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Unnatural Links Notice from Google

by hazelly
24 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi All,

We are very new here. We actually tried to seek help via Google Webmaster Help Forum, but so far we haven't received any answers pertaining to this notice that we received from Google.

I hope someone can help us because we have been seriously deranked by Google. Last Thursday all our keywords were ranking well, 80% of them are on page 1 & 2 of Google Singapore (Default & Pages from Singapore). But when I checked today, most of them are on Page 7-10 of Google Singapore. Worst is when you search for our company name, we only appear on the 7th page.

Here's a part of the notice that I received from Google 2 days ago:

"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."

Just to clarify, we never bought any links nor participated with any link schemes as we focus more on content. Which is why the notice has shocked us all.

We are wondering what went wrong and what does Google really mean by "unnatural links"? Can anyone please let us know if you can see any unnatural links pointed to our website?

Website URL: goo.gl/DgQk9

Also, does Google consider the following as unnatural links?

1.) Banner Ads (Sidebar) linked to a related entity
2.) Placing of Banner Ads on auto responders linked to a related entity
3.) Original blog post that features related entity with links on their products/services

If these are considered as unnatural links, does this mean that it's wrong to support a related entity?

Any help would be very much appreciated. Thank you.

Our Related Entities:
goo.gl/Xit0A
goo.gl/A28kJ
#google #links #notice #unnatural
  • Profile picture of the author Leosurf
    Here's a video that might help you with your problem.

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  • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
    You need to add the rel="nofollow" tag before the "href" in every banner on your partner sites. You can then file a reconsideration request here: Reconsideration requests - Webmaster Tools Help and plead ignorance! Tell Google the links you nofollowed are part of your portfolio and you were under the impression that you could link to a related site that you owned.
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  • Profile picture of the author bb785
    These warning refer to anchor text over optimization. Check your link profile using SEOmoz, Majestic, or Ahrefs for exact match anchor text.
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    • Profile picture of the author Sanket Patel
      Originally Posted by bb785 View Post

      These warning refer to anchor text over optimization. Check your link profile using SEOmoz, Majestic, or Ahrefs for exact match anchor text.

      Yes, the warning is given for the over use of anchor optimization. If you think about natural linking then always use specific anchor text while adding your link.
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      • Profile picture of the author DeskCoder
        Originally Posted by Sanket Patel View Post

        Yes, the warning is given for the over use of anchor optimization. If you think about natural linking then always use specific anchor text while adding your link.
        You just contradicted yourself ...
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    • Profile picture of the author Theeban
      Originally Posted by bb785 View Post

      These warning refer to anchor text over optimization. Check your link profile using SEOmoz, Majestic, or Ahrefs for exact match anchor text.
      We cannot sure that, this is due to anchor text over optimization.

      Anyhow, as per your given details, I guess, your site is under Google dance. Google had noticed you are getting links very quickly. Yes, when you place banner ads, there you are getting link back to your site. May be due to good authority of the sites where you placed banner ads, Google index those pages and considered that you are getting links so quickly and sent you unnatural links warning and drop your rank. As solution, you have to add NOFOLLOW tag to your banner ads. Once that is done, try to go for some building, start form social bookmarks, get constant number of bookmarks for 2-3 weeks, say 50-60 bookmarks per week on high PR bookmark sites where Google used to visit often, later on you can spread your link building activity to other techniques/tricks to get backlinks and get more better rank.
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  • Profile picture of the author jhakasseo
    This is so unfair. Unlike black hat SEO'er who do spam seo over there website I can understand devoting ranking but when if anyone doing seo with only white hat seo techniques also get result like this.

    In my point of view some of your competitors doing negative seo for your website.
    I recently read article on it from Matt cutts blog. Check out here “Why did our PageRank go down?”
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    • Profile picture of the author DeskCoder
      Originally Posted by Leosurf View Post

      Here's a video that might help you with your problem.

      How To Diagnose Current & Future Backlink Penalties - YouTube
      Way to rip off someone's else's video and not give them credit.

      Originally Posted by IM Ash View Post

      You need to add the rel="nofollow" tag before the "href" in every banner on your partner sites. You can then file a reconsideration request here: Reconsideration requests - Webmaster Tools Help and plead ignorance! Tell Google the links you nofollowed are part of your portfolio and you were under the impression that you could link to a related site that you owned.
      The nofollow tag does not have to go BEFORE the href ... it just needs to be in the <a >

      Originally Posted by bb785 View Post

      These warning refer to anchor text over optimization. Check your link profile using SEOmoz, Majestic, or Ahrefs for exact match anchor text.
      No, it refers to MUCH more than just anchor text.

      Originally Posted by jhakasseo View Post

      This is so unfair. Unlike black hat SEO'er who do spam seo over there website I can understand devoting ranking but when if anyone doing seo with only white hat seo techniques also get result like this.

      In my point of view some of your competitors doing negative seo for your website.
      I recently read article on it from Matt cutts blog. Check out here "Why did our PageRank go down?"
      Sitewide links are considered spammy in Google's eyes ... they look like paid links. Removed all blogroll type links, and that should be a good start.
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      • Profile picture of the author IM Ash
        Originally Posted by DeskCoder View Post

        The nofollow tag does not have to go BEFORE the href ... it just needs to be in the <a >
        I am aware of that! I explained what needs to be done as simply as possible as to not cause confusion!
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        • Profile picture of the author DeskCoder
          Originally Posted by IM Ash View Post

          I am aware of that! I explained what needs to be done as simply as possible as to not cause confusion!
          Alright, I just don't want the guy spending hours on his site making sure all the nofollow's are before the href ... he has more important things to do with his time, like:

          1. Remove blogroll links
          2. Remove forum links
          3. Remove links from spun crap content.
          4. Etc.
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  • Profile picture of the author edpudol1973
    What are natural and unnatural link building? In my opinion if owner of a particular site give you a back link because he/she believes that your site is worth to be linked from his site and have value to his visitor that is natural links.

    If we did the initiative to get back link, I guess that is unnatural link.(just my 2 cent ).

    Anyway, about your site problem. I must say you are lucky because google did not manually penalized your website. Meaning you can push your site to the top in the next few days , weeks , or month by getting high quality back links again.

    Here are some common problem why site get penalized after the penguin update.

    1. Anchor text was not diversified. If they caught you using your keyword only in most of your back links.

    2. Most of your back links are from same kind of site. What I mean with that is, let's say most of your back links are from article directories only.

    3. You have site wide back links from other websites. Site wide back links is not safe anymore they leave foot prints.

    My suggestion is go to open site explorer then check where all you back links are coming from. Maybe you did the link building correctly, but what if your competitor did something wrong that make your site get penalized.
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  • Profile picture of the author boxoun
    You need to delete some links. I woulda suggest linkdelete.com. pricey for what they do but at least they have experience doing it. People in this thread are not giving good advice e.g I've never heard Google sends penalties for over optimization of anchor text that is more algo based. Unnatural link notice has to do with bought links in my experience. Good luck.
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  • Profile picture of the author RyanLB
    As was said earlier, its about over optimization of anchor texts.

    I've had several sites receive penalties after receiving these messages, most during the original penguin update. I have been able to have a few recover, but not all. Those that did, I did so by;

    1 - removing backlinks where I could
    2- creating high quality, non-keyword anchor text backlinks
    3- creating a large amount of "click here" "site name" "sitedomain.com" style backlinks

    Those that came back I was able to diversify the anchor text as much as possible.
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    • Profile picture of the author boxoun
      Originally Posted by RyanLB View Post

      As was said earlier, its about over optimization of anchor texts.

      I've had several sites receive penalties after receiving these messages, most during the original penguin update. I have been able to have a few recover, but not all. Those that did, I did so by;

      1 - removing backlinks where I could
      2- creating high quality, non-keyword anchor text backlinks
      3- creating a large amount of "click here" "site name" "sitedomain.com" style backlinks

      Those that came back I was able to diversify the anchor text as much as possible.
      What do you mean recover? Do you mean you submitted for review and they said ok?

      Doesn't sound like you're being truthful. If you are, one would think you wouldnt skip that part when giving your advice.

      I have many sites with no anchor diversity and none received notices. If you receivednotice then Google probably doesn't like how you have advertised yourself without the nofollow tag on some sites.
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      • Profile picture of the author RyanLB
        Originally Posted by boxoun View Post

        What do you mean recover? Do you mean you submitted for review and they said ok?

        Doesn't sound like you're being truthful. If you are, one would think you wouldnt skip that part when giving your advice.

        I have many sites with no anchor diversity and none received notices. If you receivednotice then Google probably doesn't like how you have advertised yourself without the nofollow tag on some sites.
        Not being truthful? I'm not offering an exact recipe for success here, and I have nothing to be dishonest about. Not a very cool accusation to make, to be honest.

        I'm speaking only about rankings. With the penguin update, a majority of my sites that dipped or fell completely out of the rankings for their terms received the unnatural linking update at that time. With my sites there wasn't a direct correlation but there seems to be some connection between that warning, and an eventual SERP penalty to follow.

        All sites that I had that received the penalty, did fall in rankings either right then, or shortly after receiving the message.

        I'm happy to hear that your sites made it out alright, I had a number of sites that didn't get penalized that had very little anchor text diversification also. There are other factors at work, but I did find that almost all of my sites that were penalized (a majority of which received the unnatural linkbuilding penalty prior to penalization) had very little anchor text diversification.

        So I started removing links with over optimized anchor text. I built some high quality links with generic anchor text, and then continued linkbuilding with diversification in mind. Some of my sites have completely recovered. The rest have been unable to bounce back.

        For the record, I removed everything from Google Webmaster Tools following the penalties. My main concern is my rankings and other than alerting my to incoming penalties, I have found that google webmaster tools didn't really help me, and I don't like the idea of them being able to connect which sites I own to one another.

        I decided to take that route after reading this post from micrositemasters:

        Penguin Analysis: SEO Isn't Dead, But You Need to Act Smarter | Microsite Masters

        and it seemed to help me out. You don't have to trust me, but those guys have the data to back their claims up, so I listened.
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  • Profile picture of the author Lauraknigh
    How are you measuring your rank in Google? Are you just typing your keywords into the search page, or are you using a more sophisticated tool or technique for finding your true rank?
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    • Profile picture of the author jhakasseo
      Originally Posted by Lauraknigh View Post

      How are you measuring your rank in Google? Are you just typing your keywords into the search page, or are you using a more sophisticated tool or technique for finding your true rank?
      If you are using chrome and firefox try Google Global add-on.
      It will show you keyword position as other country's visitors seeing.

      For multiple keywords try smallseotools.com/keywordposition
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  • Profile picture of the author ownergolan
    Diversify your backlink profile and anchors. Get rid of spammy backlinks and it's all good..
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  • Profile picture of the author derekwong28
    I think the first thing you must do is to check whether your rankings and traffic has been affected or not. If it has not been affected, I would be inclined to do nothing because removing the banner links will simply tell Google that you are guilty. If your traffic has been affected, it may be worthwhile to remove the links and submit a reconsideration request.
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  • Profile picture of the author bradudan
    Google has sent that message to more than 5 milions site users...

    I have read an article about it and what you should do .

    read here i guess that will make you understand what you should do..

    What Do You Do When Google Sends an “Artificial or Unnatural” Link Warning? | Welcome to Next Net Media LLC

    Cheers
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  • Profile picture of the author skiing
    For anyone trying to figure out which links of theirs is bad (apart from the obvious ones listed above like sitewide / banner links), try using LinkDetox tool which starts at ony $10. It was helpful for us to find some toxic incoming links and then had them removed.
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  • Profile picture of the author asw
    FWIW I had a really bad experience with linkdelete.com. Got a refund though and have hired a different company.
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  • Profile picture of the author Hansons
    While building links, don't check dofollow/nofollow, page rank etc. you just need to check only relevancy and quality of sites, you shouldn't link to spam sites, they won't help these days.
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