Regarding a penalty have you receive any message in your webmaster account ?
3 weeks ago Google knock down 4 of my sites they were all ranked #1 I got message " Google Webmaster Tools notice of detected unnatural links, Specifically, look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could be intended to manipulate PageRank. Examples of unnatural linking could include buying links to pass PageRank or participating in link schemes.
We encourage you to make changes to your site so that it meets our quality guidelines. Once you've made these changes, please submit your site for reconsideration in Google's search results." ...

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Yes I checked your Blog it's same thing as happen to me, alert message of unnatural links, honestly I don't know how long this is gonna last or Google is gonna make some changes regarding this big issue...

You have a very small keyword to natural anchor text ratio, it isn't really too surprising that you got the message to be honest. There's a large amount of "affiliate marketing help" and "make money online" anchor texts as compared to more natural, none keyword anchor texts used.

excellent post and damn right you should try to fight back and oust google for the true company that they are.

They are without a doubt the worst of them all

I'm not saying that, no. We need to think about what Google thinks, whether it be right or wrong. And yeah, it's always been possible to nuke a competitor, but you'll have a tough job doing it to sites with a lot of authority and diversity - do it to a new domain and they'll likely fall off the radar in no time at all.

Did you respond to google directly? We all need to get together and bite back. Well done for the post.

Which blog network are you using to build links?

Before you decide to go to war with Google, you might want to take a closer look at what you were doing. You have links coming from an obvious blog network, a really poor one at that. Your articles do not look spun, but all the articles around yours are nothing but spun garbage.

These networks, and more specifically the ones that allow spun content, are clearly in Google's sites.

We'll see more and more people complaining about this issue. Google grabs some sites, kicks them and there goes the neighborhood - good sites included.

Not sure where this is going to end but... so far not looking good.

Overall this new Google policy is just a joke. How can anyone control who is backlinking to their site? If someone buys some crappy fiverr gig with 10,000 profile links and points it towards a competitor, how can a webmaster control that? I don't know about everyone else but I'm going to start focusing on bringing in other traffic sources outside of Google. Just in case one of my sites get nuked by my competition and I get some stupid email from them. Unreal!!!

I advice you to choose on of the two to keep you income steady:
1. go for quantity - build many many niche sites. if one will penalize it wont heart you that bad.
2. Don't count on google - make a single authority website, and don't count on google for traffic. google traffic will only be a bonus.

counting on google for traffic on a single website is risky.

I think we should wait to see what is gonna happen, is Googe will continue harming innocents sites or they will stop and do some changes, if things continue like that then no webmaster will be safe out there, so anybody can harm your site just hitting with the spammy links and Google will penalized you, I thing Google is aware about this,hope they may make some changes in month or so there is plenty of complains at Google webmaster forum as more and more webmaster every day receiving message of detected unnatural links, will see what is gonna happen...

I'm in the same boat as you. One of my big sites that's been online for about 4-5 yrs and has well over 6,000 posts was penalized. Rather then unnatural links pointing to my site, I was told to look for unnatural links of my site pointing to other sites. I never sold links to advertisers, although there was a lot of affiliate links that weren't clocked or blocked with a "nofollow" tag. The site went from getting over 1,000,000 hits a month to around 20,000.

Ahh what do you know, I just got the same message, so I'm curious what the hell they are going to do, I'm currently being outranked by spammy, 5-15 page content websites, with typos, and garbage material.

I've seen the backlink profiles of the top 20 of my competition, and lets just say they are all gaming googles rules, so I can't wait to see how they sabotage their search engine when I'm building an authority website with tons of pages of well-written content, a nice new original design, oh man the list goes on.

I kind of laughed when I saw the message, I can tell google is turning into a garbage search engine so I'm not too worried about it. I'm going to take a step back, see what happens, and reorganize to stay as far away from google as humanly possible.

Sorry but you really didn't bite back. You did the equivalent of going into your bathroom and yell to yourself about your ex wife or Girl friend. the only one that heard it was the neighbors. They took your site out of getting search traffic. Your posting or a thousand Internet marketers posting doesn't affect them. I posted about this "we are in a war with Google attitude here"

http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...r-clothes.html


if you have any prayer of correcting things like you say you want to how does that post help achieve your objective?

Just find new update regarding Google Algorithm they said this new Google Algorithm change is going to be the biggest change in the history of Google search you can read here - Steps To Maximize Seo With New Google Algorithm - Resources - Portfolio.com

My websites did disappear for certain search keywords and fell in ranking for some...

I guess Google is upto the usual and traffic should stabilize in the coming days.

A few of my websites just lost their keywords over night and I've done minimal backlinking. Hopefully it goes back to normal in a few days.

I also received a penalty for my site of detected unnatural links, i don't know why they give me a penalty one of my site was onto first page on Google for small niche kw which doesn't have a lot of competition site is over a year old and has PR 1 site was on spot #7 I haven't build any link to that site for over 6 month already and I notice that site drop on page 6 so I checked my webmaster account and I got message from Google "detected unnatural links" I don't understand why they penalized my site I haven't build any links for 6 month already...

One of my blogs just get hit with the "unnatural link" crap. And of course they don't tell you which links so how do you fix it????? I have been using a PBN with varied anchor text and inner page linking and root domain. And NO SPUN crap at all.

I have to think of another plan for traffic. Google keyword traffic is very risky.

OP, I don't think you gonna win the war by fighting back. Battling with google is just like fighting your own refelction in the mirror. I think the change in google algo is not to affect the sites that have a lot of spammy low quality links built in occasional blasts - that could definetely be used in competitor wars and would be rather stupid/careless/outrages - you name it! - of google to implement. I think they are tackling sites who have unnatural linking patterns like over-using the same anchors, links from within the same length articles and same link positioning (like many blog networks do), using the same CMS of donor sites etc. etc.etc. - anything that leaves a clear pattern over a long period of time! So quick competitor blasts to sink you down - won't work. Google is looking not only for unnatural but also for long term patterns.

So perhaps you should anaylise your link building prehistory based on those lines and never repeat/use anything like that. I've heard from a well established SEO company serving 100's of clients that after Panda 3.3 lots of their customers have been penalised for unnatural linking patterns created as far back as 2009, 2010! So really, a lot to think about with regards to our link building strategies.

Finally, on this misfortunate occasion perhaps the best way is to create a new site and move on, while stopping any unnatural link building for the existing site and hoping that with time it may eventually come back.

looks like googles got me too, all my pages have dropped off the scale, however, i am still on page 1 for my main keyword. Strange.

Power to the people, brother!

This post is an eye opener not for me, but for people who (still) think that Google is perfect and that it doesn't make mistakes.

You had links from a really bad blog network. I can show you the links. The sites are awful spun garbage. Some of them had articles about some new technology with a link for wrinkle cream. That kind of stuff.

That is what did it. It wasn't trackbacks.

Hmm... Funny too with a bunch of people who are versed in SEO in various ways all the sudden on their heads. Just goes to show that there really isn't a blueprint that is 100% or even 50% stable for SEO. Google can and does change things based on what they think and feel is best for the search experience.

This might be a bit extreme, but sometimes I think it's similar to the Goverment or the Church in days past (or in other countries) that basically determines and tells the masses what is acceptable and how you will go about doing things. All the while wearing nice clean and trim clothes, smiling, and coming off as if what they are doing is in the best interest of the people and is somehow right.

It's all relative, so they, in my mind, are not 'right'. Problem is, it doesn't matter cuz they are definitely in control!

I got the "unnatural links detected" message from Google too.

Here is my reply to the message Google sent me:

Dear Google

Many thanks for your message about the unnatural links that you have detected pointing to my sites. I have no idea who created these links but here is what I plan to do with the information that you have kindly provided me with.

I now plan to set up 4 fresh sites and add Google WMT to each of them.

I then plan to hammer each domain with an individual type of link, each of which I believe could trigger the "unnatural links detected" message you sent me and pending penalty.

I will check the new Google WMT accounts for each site to see when the "unnatural links detected" message is triggered and on which sites. This way I will find out EXACTLY which type of links are causing the "unnatural links detected" message.

With my findings I will then hammer every competitor site in every niche I'm in to bring as many people down with me as possible.

Sincerely

--------------------

Na, I didn't really send that but it does go to show the damaging power that Google is putting into the hands of the negative SEO crowd.

How long did it take from the time you got the notice until you dropped? I got the same notice on the 18th but I have not really dropped yet. I am not sure if it is from using BMR or not. I would assume it is.

As others have mentioned, Google's in the hot seat here.

But, let's be realistic, all that needs to happen is a story about a
mom & pop's owned website that gets NUKED by a competitor and
completely removed from Google. You know the story, they end up
broke and on the street and Google penalized the wrong person.

It's never been a secret that you could get a website penalized, but
before it required an extensive budget and a long time frame. Something
most people don't have the patience or budget to implement. Now that's
a whole different story. I can't wait for the next New York Times article or
Wired spread about this very topic.

I hate to state the obvious, but Google is on the blog network rampage. At some point in time, your old SEO guy must have did some of that with your site. Hence the letter, hence the penalty. To say that you can back link your competitior into oblivion...well maybe. Maybe if you blog networked you competitor last year, then they may be suffering today.

However, to suggest you can do a 100,000 xrumer or scrapebox blast...I'm not so sure. Google knows how cheap these links are, and how readily available, and easy to implement. I believe that is why there is little value placed on them algorithmically. Besides, links are link are links, and are the foundation of the web. To destroy the foundation of the web by imposing penalties on your site by negative linkbuilding from competitiors...I doubt it will ever get to that.

I understand that you are upset. I'd be pissed too. First at them...and then myself for trying to speed up the SEO process which too many people try to do. Let's face it, your playing their game, in their arena, with their rules. If I were you, I listen close, play nice, and play fair. And don't forget to have fun.

They will eventually have to change their ways once everyone starts to hate them.

12 of my sites have been accused over the last week and I have never, ever bought links or exchanged links.
2-3 or those sites are 'brand-new' and if you check their popularity on Google with 'link:' or 'site:' the result is zero.
So if Google's own tools (which we know are unreliable) are saying that they know of no backlinks to my sites, how can they accuse me of unnatural linking?

That is the gist of my argument with Google.

If you write articles with a byline and the link is the name of the site and the name of the page most relevant to that article, and the article is used a lot, it stands to reaon that the number or different anchor texts will be limited, or not?

If you take an article from, say, EA, you are not allowed to just alter the achor text to whatever you like.

Owen.

Personally, I would cower to the might of Google and avoid a penalty. But I like that someone else wouldn't!

I've tried to tell people not to reply to those automated messages, their just creating problems for no reason.

I haven't had the message in my GWT, but If I did, I would simply ignore the message so long as my pages are still in the SERPs.

If your pages are still indexed you can recover a SERP position.

Or you can keep farting around with automated messages.

Why don't one of you guys that have the GWT message test this (in this order):

) Delete the site profile inside GWT
) Remove the GWT site verification code from the site
) Clear the browser history (CCleaner - Free)
) Create a new GWT profile for the same site
) Add the new GWT site verification code to the site

See If the same message comes back to the new GWT profile.

Can't hurt & beats asking the same question on a forum 100 times.

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