are natural.

Look at your client's site. When you look at the top 20 links and 17 of them show "Best watch" for the anchor text, that is a clear sign of manipulation. Either the site owner or someone working on their behalf likely created those links. Another possibility is the site owner influenced the creation of those links. These links are not natural, or at the very least are less natural.

I hope that answers your question. I will also add the suggestion you are focusing on the wrong area. The best way for a site owner to build links is....to create amazing content which others find useful / helpful / amazing then let the world know about it. If you wish to build more links, then embed yourself as a member of the community related to the site's niche and sparingly mention the site.

There are tens of millions of active websites will ???trillions / quadrillions or some other number which is beyond the boundaries of human concept of web pages. Each company, including Google, sets their servers to crawl the web each month. Even large companies cannot provide enough web servers to crawl every page every month, not to mention every day.

Accordingly, each offers a piece of the puzzle. Google's WMT report shows approximately 50% of the backlinks for your site. The other reports each fill in part of the remaining data.

If you earn a link from high quality sites like the New York Times, it is likely all the tools will show the link. When you are dealing with web spam, a lot of it comes from low quality sites which are not frequently crawled. OSE is a fantastic tool but you cannot depend on it to show all the links to your site.

If that is the case and the same product is listed in more then 1 category and sub-category then will that product have 2 unique urls and as a result be treated as 2 different product pages by google?   And then since it is the same product in two places on the site won't google treat those 2 pages as having duplicate content?

Correct. You should decide which category is the most popular and then use the canonical tag so all other versions of the page point to the main page.

SO is it best to not have the category and sub-category names in the URL of a product page?

Using the canonical tag is one option. Using the same product page for both categories is another option.

And lastly, is there a preferred character limit for a URL to be less than in size?

Technically speaking URLs can be over 2000 characters. Practically speaking, the shorter the better for user readability and other factors. Dr Pete covers this topic well: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/should-i-change-my-urls-for-seo

Should I create new pages to cover related topics or improve an existing page?

My first consideration would be specificity of your topic. How many key words or phrases are you trying to focus? How much content do you have to offer?

Let's use cough syrup as an example (as I reach for my bottle). If your company name is Nature's Relief and you offer Nature's Cough Syrup as your product then one well presented page would probably be best.

If you are Robitussin and have 5 different cough syrups and brand yourself on "a different syrup for different coughs" then I would definitely recommend a separate page for each product. The first page might target keywords such as "hacking cough" which the next page might work along the lines of cough and nasal decongestant.

A final thought. If you provide Nature's Cough Syrup and are trying to compete with a competitor like Robitussin, then I would try to be creative and offer separate pages focusing on my competitor's key words. You can offer testimonials or examples where your product relieved a hacking cough, targeting the same key word.

In summary, step back and determine what your goals are for the page. First and foremost, how can you present the page to provide the best user experience. The next thought should be why are you making a change?

Google does not require you to give in to blackmail. With that said, I completely agree with your approach. Paying $10 to remove all the spammy links from a domain with numerous links is an easy fix, and can help with Penguin and future updates as well. This opinion may not be popular, but in the business world we need to value our time as well.

For the sites which attempt to charge larger fees, I would recommend replying with the following...."We are attempting to remove links from a large number of domains. We are unable to afford the thousands of dollars it would require to pay site owners to remove links. We would request that you please voluntarily remove the link as a courtesy. You may also wish to consider that providing a followed link to a penalized site may cause your site to be penalized. Instead of removing the link perhaps you would be willing to change it to a "nofollow" link."

Best of luck!

You are not out of luck. In my experience Google will always remove a manual penalty IF you clearly demonstrate a solid, good faith effort on your part. At a high level these are the requirements:

• admit your mistakes and how they were made. Be completely transparent and do not attempt to hide anything.

• Commit to following all Google Guidelines going forward.

• Gather a comprehensive list of all known links to your site. Simply using Google's list from WMT is not enough. Neither is using WMT + OSE or any one tool. Use several tools together. What has consistently worked for me is WMT, OSE, AHREFs, Raven and SEMrush combined. Many site owners and SEO's fail here by not compiling a comprehensive list.

• Every link/domain on the list needs to be evaluated. All manipulative links need to be identified. You need to be certain all remaining links fully comply with Google's Guidelines. Many site owners and SEOs fail here due to wanting to save links.

• Every domain which provides a manipulative link needs to be contacted. All aspects of the contact need to be thoroughly documented. A copy of the actual e-mail sent, the date it was sent, the response, etc. must be maintained. Letters should be sent via three methods: the WHOIS e-mail address (including the private addresses), the e-mail address on the site, the contact form on the site. Not all methods will be available on all sites, but the overwhelming majority of sites will have at least one if not all methods available.

A document needs to be created (a spreadsheet works great) listing all the URLs, links to the letters sent, the responses, etc. If you can demonstrate to Google you sincerely performed every reasonable task to have the links removed, they will "partially" lift the manual penalty. In my experience that means the penalty will be removed but any manipulative links you were unable to remove would be devalued.

You should always be able to have a manual penalty lifted, but it requires an exceptional amount of effort.

@Ginger, you are correct in that most penalties will address the specific pages which were the target of manipulative links. It sounds like you have put forth an incredible amount of effort. I hope you might pursue having the penalty lifted.

The two thoughts that come to my mind when thinking of anchor text are:

• what word or phrase would encourage readers to click

• what word or phrase would work best for search engines? What is a user likely to type into google?

You offered the phrase: "See what Cerritos Nissan customers have to say about their experience at this great Orange County Nissan Dealership.

I would suggest something along the lines of: Read feedback from Cerritos Nissan customers regarding their experience at this great Orange County Nissan dealer.

"Feedback from Ceritos Nissan customers" would be a link to your our-experience.htm page. "Orange County Nissan dealer" would be a link to your home page.

I have carefully read all of your responses in this Q&A. You seem to feel that both Google and I are not listening because we are not responding in the manner you desire. Just because I do not agree with you does not mean I did not read or understand what you shared.