Hi Daniel,

I hope that by now your penalty situation has been resolved.

Was just a little concerned when I read this thread that there might be a little confusion over the need to remove those paid links from your site.

I just wanted to clear this up for any new people reading Q&A who might take away the wrong idea from the thread.

If the paid links are now nofollowed, you don't need to remove them (unless they are serving no other worthwhile purpose).

Matt Cutts talked about this in the webmaster help video Why do paid links violate Google's guidelines while other ads don't?

As Matt explains in the video, there is nothing wrong with having paid advertising on your site, as long as there is disclosure (usually in the form of a nofollow tag).

For those who might be reading this thread because they too are wondering what to include in a reconsideration request, we have created a Checklist on our site that might help. http://www.rmoov.com/google-reconsideration-request-checklist.php

Hope the penalty is now far behind you,

Sha