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A WebmasterWorld thread has SEOs and Webmasters discussing what Google expects or wants to see from a reconsideration request for link issues.
Whitey from WebmasterWorld thinks Google's Matt Cutts has laid out exactly what they expect to see in a reconsideration request in a video from the new set of videos.
Whitey summarized what must be done to earn Google's "link trust."
- Make multiple "take down" requests to sites referring "bad links" to your website.
- Keep documentation of those efforts.
- Clearly articulate, and if possible evidence efforts, that you are serious about removing those links to Google, in any future reconsideration request
- When you have made 2 or 3 attempts to take down those links, then use the disavow tool
- Send your reconsideration request in.
Here is that video:
I am a bit surprised so much has to go into it and that you simply cannot rely on the disavow tool. I bet in the future, the disavow tool will be enough.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Image credit to BigStockPhoto for heavy work
Comments:
Adam Wormann
08/13/2013 12:55 pm
I'm not surprised at all that you can't just use the disavow tool, and don't think you will be able to in the future. Basically, relying only on the disavow tool will enable SEOs to build a bunch of crap links, then if they get caught, just use the disavow tool and start over. Knowing that you have to go through all of this is meant to make people on the fence or considering black hat stay away, knowing that there's not just a simple reset button.
Praveen Sharma
08/13/2013 12:55 pm
Why don't they just disavow links when the authorized webmaster is asking to do that? The webmasters are solely responsible for their act, so why Google thinking so much by making it such heavy process.
guy
08/13/2013 01:04 pm
so it clear, continue to submit this requests and they unban you. But anyway it hard to understand why they ban sites in first place. At old time it was a normal practice. Now people will do what work now, but not what google say.
guy
08/13/2013 01:07 pm
"training the pets" process ;) but i not think it will help. I wish to tell it in better way, but way how google do it - "like for pets, but not human"
Gridlock
08/13/2013 01:29 pm
" I bet in the future, the disavow tool will be enough." Then you misunderstand how much Google hates the pollution linkspammers have unleashed upon the web. "We've been bad, here's a list of what no longer works, please ignore all our mistakes from now on" - yeah, right.
achris82
08/13/2013 01:45 pm
The only thing about the above video is that it is related to getting the 'Unnatural links to your site' message which seems to be the 'site wide penalty' that you can see in webmaster tools. A lot of users have the 'Unnatural Links to your site - impacts links' message which is the 'Partial matches' error. This is the confusing part of this new messages. Does anyone know if google is going to show everyone the unnatural links examples or is it just for peeps that got the site wide penalty message?
guy
08/13/2013 01:57 pm
i think google not better
Pixelrage
08/13/2013 02:10 pm
It's all an enigma, like everything else Google suggests in terms of SEO
guy
08/13/2013 03:03 pm
how big search engine killing the web. with re-consideration requests processed by indian specialists... At first we need to say what NOFOLLOW is NOT-NATURAL thing.
Andrea Moro
08/13/2013 03:04 pm
Using the disavow tool it's going to be too easy. It's kind of being caught with your hands in the honey pot and say sorry to get everything sorted out! I'm more than happy Google doesn't accept JUST a disavow!
guy
08/13/2013 03:04 pm
it accept only bankruptcy.
ILoveGoolesOpaqueTransparency!
08/13/2013 06:24 pm
I got a penalty for unnatural links lifted. It took 4 attempts and some really crappy responses from Google to confirm it had been lifted. Let me tell you that someone really does read what you submit but they don´t seem to be able to answer other than a canned response that is completely ambiguous. Google should feel shame for that because in most cases at the 4th attempt they can be sure that the webmaster is in a world of hurt. You need to bare your soul. You need to show a real effort has been made to clean the links. That means documenting EVERY SINGLE communication effort and then going the extra mile. When I say the extra mile I mean showing telephone efforts where you have attempted to call the webmaster of the dodgy link. If they have facebook, you need to ask the via facebook, same with twitter. I mean really make the effort. Then, if you are lucky, Google will tell you you have no manual spam actions. That´s it. You are free. HOWEVER...and here is the big decision you need to make. Removing all the links will DESTROY your Yahoo and Bing rankings too. If you are still getting business and can survive via bing and Yahoo, don´t remove all your links. It could kill your business totally. Work out how you can live without google. That is your best option. If you can run your business without google, then you have a real business. If you absolutely need google, then you have a job, not a business.
Fredrik Eriksson
08/14/2013 12:31 am
I agree with you. Starting over by removing all links might not be the best option. An idea that might work is to make it look like you bought the domain. Redirect it to a new domain so the new domain get penalized. Then disavow everything that is bad, and send a re-inclusion explaining that you bought a bad domain. It's possible they might go more easy on you. It might be worth a try if you are getting rejections.
gunja
08/14/2013 05:09 am
I am planning to leave Seo Field now
Alan
08/14/2013 09:59 am
This is such BS. I have had a client submit a reconsideration request once a month for 4 months. He made no changes to his site 4th attempt after telling he had no manual penalty they told him it was lifted. Ummmm Google hello.. 3 times you say there is no penalty 4th time you say it was lifted? Take what Matt and Google say with a grain of salt and as someone said further down in the comments. Learn to live without Google.
Aqueous SEO
08/14/2013 12:42 pm
Still going down the same old road, and still entirely wrong. The fundamental problem with this is that it assumes webmasters are responsible for ALL the links that come into their site, and for most small businesses that is nigh on impossible. We've said it so many time before, there really is no need for all of this effort. If Google knows which are good and bad links then why not just count the good ones? Ignore the bad ones and over time they will go away as no one will buy them, link from them or bother with them. Link spam would disappear as there would be no value in it at all. Maybe this is too simplistic but if you reward the good rather then penalise the bad you will change behaviour far quicker. Right now we know SEO's looking for the next way to fool the algorithm rather than looking for ways to make sites rank for the long term.
David Urmann
08/14/2013 04:38 pm
I have people every day contact me to take down links on a forum that they paid someone to put up last year. Now they want me to pay someone to remove them. Funny thing is not one of these people ever had anything to do with them in the first place it was always a rouge SEO outfit gone crazy. If you spamed my site and you want your link spam removed you better start with an apology.
guy
08/14/2013 07:51 pm
this is just a "training process". may be even bot send this answers, not indian datacenter. Bot rule - lift penalty on "4-8" request. Other time send some links which looks bad as examples.
guy
08/14/2013 07:52 pm
just use mobile domains.
Alan
08/14/2013 10:57 pm
I think we can all agree that Google has moved into a period of misinformation and fear and has declared a silent war on webmasters. With the advent of things like knowledge graph Google has signalled that it wants to be the destination and not just the highway that takes you to the destination. We are all arguing the semantics of this update or that announcement. However try and look 5 years down the track. I doubt Google will be letting more than 10% of traffic leave its own properties and the traffic it lets go will be to other big brands. While Google is driving towards this inevitable conclusion we webmasters and SEO's are fighting and arguing with each other. Instead we should form a collective and start to take back some of the control from the monster that Google has become.
guy
08/15/2013 12:33 pm
google must be responsible for all links. really, spam in the internet is result of google ranking mechanism.
guy
08/15/2013 12:35 pm
sure. we need to spam it using mobile domains (change domain if penalty) because anything else not will work. And may be form something like internet webmasters coalition. Then more i see into google things, than more i become sure what white hat not working. need to try something new. Also google like dictatorship government now. I think soon google will ask webmasters to pay taxes to google for just ability to get few hits from google per month.
DJ
08/15/2013 01:47 pm
Can it be possible that Google wants the spam on the internet cleaned up, and they want webmasters to do it. Barry I think that your final 2 sentences are heading in the right direction "I am a bit surprised so much has to go into it and that you simply cannot rely on the disavow tool. I bet in the future, the disavow tool will be enough." We have pulled a website out of a penalty by just: 1. Stopping all backlinking activity. 2. Increased quality of content going into their blog & major social channels. No disavow ( this site had 90% unnatural links) No reconsideration request Google is most likely just trying to divert the webmasters attention, so we don't figure out what Google is really trying to do.