Big G followed up my reconsideration reqeust with this

60 replies
  • SEO
  • |
"We received a request from a site owner to reconsider http://mysite.com for compliance with Google's Webmaster Guidelines.
We've reviewed your site and we still see links to your site that violate our quality guidelines.
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 comply with our quality guidelines. Once you've made these changes, please submit your site for reconsideration in Google's search results.
If you find unnatural links to your site that you are unable to control or remove, please provide the details in your reconsideration request.
If you have additional questions about how to resolve this issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum for support.
Sincerely,
Google Search Quality Team"


So my question is, what do I do now? Do I just resubmit a reconsideration request and blame an seo company?
#big #reconsideration #reqeust
  • Profile picture of the author mosthost
    What about a new domain and a 301 redirect?
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    • Profile picture of the author jsmith2482
      Originally Posted by mosthost View Post

      What about a new domain and a 301 redirect?
      No, way too much time, love, passion and success from this site. It still does well. Funny thing is, when i got the message at first I went on, over the course of 2 weeks, to hit my peak in traffic. It was growing. Then around March 10th it started dropping.
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    • Profile picture of the author kimseo
      I suggest you to remove all the bad neighbors and resubmit your domain for consideration but if you don't have any control on your domain neighborhood, It would be better to register a new domain and use 301
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      • Profile picture of the author Dellco
        A quick look at your site and I can understand why you would want to continue fighting for it. But you never described your link building methods. Did you use private blog networks like BMR? Did you do everything possible to delete the bad links? Give us something to go on.

        Also, when did you get the love letter from G, when did you submit the Reconsideration Request and how long did they take to get back to you?
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        • Profile picture of the author jsmith2482
          Originally Posted by Dellco View Post

          A quick look at your site and I can understand why you would want to continue fighting for it. But you never described your link building methods. Did you use private blog networks like BMR? Did you do everything possible to delete the bad links? Give us something to go on.

          Also, when did you get the love letter from G, when did you submit the Reconsideration Request and how long did they take to get back to you?

          My linking building was pretty much like most grey hat marketers online. Press releases, social bookmarking, article marketing, blogs. I never used ANY of the blog networks that have recently been getting hit like BMR or HighPr.

          I don't believing in deleting those links because that sends a sign to big G stating that I knew where they built and in reality, I really don't. It took about 4-5 days to get the response from them.

          I got the first notification on Feb 23rd. My site hit an all time high on March 7th and 8th are staying near or slightly above it's average daily highs for the beginning of the month. On march 10th I got a webmaster notification telling me that I was doing GOOD.March 11th it started to dip, noticed by sescout that tracks how certain keywords are doing.
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          • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
            Originally Posted by jsmith2482 View Post

            My linking building was pretty much like most grey hat marketers online. Press releases, social bookmarking, article marketing, blogs. I never used ANY of the blog networks that have recently been getting hit like BMR or HighPr.
            If you weren't using them, somebody you paid to do work for you was using them. Just at a quick glance at your backlinks I spotted links coming from domains that are part of an obvious blog network or combination of networks. These are some pretty low quality ones too. Spun garbage that has nothing or little to do with the backlinks. For example, on one site, an article reviewing the Sea-Pathfinder is embedded with a link for "Payday Loans". The article makes little to no sense.
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            • Profile picture of the author jsmith2482
              Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

              If you weren't using them, somebody you paid to do work for you was using them. Just at a quick glance at your backlinks I spotted links coming from domains that are part of an obvious blog network or combination of networks. These are some pretty low quality ones too. Spun garbage that has nothing or little to do with the backlinks. For example, on one site, and article reviewing the Sea-Pathfinder is embedding with a link for "Payday Loans". The article makes little to no sense.
              Interesting. Have I hired warriors to do stuff? Sure I did. I didn't do any fiverr b.s. though. So I guess at this point I just file another re consideration request and tell Big G just that?
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              • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
                Originally Posted by jsmith2482 View Post

                Interesting. Have I hired warriors to do stuff? Sure I did. I didn't do any fiverr b.s. though. So I guess at this point I just file another re consideration request and tell Big G just that?
                Might be hard to convince them you had no knowledge of unnatural links when your forum signatures are five lines long and targeting keywords. I don't know how many forum profiles you use but those are not considered natural either and it pretty much proves you are not completely in the dark about link building.
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              • Profile picture of the author yukon
                Banned
                Originally Posted by jsmith2482 View Post

                Interesting. Have I hired warriors to do stuff? Sure I did. I didn't do any fiverr b.s. though. So I guess at this point I just file another re consideration request and tell Big G just that?
                BINGO!

                Like I keep saying, it's the customers bringing down all these BL networks!

                If you dropped in the SERPs & still indexed that's not a penalty it's devalued links.

                Stop communicating with G, 301, & build new/better links.

                I just don't understand what you people are thinking by responding to G.

                Good luck to anyone here on WF selling BLs, looks like your next to be outed.
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                • Profile picture of the author Dellco
                  Originally Posted by yukon View Post

                  BINGO!

                  Like I keep saying, it's the customers bringing down all these BL networks!

                  If you dropped in the SERPs & still indexed that's not a penalty it's devalued links.

                  Stop communicating with G, 301, & build new/better links.

                  I just don't understand what you people are thinking by responding to G.

                  Good luck to anyone here on WF selling BLs, looks like your next to be outed.
                  Yukon, you are advocating a stonewall approach (which might also work in the end), but that might involve waiting an even longer time just to get the site to recover, and some of us actually rely on our sites and may not be able to sit it out.

                  This latest move by Google suggests it being algorithmic so maybe sites can eventually recover....but for manual penalties, I've seen sites get the -50 penalty, and nearly 2 years later, they are still languishing there.
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                  • Profile picture of the author yukon
                    Banned
                    Originally Posted by Dellco View Post

                    Yukon, you are advocating a stonewall approach (which might also work in the end), but that might involve waiting an even longer time just to get the site to recover, and some of us actually rely on our sites and may not be able to sit it out.

                    This latest move by Google suggests it being algorithmic so maybe sites can eventually recover....but for manual penalties, I've seen sites get the -50 penalty, and nearly 2 years later, they are still languishing there.
                    Your looking for the easy way out by giving G info.

                    When you see that G is a business & not your friend, you'll find it a lot easier to make rational SEO decisions.

                    Also, If your sites traffic is 100% dependent on the SERPs, you might want to look into a long term strategy & diversify traffic sources, plenty of free targeted traffic on the net besides the SERPs.

                    Lol, here comes that elusive -50 penalty, lol, don't get me started on that.
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                • Profile picture of the author gearmonkey
                  Originally Posted by yukon View Post

                  BINGO!

                  Like I keep saying, it's the customers bringing down all these BL networks!

                  If you dropped in the SERPs & still indexed that's not a penalty it's devalued links.

                  Stop communicating with G, 301, & build new/better links.

                  I just don't understand what you people are thinking by responding to G.

                  Good luck to anyone here on WF selling BLs, looks like your next to be outed.
                  Bingo!

                  This is scary stuff for the good blog networks that believe in quality. I am totally rethinking my entire model. I just updated all my threads stating that I will not give a link report to my network. I wonder how this will be perceived to potential clients? On one hand people will be worried they don't get the report, but on the other hand, the network will be safe(er) from getting de-indexed from rats snitching to Google... because they won't know the network to tell on.

                  Is there a thread on this?
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                  • Profile picture of the author yukon
                    Banned
                    Originally Posted by gearmonkey View Post

                    Bingo!

                    This is scary stuff for the good blog networks that believe in quality. I am totally rethinking my entire model. I just updated all my threads stating that I will not give a link report to my network. I wonder how this will be perceived to potential clients? On one hand people will be worried they don't get the report, but on the other hand, the network will be safe(er) from getting de-indexed from rats snitching to Google... because they won't know the network to tell on.

                    Is there a thread on this?
                    The way people are giving up BL info. on networks without care, personally, I wouldn't deal with IMers & that's coming from an IMer.

                    If I had a private network the only sites besides my own sites that would be allowed on that network would be offline small business. Most offline business only care about one thing, traffic. An offline business doesn't care about GWT (G messages), backlinks sources, they care about results (traffic).

                    Use the offline business to finance the private network.
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                    • Profile picture of the author gearmonkey
                      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

                      The way people are giving up BL info. on networks without care, personally, I wouldn't deal with IMers & that's coming from an IMer.

                      If I had a private network the only sites besides my own sites that would be allowed on that network would be offline small business. Most offline business only care about one thing, traffic. An offline business doesn't care about GWT (G messages), backlinks sources, they care about results (traffic).

                      Use the offline business to finance the private network.
                      Another interesting issue is IMers (mostly) don't want to pay much, but in order to keep the prices competitive, networks need to pump out in the masses to make it worth while... which increases your chances to get your network busted.

                      I respect what Google is doing, but I also think Google game their own system which I don't think is right. Also Matt Cutts talks out both sides of his mouth. In his videos he'll tell people to build backlinks so spiders can find their website and index it, then, in another video, he discourages link building because it's not natural.

                      They need to make up their minds.
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                      • Profile picture of the author paulgl
                        The reason why it's "virtually" (pun intended) impossible to
                        tank another with paid links is simple.

                        Who knows that the site you are trying to tank does
                        not have a boatload of GREAT, TERRIFIC, AUTHORITATIVE
                        links already?

                        There is this little ratio and proportion thing. If you have
                        5 good links, and 5,000 that say "make money online"
                        from a bunch of idiotic sites, what's in the balance?

                        Hopefully, and I've been doing good things for years.
                        (just read my back posts. Always urging people to
                        do things manually, with quality, and on the up and
                        up). Building up a firewall, so to speak. So anyone who
                        tries to bomb me will be have to do more than humanly
                        possible.

                        And that's what google means.


                        Directed at nobody in particular:

                        I can't get over the fact the mentality here. You
                        slap together some sites with no mindset except to
                        make money from adsense or affiliates. Then think
                        some SEO bull crapper can get your site #1 doing
                        crappy, illogical things. And fall all over yourself
                        with how great your sites are and google should just
                        love them to death. Then whine when the house of
                        cards falls apart.

                        Wash, rinse, repeat.

                        Google does not hate paid links. I know I mention this
                        often, and make more selling links than any other. The
                        link brokers I do business with know how to do it.
                        Made $225 in sold links today.

                        Paul
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                • Profile picture of the author Black Hat Cat
                  Banned
                  Originally Posted by yukon View Post

                  BINGO!

                  Like I keep saying, it's the customers bringing down all these BL networks!

                  If you dropped in the SERPs & still indexed that's not a penalty it's devalued links.

                  Stop communicating with G, 301, & build new/better links..
                  If it's not a penalty, there's no need for a new domain and a 301. Just build better links to the current domain to replace the ones that have been devalued.
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                • Profile picture of the author retsek
                  Originally Posted by yukon View Post

                  BINGO!

                  Like I keep saying, it's the customers bringing down all these BL networks!

                  If you dropped in the SERPs & still indexed that's not a penalty it's devalued links.

                  Stop communicating with G, 301, & build new/better links.

                  I just don't understand what you people are thinking by responding to G.

                  Good luck to anyone here on WF selling BLs, looks like your next to be outed.
                  yukon,

                  with these latest notices, they come through the 301s too. I just helped someone with their site. They used BMR all of 2011, and they 301'd to a better domain in December. The site kept it's rankings.

                  This march they received an un-natural links notice, even though no links were built to the new domain.
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                  • Profile picture of the author giggity
                    Originally Posted by retsek View Post

                    yukon,

                    with these latest notices, they come through the 301s too. I just helped someone with their site. They used BMR all of 2011, and they 301'd to a better domain in December. The site kept it's rankings.

                    This march they received an un-natural links notice, even though no links were built to the new domain.
                    This happened to me. Used BMR on a .com back in November '11. 301'd to .co.uk. .co.uk has now received the notice.

                    I've just deleted the .com and that should save me.
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                    • Profile picture of the author mosthost
                      Originally Posted by giggity View Post

                      This happened to me. Used BMR on a .com back in November '11. 301'd to .co.uk. .co.uk has now received the notice.

                      I've just deleted the .com and that should save me.
                      Were you 'building links' to the new domain or did you 'inherit' the penalty from the old domain?
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              • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
                Originally Posted by jsmith2482 View Post

                Interesting. Have I hired warriors to do stuff? Sure I did. I didn't do any fiverr b.s. though. So I guess at this point I just file another re consideration request and tell Big G just that?
                Most of the stuff Warriors are selling relating to SEO services are just as bad as any Fiverr gigs. Many are even worse.

                Not sure why, but many people think just because it is on Warrior Forum it is clean and/or works. That is not the case.
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                • Profile picture of the author nik0
                  Banned
                  I see Senukex campaigns being sold on this forum for around $100,-, you could just as well order 2 fiverr gigs and get the exact same for $10,- but people like the graphics of the salesthread or whatever it is what they like about it. Surprises me each time again.

                  Fiverr isn't a bad place when you know what to use it for and what to buy. Personally I use a mix in my salesthread, a mix of manual work that I outsource to my VA, several blog networks where I pay membership for, a few parts of it I outsource to Fiverr and the rest I do myself, like preparing the article in high spin format and those critical things.
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                  • Profile picture of the author jsmith2482
                    Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

                    I see Senukex campaigns being sold on this forum for around $100,-, you could just as well order 2 fiverr gigs and get the exact same for $10,- but people like the graphics of the salesthread or whatever it is what they like about it. Surprises me each time again.

                    Fiverr isn't a bad place when you know what to use it for and what to buy. Personally I use a mix in my salesthread, a mix of manual work that I outsource to my VA, several blog networks where I pay membership for, a few parts of it I outsource to Fiverr and the rest I do myself, like preparing the article in high spin format and those critical things.

                    Fiverr does have some good gigs but I never use them for my personal site.
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                    • Profile picture of the author nik0
                      Banned
                      Originally Posted by jsmith2482 View Post

                      Fiverr does have some good gigs but I never use them for my personal site.
                      Whats wrong with a press release submission or a bunch of manual dofollow blog comments on clean lists? Those kind of things won't hurt any site. It will only help, it just takes some time to find the right ones. I always test them on my own site first to see what I get. Yesterday I ordered a high PR dofollow comment gig and my comment ended up on blogs with >500 outbound links. I left a terrible review ofcourse but I've also found people who did very well (which seems a bit hard lately so good for my Va).
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                • Profile picture of the author jsmith2482
                  Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

                  Most of the stuff Warriors are selling relating to SEO services are just as bad as any Fiverr gigs. Many are even worse.

                  Not sure why, but many people think just because it is on Warrior Forum it is clean and/or works. That is not the case.
                  Good point.
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                • Profile picture of the author Viramara
                  Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

                  Most of the stuff Warriors are selling relating to SEO services are just as bad as any Fiverr gigs. Many are even worse.
                  would you care to elaborate?
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                  • Profile picture of the author nik0
                    Banned
                    Originally Posted by Viramara View Post

                    would you care to elaborate?
                    He means that most seo providers use the same kind of link as the people on Fiverr use, only in larger proportions.

                    Simply cause there are only so many types of links that you can easily create. Some simple links:

                    - social bookmarks
                    - web2.0's
                    - press releases
                    - blog comments
                    - forum profiles
                    - public blog networks

                    Hard to get or expensive links:

                    - guest posts
                    - homepage links
                    - links at truelly private blog networks

                    These hard/expensive links you can't get with a $25-$250 one time fee package simply cause it has recurring costs or requires a huge amount of time to get those. If you hire a professional Seo company you can get those but these guys charge like $5000 year and upwards, which is what most people browsing these forums aren't prepared to pay. So we have to find shortcuts and use more greyhat type of links.

                    The only difference that we can make to still deliver quality is for example:

                    - creating web2.0's manually (to prevent them from getting deleted for spam)
                    - creating social bookmarks manually (the best sites often have anti-bot measures)
                    - creating blogcomments manually to ensure high PR and low OBL (scrapebox can't post to these cause they require to fill in a captcha or register an account before posting)
                    etc.

                    Well as you can see these links require manual work, and for $5 at Fiverr you can't expect people to do that manually.
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            • Profile picture of the author StewieG
              Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

              Whats wrong with a press release submission or a bunch of manual dofollow blog comments on clean lists? Those kind of things won't hurt any site. It will only help, it just takes some time to find the right ones. I always test them on my own site first to see what I get. Yesterday I ordered a high PR dofollow comment gig and my comment ended up on blogs with >500 outbound links. I left a terrible review ofcourse but I've also found people who did very well (which seems a bit hard lately so good for my Va).
              There is absolutely nothing wrong with Press release, article marketing, book marking etc etc.

              Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

              Just at a quick glance at your backlinks I spotted links coming from domains that are part of an obvious blog network or combination of networks. These are some pretty low quality ones too. Spun garbage that has nothing or little to do with the backlinks. For example, on one site, an article reviewing the Sea-Pathfinder is embedded with a link for "Payday Loans". The article makes little to no sense.
              As Mike mentions above this is what G really hates, Spammy Spun No Sense Content.
              And until these services and others stop pushing this out there..

              Countless lives and businesses will be destroyed!!!

              Because once you pay someone to build links and they do junk work, it's very hard to get those removed.
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              • Profile picture of the author mosthost
                Originally Posted by StewieG View Post

                There is absolutely nothing wrong with Press release, article marketing, book marking etc etc.



                As Mike mentions above this is what G really hates, Spammy Spun No Sense Content.
                And until these services and others stop pushing this out there..

                Countless lives and businesses will be destroyed!!!

                Because once you pay someone to build links and they do junk work, it's very hard to get those removed.
                Lives and businesses cannot be destroyed by search engine updates. Website revenue that's derived solely from search engine rankings can be.

                That's the only type of business that evaporates overnight when an algo changes.

                Google changes their algo 480 times each year. No BUSINESS can afford to rely on this traffic. That's the bottom line.
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          • Profile picture of the author Dellco
            Originally Posted by jsmith2482 View Post

            My linking building was pretty much like most grey hat marketers online. Press releases, social bookmarking, article marketing, blogs. I never used ANY of the blog networks that have recently been getting hit like BMR or HighPr.

            I don't believing in deleting those links because that sends a sign to big G stating that I knew where they built and in reality, I really don't. It took about 4-5 days to get the response from them.

            I got the first notification on Feb 23rd. My site hit an all time high on March 7th and 8th are staying near or slightly above it's average daily highs for the beginning of the month. On march 10th I got a webmaster notification telling me that I was doing GOOD.March 11th it started to dip, noticed by sescout that tracks how certain keywords are doing.
            Wow, that's worrying indeed. Thanks for sharing the details.

            Are your main keywords doing slightly worse, or very much worse now? I am also strangely seeing slight improvements in keyword rankings even for sites that did receive the Google messages, just like you.

            But according to your experience, it is shortlived....?
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            • Profile picture of the author jsmith2482
              Originally Posted by Dellco View Post

              Wow, that's worrying indeed. Thanks for sharing the details.

              Are your main keywords doing slightly worse, or very much worse now? I am also strangely seeing slight improvements in keyword rankings even for sites that did receive the Google messages, just like you.

              But according to your experience, it is shortlived....?
              Before the Feb 23rd notice my site was hitting between 3,800-4,200 visits per day. Once I got the Feb 23rd notice, I had a week long dip of getting around 3200 visits and around 2800 on weekends. There were NO visible changes to my main, high traffic, hard to rank for keywords.

              Then around the 1st of March my site went back up hitting 4,900 visits and hovering around 4,300-4,500 and hitting around 3,800 on the weekends. The keywords IMPROVED slightly. For all intents this was an all time high.

              Around the 10th of march, my site visits started dropping and I noticed 1 set of keywords that I was a permanent #1 for were being drop to #4-#5. There really is a BIG drop off in the traffic for those kw's between #1 and #4.
              Sescout also told me that a hard to rank for kw that I was #7 for was now #199 and another that was #8 was not #205. Across the board kw's dropped. Some 3-4 spots, others 20 spots and some 50-100 spots.

              As of yesterday I hit 3,400 visitors. If it wasn't for sescout showing me the big drops I would really only see the total visitors dropping then noticing less traffic coming.

              At first I thought it was google dance since I was actively building links. Then I came to the WF, saw all the Big G news and went into my webmater tools.
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          • Profile picture of the author Theeban
            Originally Posted by jsmith2482 View Post

            My linking building was pretty much like most grey hat marketers online. Press releases, social bookmarking, article marketing, blogs. I never used ANY of the blog networks that have recently been getting hit like BMR or HighPr.
            Press releases, Social bookmarking, article marketing, blogs - Did you get many backlinks from a single page using these methods? In other words, Did you spam other sites? - I assume you are not :p

            If you do so, that may be fall into this category. Anyway, now everything is fast. It is better not to remove anything and indicate Google about it.

            I would suggest to get backlinks on natural way using the same methods which you mentioned or any other methods. Make sure you do NOT spam others sites for backlink purpose - Say, if you submit one article, try to get only one link from that single page. Keep on getting links for about 3-4 weeks, I think that should automatically give you the ranks back.
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  • Profile picture of the author Trivum
    So I guess you CAN buy links to tank a competitor.
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    • Profile picture of the author jsmith2482
      Originally Posted by Trivum View Post

      So I guess you CAN buy links to tank a competitor.
      I guess you can...
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    • Profile picture of the author mgreener
      Originally Posted by Trivum View Post

      So I guess you CAN buy links to tank a competitor.

      From: Site not doing well in search - Webmaster Tools Help

      "There's almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index."


      ALMOST changes everything...
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      • Profile picture of the author mosthost
        Originally Posted by mgreener View Post

        From: Site not doing well in search - Webmaster Tools Help

        "There's almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index."


        ALMOST changes everything...
        I imagine we will soon see a de-indexed blog network REBRAND as a 'negative SEO service.'

        Probably SEO Link Monster
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      • Profile picture of the author Madrone
        Originally Posted by mgreener View Post

        From: Site not doing well in search - Webmaster Tools Help

        "There's almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index."


        ALMOST changes everything...

        Have you done a Google search for negative SEO?
        When will the Google spin stop.
        There are a lot of people discussing this subject right now everywhere.
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    • Profile picture of the author RevSEO
      Originally Posted by Trivum View Post

      So I guess you CAN buy links to tank a competitor.
      I'm not sure why this is a mystery to everyone, is negative SEO that
      underground? Think about it logically for a minute.

      If Google is penalizing a website for artificial link building, why isn't it
      that you could tank a competitors rankings? Google doesn't know
      who bought links to a website, they don't see the receipts and can
      confirm whether or not it was a site owner or competitor.

      Having said that, Google has opened up a can of worms like never before.
      The latest algorithms, keyword here is ALGORITHMS, and not manual
      penalties, are designed to destroy blatant and artificial linkbuilding.

      Now, I don't endorse negative SEO by any means, but what users
      should be doing is paying attention to how they can reduce their footprints
      when building backlinks. Which no one really seems to be discussing.
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  • Profile picture of the author mgreener
    Hi,

    I had one site tank after actually buying some links. It took about 4 weeks, but I received the same response that you did. I then removed those links, told Google in a reconsideration request that I had removed the purchased links, and they lifted the ban, site wide rankings went even higher than before the penalty.

    I know it sucks, but simply denying and acting like you don't know what links are bad won't get them to lift the penalty as you are considered guilty until proven innocent (even if you truly don't know). Then you need to do some review of your link profile, and try to get rid of those that you think could be hurting. Detail that and any other changes that you have made to show Google that you really are trying to follow their TOS and I know from experience that they will reinstate your site.

    If you still don't want to kiss their butt, just do a 301.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dellco
      Originally Posted by mgreener View Post

      Hi,

      I had one site tank after actually buying some links. It took about 4 weeks, but I received the same response that you did. I then removed those links, told Google in a reconsideration request that I had removed the purchased links, and they lifted the ban, site wide rankings went even higher than before the penalty.

      I know it sucks, but simply denying and acting like you don't know what links are bad won't get them to lift the penalty as you are considered guilty until proven innocent (even if you truly don't know). Then you need to do some review of your link profile, and try to get rid of those that you think could be hurting. Detail that and any other changes that you have made to show Google that you really are trying to follow their TOS and I know from experience that they will reinstate your site.

      If you still don't want to kiss their butt, just do a 301.
      Yeah, confessing to your sins seems to be the best route.

      But how long did it take before your site recovered? For some people that rely on their sites, that could be a difficult period, especially if it takes weeks or months.
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    • Profile picture of the author rinor81
      Originally Posted by mgreener View Post

      Hi,

      I had one site tank after actually buying some links. It took about 4 weeks, but I received the same response that you did. I then removed those links, told Google in a reconsideration request that I had removed the purchased links, and they lifted the ban, site wide rankings went even higher than before the penalty.

      I know it sucks, but simply denying and acting like you don't know what links are bad won't get them to lift the penalty as you are considered guilty until proven innocent (even if you truly don't know). Then you need to do some review of your link profile, and try to get rid of those that you think could be hurting. Detail that and any other changes that you have made to show Google that you really are trying to follow their TOS and I know from experience that they will reinstate your site.

      If you still don't want to kiss their butt, just do a 301.

      These are great news!

      I have a site that was #3 on Google for almost a year, after the BMR shut down, I got the unnatural links message and now the site on its keywords is down to #600

      I have asked to remove the links from the BMR sites, I'll wait for 3-4 weeks and then ask Google to re-consider.

      After what you wrote here, I guess there's still room for optimism, right?

      Thanks,
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  • Profile picture of the author mosthost
    Confess and turn in all your sources to the G-Stapo. It's what they want!
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  • Profile picture of the author Jordan Kovats
    Ever think of telling the truth? Explain that you hired an unscrupulous SEO company, that you have no way of knowing what they did, you have since fired them and promise not to do it again.

    I have been hit with a penalty. I know, been there done that. That worked for us. We returned stronger than ever. To all those that think you are showing google your hand....just remember, Google is the camera in the casino ceiling. They know your hand. None of us have their knowledge, budget, resources to run and hide. You may be surprised just how far the truth gets you. I can tell you one thing, it won't get you into deeper trouble than you are already in.
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  • Profile picture of the author PeckhamPirate
    Go back to basics.
    Start link building yourself.

    Obviously High PR will work well, but .edu links have got me out of a similar situation in the past.

    Go easy, one or two a day, every day for two weeks.

    Personally I think this only happens when Google sends in a human to look at your site and its backlinks.

    If it was the case that spammy backlinks could bring a site down I'd be spending my cash on buying dodgy backlink packages for all my competitors, rather than sweating my rocks off trying to improve my own ranking.

    Anyway, something like BackLink Magic (I can't even remember the guy's name, Mike something from Sweden or Norway or somewhere equally chilly) will find you relevant and contextual links of all sorts that should fix you up.

    (Yes I am an affiliate, but it's a hella good tool that I use daily myself, and I'm not including my own link here, before anyone starts)

    Bottom line is I've had similar problems, and that's what worked for me.
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  • Profile picture of the author jsmith2482
    What are the chances that we just a turned around on this anti-blog movement? Not any time soon but in the coming months. I mean how does Big G really differentiate between networks like BMR and good private blog networks where your quality articles are posted in category specific areas?

    For example, I write for a bunch of fitness sites and get backlinks that way. How;s it going to differentiate between that type of linking building and link building from a blog network that puts my articles on health blogs?
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  • Profile picture of the author Jon Paella
    Guys (jsmith, niko, others),

    Jsmith, did the links you buy point back to buffer sites or to your main money site? Is it true (at least, in your opinions) that if its' to a buffer web 2.0 site, it's safer?

    Niko, when you talk about creating web 2.0 and bookmarks manually, are you talking about account creations only or also the posting? If you're talking about account creations, do you mean programs like Magic Submitter doing so is not good and Google can find out? If you're talking about posting, does that mean that in addition to MS, also using programs like Social Adr/OnlyWire, etc. - those are bad too and it can be found out?

    THanks.
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Jon Paella View Post

      Guys (jsmith, niko, others),
      Niko, when you talk about creating web 2.0 and bookmarks manually, are you talking about account creations only or also the posting? If you're talking about account creations, do you mean programs like Magic Submitter doing so is not good and Google can find out? If you're talking about posting, does that mean that in addition to MS, also using programs like Social Adr/OnlyWire, etc. - those are bad too and it can be found out?

      THanks.
      I'm not talking about Google can find out, I'm talking about the web2.0 sites theirselves that remove the blog when it looks spammy. When you build web2.0's manually you can customize them a bit, with a photo or another theme, that kind of things that these softwares like senuke/magic submitter etc don't do.

      When I create 50 web2.0's with senukex there will only be 25 left after about 1 week, the other 25 get deleted by the web2.0 sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jon Paella
    Niko, I understand what you mean.

    1) So do you still use SenukeX and if so what do you use it for?
    2) So do you still think Google can find out if you use Senuke and Magic Submitter for account creation and/or posting?
    3) If you set up all the accounts manually, but use the automated tools for posting, do you think G will find out. Also, if you do it for posting (not creation as you've done a good creation and profile manually), would the web 2.0 themselves detect that and take your posts away if you use automation for posting?

    Thanks
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      I don't think Google will see the difference.

      And not sure if these sites will detect whether the posts are submitted manually or automatically.

      Sometimes I build web2.0's manually and sometimes I use software, depends on what the client orders.

      Now that you mention, still looking for someone who can create these web2.0's manually, just had to fire my VA from that job cause he did a worse job then those auto softwares do.
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by Jon Paella View Post

      2) So do you still think Google can find out if you use Senuke and Magic Submitter for account creation and/or posting?
      Google cannot tell.

      Originally Posted by Jon Paella View Post

      3) If you set up all the accounts manually, but use the automated tools for posting, do you think G will find out. Also, if you do it for posting (not creation as you've done a good creation and profile manually), would the web 2.0 themselves detect that and take your posts away if you use automation for posting?
      Again, Google cannot tell.

      Now if you signup 20 accounts at the same Web 2.0 service, let's say Tumblr for example, in 10 minutes from the same IP address, Tumblr will notice and shut them down.

      Google cannot detect that though.
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      • Profile picture of the author porkchopexpress
        Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

        Google cannot tell.



        Again, Google cannot tell.

        Now if you signup 20 accounts at the same Web 2.0 service, let's say Tumblr for example, in 10 minutes from the same IP address, Tumblr will notice and shut them down.

        Google cannot detect that though.
        Or they can, and just havent done anything about it. Google knows all.
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        • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
          Originally Posted by porkchopexpress View Post

          Or they can, and just havent done anything about it. Google knows all.
          They would need to have access to the services logs, which outside of Blogger, they don't have.
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  • Profile picture of the author jsmith2482
    What's the majority thought process about removing analytics and webmaster tool from your sites?
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    • Profile picture of the author Jon Paella
      Originally Posted by jsmith2482 View Post

      What's the majority thought process about removing analytics and webmaster tool from your sites?
      I'd also like to know that. And while we're at it, would it be wise to log out of gmail and change ip addresses every so often when working on your sites?
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by jsmith2482 View Post

      What's the majority thought process about removing analytics and webmaster tool from your sites?
      The only thing I will say is I wouldn't use the same account for multiple sites. The reason being that if Google decides they do not like something about one of your sites, it is easy for them to use WMT or GA as a roadmap to all of your other sites and just punish them all whether they are guilty or not.
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      • Profile picture of the author jsmith2482
        Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

        The only thing I will say is I wouldn't use the same account for multiple sites. The reason being that if Google decides they do not like something about one of your sites, it is easy for them to use WMT or GA as a roadmap to all of your other sites and just punish them all whether they are guilty or not.

        Good tip, I only use it for one site though. Just your opinion but, should I wait for Big G to get back to me on the reconsideration request before I remove the WMT or remove it now? I feel like they'll see that WMT was removed and keep the penalty alive just because.
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        • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
          Originally Posted by jsmith2482 View Post

          Good tip, I only use it for one site though. Just your opinion but, should I wait for Big G to get back to me on the reconsideration request before I remove the WMT or remove it now? I feel like they'll see that WMT was removed and keep the penalty alive just because.
          I don't see any reason to remove it. You got the notice because of backlinks. Whether you have WMT on your site or not, Google can still see those backlinks.
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  • Profile picture of the author plsearch
    So we had the same issue happen on a site, client spammed forum profile links in the past. Hires us, gets notice 2 weeks later. He didn't confess, said he had no idea how this happened and Google sends the second notice saying still in violation.

    So is the consensus that is is time for him to do a redirect? Remove WMT and analytics and redirect for a while? It would be pretty easy for us to move his site.
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  • Profile picture of the author chetankm
    i think you are victim of google dancing . But i am not sure about this.
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