24 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
24 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

Google WMT Message

by carlosthejackal
21 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi all, I was the lucky recipient of one of the messages that seem to be prolific at the moment about unnatural links. It was the usual " 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." type of thing. Our previous SEO did indulge in some unsavoury wordpress blog links etc, which we are cleaning up and removing as much as possible.

My question is this however - our rankings and traffic remain as good as ever - surely if we were going to be penalised it would be round about the same time as the message? Is google sending it as something of a warning?

Would you be inclined to submit a reinclusion request or stay silent until such time as we're penalised and rankings drop?

Any advice or opinion gratefully received.
#google #message #wmt
  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    Originally Posted by carlosthejackal View Post

    Would you be inclined to submit a reinclusion request or stay silent until such time as we're penalised and rankings drop?
    Reconsideration requests are for sites that receive manual penalties, not algorithmic drops in the rankings. If you site drops because of this message you got about unnatural links, that is algorithmic. You can file all the reconsideration requests you want. It will not change anything.
    Signature

    For SEO news, discussions, tactics, and more.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5856808].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author carlosthejackal
      Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

      Reconsideration requests are for sites that receive manual penalties, not algorithmic drops in the rankings. If you site drops because of this message you got about unnatural links, that is algorithmic. You can file all the reconsideration requests you want. It will not change anything.
      Is that right? The message I received was as a result of an algorythm change and not in fact manual? I thought it would be the other way around.

      So if nothing has happended and my rankings are still ok, would you be inclined to complete the reinclusion request anyway?
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5856948].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author cssitkt
        My feeling is that the recent wave of penalty notices from Google are generated by the algorithm. No proof, just my guess.

        For a long time penalties that involved reconsideration requests were definitely due to manual review but i'm not sure now. Things have changed a lot.

        Google admitted that 700,000 of those messages where sent out in Feb - that's a lot of manual reviewing. My guess is that Google will want to catch unnatural links with their algorithm as much as possible. In the lead up to the first appearances of the dreaded unnatural links detected notice Matt Cutts was blogging about new spam filters being tested in the algorithm, stating that he was excited with recent algorithm improvements.

        Unless i'm missing something, there's no reason why the penalty cannot be created by the algorithm only to be removed my manual review. The message from Google posted in GWMT says 'Unnatural links detected'
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5857144].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author retsek
      Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

      Reconsideration requests are for sites that receive manual penalties, not algorithmic drops in the rankings. If you site drops because of this message you got about unnatural links, that is algorithmic. You can file all the reconsideration requests you want. It will not change anything.
      I have to disagree.

      The message specifically TELLS you to file a reconsideration request after making the necessary changes to fix the problem.

      This puts it in the same category as penalties that can only be reversed by "Revoking a Manual Spam Action" (Their exact words) or via an extended time-out period.

      On the other hand, I do feel that the sending of the penalty itself is completely automatic based on the characteristics of sites that may be involved in unnatural link building. So this is probably a different breed of animal - as opposed to the regular manual and automatic penalties.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5857956].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author SuzanneH
    From what I've seen on Google's Webmaster Tool forum, you would need to make a concerted effort to have the links removed and then file a reconsideration request, with details of what you've done. They'll respond back with whether it was enough or not.

    You can search their forum for similar threads here: Google Groups

    Suzanne
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5856912].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author Cataclysm1987
      Originally Posted by SuzanneH View Post

      From what I've seen on Google's Webmaster Tool forum, you would need to make a concerted effort to have the links removed and then file a reconsideration request, with details of what you've done. They'll respond back with whether it was enough or not.

      You can search their forum for similar threads here: Google Groups

      Suzanne
      Again, the above poster addressed this. This only matters if you have a manual penalty, otherwise reconsideration requests are useless.

      In this situation, you won't be penalized unless the links persist and the sites giving you links are deindexed.
      Signature

      No signature here today!

      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5856941].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author SuzanneH
    Maybe you can copy/paste the entire message (removing your URL, of course).

    Or look for this line in the message from Google: "If you find unnatural links to your site that you are unable to control or remove, please provide the details in your reconsideration request."

    Suzanne
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5857533].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author linkbuildr
    If you do get a drop it will come in a week or two.
    Signature
    Linkbuildr.com
    @Linkbuildr
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5857777].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author cssitkt
      Originally Posted by linkbuildr View Post

      If you do get a drop it will come in a week or two.
      I received 3 penalty messages about a month ago and not one of those sites have recovered their rankings. If we believe the message, which is all we have to go on at the moment, it says 'Remove unnatural links pointing to your site and submit your site for reconsideration' - that does not sound like a penalty that simply times out.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5861817].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author deaddogdesign
    To the OP of this thread:

    Did your rankings ever drop after the message?
    Signature
    DEAD DOG DESIGN
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5860100].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author carlosthejackal
      Originally Posted by deaddogdesign View Post

      To the OP of this thread:

      Did your rankings ever drop after the message?
      No - not at all, everything is still the same. Although I have read that any drop will occur within two weeks after the date of the message.

      Has anyone had the message and not received any penalty at all??
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5861908].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author augustogomes
    Originally Posted by carlosthejackal View Post

    Hi all, I was the lucky recipient of one of the messages that seem to be prolific at the moment about unnatural links. It was the usual " 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." type of thing. Our previous SEO did indulge in some unsavoury wordpress blog links etc, which we are cleaning up and removing as much as possible.

    My question is this however - our rankings and traffic remain as good as ever - surely if we were going to be penalised it would be round about the same time as the message? Is google sending it as something of a warning?

    Would you be inclined to submit a reinclusion request or stay silent until such time as we're penalised and rankings drop?

    Any advice or opinion gratefully received.
    Be sure you will drop.
    We've got the same issue message. And dont take that like an algorithmic matter only. In our case it was just after the arrival of a very important keyword on first page and rising. Few days and we got the message. People are reporting what they consider not natural and Google is checking manually your site. We were penalized because of too many bookmarks in inner pages and articles directories and blog linsk to inner and domain. Around three to five days keywords started dropping. We had around 27 keywords on page one, after 5 days they were 15, three days later 11, five days later only 9 and now, around 30 days, no one including the main optimized keywords placing #1 and #2, they drop to # 15 and #17. We told Google about a SEO company we hired for off-page SEO but it didnt work. We lost around 97% of traffic and the solution we are trying now is simply changing all URLs without redirecting and let Google index again those new ones without any links, there wasnt any other way to disregard the links. We already got another domain for branding and are waiting for all pages being indexed again in order to redirect to a new domain and start over. There is no other way in our opinion.
    Another clients site using the same strategy, we just made it very slow, very few bookmarks per page, some blog commenting, some articles, PRs, social media and it is ranking good already 9 keywords first page in 75 days, competition mediu to high in my country.
    My advise, Google Bot and Algorithm is not your enemy, your competitors are.
    Augusto
    Signature
    Brasil
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5864377].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author carlosthejackal
      One thing I can't quite get to grips with is the severity of the penalty. Some people are reporting drops only on keywords that have been over-optimised, some reporting that they have an overall site-wide drop, and some saying that they have been de-indexed.

      What is the severity of the penalty based on?
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5864650].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author pangolin123
      Hey mate, Have you tried diversing your anchor texts (100s of anchors)for your urls using wiki sites?

      Originally Posted by augustogomes View Post

      Be sure you will drop.
      We've got the same issue message. And dont take that like an algorithmic matter only. In our case it was just after the arrival of a very important keyword on first page and rising. Few days and we got the message. People are reporting what they consider not natural and Google is checking manually your site. We were penalized because of too many bookmarks in inner pages and articles directories and blog linsk to inner and domain. Around three to five days keywords started dropping. We had around 27 keywords on page one, after 5 days they were 15, three days later 11, five days later only 9 and now, around 30 days, no one including the main optimized keywords placing #1 and #2, they drop to # 15 and #17. We told Google about a SEO company we hired for off-page SEO but it didnt work. We lost around 97% of traffic and the solution we are trying now is simply changing all URLs without redirecting and let Google index again those new ones without any links, there wasnt any other way to disregard the links. We already got another domain for branding and are waiting for all pages being indexed again in order to redirect to a new domain and start over. There is no other way in our opinion.
      Another clients site using the same strategy, we just made it very slow, very few bookmarks per page, some blog commenting, some articles, PRs, social media and it is ranking good already 9 keywords first page in 75 days, competition mediu to high in my country.
      My advise, Google Bot and Algorithm is not your enemy, your competitors are.
      Augusto
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5864725].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author augustogomes
        Originally Posted by pangolin123 View Post

        Hey mate, Have you tried diversing your anchor texts (100s of anchors)for your urls using wiki sites?
        Didnt use wikis but be sure, just in the beginning I used same anchors for hight PR links and after that all kinds of anchors as usual. I mean I have done it before, several times, slow linking very careful, the reason was simply because of my competition, be sure, it wasnt just Google, it was competition trying to screw my work. We all know if I grab new competitor arriving the first page, is very easy to prove something wrong with their campains, nobody does it perfect white hat, its impossible. Even when you pay for manual submissions its not white hat anymore. I had great content, bounce rate below 20%, lots of infos.
        Another question is about over SEO'd sites. Try to publish content density below 1.5%, and check if it will rank you. How can you show the readers your content if it is a great content on page 10?
        The whole thing is BS, if you dont do some links to grab at least one or two keywords on page 1 you wont rank anything.
        Just you guys tell me how long will it take for us to rank competitive keywords now when the top sites in page one are PR 5 or 6, 350k backlinks and you cannot over SEO and cannot do lots of links. Will Google simply consider my 600 links in 90 days better than the #1 doing as many backlinks per week without any penalty because it is an "Authority Site".
        Think about it
        Augusto
        Signature
        Brasil
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5867754].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author JK Nyerere
      Originally Posted by augustogomes View Post

      Be sure you will drop.
      We've got the same issue message. And dont take that like an algorithmic matter only. In our case it was just after the arrival of a very important keyword on first page and rising. Few days and we got the message. People are reporting what they consider not natural and Google is checking manually your site. We were penalized because of too many bookmarks in inner pages and articles directories and blog linsk to inner and domain. Around three to five days keywords started dropping. We had around 27 keywords on page one, after 5 days they were 15, three days later 11, five days later only 9 and now, around 30 days, no one including the main optimized keywords placing #1 and #2, they drop to # 15 and #17. We told Google about a SEO company we hired for off-page SEO but it didnt work. We lost around 97% of traffic and the solution we are trying now is simply changing all URLs without redirecting and let Google index again those new ones without any links, there wasnt any other way to disregard the links. We already got another domain for branding and are waiting for all pages being indexed again in order to redirect to a new domain and start over. There is no other way in our opinion.
      Another clients site using the same strategy, we just made it very slow, very few bookmarks per page, some blog commenting, some articles, PRs, social media and it is ranking good already 9 keywords first page in 75 days, competition mediu to high in my country.
      My advise, Google Bot and Algorithm is not your enemy, your competitors are.
      Augusto
      Did you use SENUKE, Bookmarking Demon or some other tool that uses proxies to create the bookmarks to the internal pages or were the bookmarks real and from different IP addresses?
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5874799].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author retsek
        Originally Posted by JK Nyerere View Post

        Did you use SENUKE, Bookmarking Demon or some other tool that uses proxies to create the bookmarks to the internal pages or were the bookmarks real and from different IP addresses?
        Seriously how would Google know you used a proxy or not, to create a page with senuke or BD.

        People use things and software and they don't even understand why they are using it. You use a proxy to increase the success rate of your submissions and to decrease the likelihood of those accounts being flagged or removed by the sites. It has nothing to do with Google.
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5874822].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author JK Nyerere
          Originally Posted by retsek View Post

          Seriously how would Google know you used a proxy or not, to create a page with senuke or BD.

          People use things and software and they don't even understand why they are using it. You use a proxy to increase the success rate of your submissions and to decrease the likelihood of those accounts being flagged or removed by the sites. It has nothing to do with Google.
          It is not to create a page. Read the question again before you make an irrelevant comment about it. Seriously.
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5877913].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author deaddogdesign
    Also, how old is your site. Might drop if it is under 2 years old.
    Signature
    DEAD DOG DESIGN
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5873926].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author augustogomes
      Originally Posted by deaddogdesign View Post

      Also, how old is your site. Might drop if it is under 2 years old.
      Of course it is under two years old but take a look at Google's forum and check how many sites over "5" years old are dropping.
      Mine is just a child and it will survive.
      Augusto
      Signature
      Brasil
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5874450].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author deaddogdesign
    Ok depending on the age and quality of site is why I am asking about the domain age. Google has been going through and axing sites that are low quality and using crappy link building tactics. My guess would be you might have tripped one of the algo filters (which matt cutts) was bragging about awhile back. I would just focus on building quality links and you won't ever have an issue.

    In regards to the comment about a 5 year old site getting dropped could be low value site, not updated, ect. It's not just about how old your site is. Build a good quality site and good links and you will become an authority.
    Signature
    DEAD DOG DESIGN
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5883734].message }}

Trending Topics