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If you've been affected by Penguin or Panda then unfortunately a reconsideration request won't help.  Penguin and Panda are algorithmic changes and you can only recover once the algorithms refresh. Reconsideration requests are to be used when you have a manual warning in your webmaster tools.  If you don't have a manual warning, then you will get a message back saying that there have been no manual actions taken against your site. I have found that it usually takes about 3 weeks to get a reply from a reconsideration request.  Lately I've had some replies within just a few days.  When the disavow tool first came out it was taking up to 2 months to get a reply because so many people were using it and sending in reconsideration requests.

Hi, The answer is neither are accurate. But the best answer on this one is given by Ryan Kent in a previous thread about this issue. "If you want the most comprehensive link data, it is best to use numerous backlink tools and combine the data." - Ryan. I would definitely suggest to combine the data itself as both aren't fully accurate.

Example Page https://discussions.apple.com/message/21397989#21397989 Yeah I am not seeing anything in Google for these pages, I did a view source and didnt see a "noindex" on the pages I also did a https://discussions.apple.com/robots.txt and didnt see anything like "Disallow: /messages" anywere but I am not seeing the user profiles indexed either unless I am missing something

Good reminder.  Much like anything in life, if a SEO tactic seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Sounds like a decent backlink to me. There are directories like this in many niches (like findlaw.com) and they can provide a high authority, subject relevant link. PR4 isn't terribly high, but depending on the cost of membership (and the other benefits of membership) it could be worth it.

George, just make sure in trying to rank for your primary keyword, don't get "too many" links, too fast, "contain your perfect anchor text", even if it's your brand name. Too many links, similar looking links, are always a bad sign. They are simply manipulated links. You need to get natural links and build more of a link profile, as in reputation. Simple words, something like Brand building. So get a variation of all your anchor texts, good or bad, even acronyms etc...they all add-up towards your domain profile. Which is what you'd need for your domain to rank for a keyword like that. I hope this helps.

Hi Jennifer, Great question! Thanks for writing in. Generally, I don't like to ask for any specific anchor text. You can see why in this WhiteBoard Friday I did here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/high-value-tactics-futureproof-link-building-whiteboard-friday While it's nice to have a mix of SEO friendly, anchor text links, the problem (as Omar pointed out) is that it creates patterns that search engines can easily detect which heightens the risk of an over-optimization penalty or filter. DA and PA are calculated independent of anchor text, so the drop you saw hopefully had nothing to do with your "link correcting" and was instead likely a natural fluctuation in these metrics. I wouldn't worry too much about the links you already changed - unless you notice your rankings and traffic drop. If this happens, you may need to go back to those webmasters on your hands and knees and ask them to change it back. Otherwise, the best strategy you can pursue is to build new links to boost and balance your profile... naturally.

Keep in mind that is the toolbar pagerank of the home page. If you can get a link on www.wordpress.com that's great! But you're not going to get the same value out of brandnewsubdomain.wordpress.com.

That's the root site - yeah - we've been disavowing a LOT of links lately.

Hey Garret,  I would definitely say that the domain age plays a role, but I feel like your focusing way to much on why they are beating you, and not enough time on why you don't rank as well as you used too. In looking at your site you have used the word Juicing over 20 times on your homepage. Plus two times in the Title Tag.  It just doesn't look natural at all. I think you've probably been penalized for over optimization more than anything else. As for why they out rank you, their social cues are really strong on the facebook side(over 1000 likes), and they seem to have spent a lot of time creating a site that caters to its users.  The resulting experience for users is probably more time on site, more pages viewed, less bounces, etc. Google ranks sites that provide the best experience to its users(the searchers).  Not because of exact match domains, title tags, or h1 tags.  Those techniques are all things that SEO's have manipulated over time and just don't work they way that they used to. I think you should go back to basics, back linking is great and all, but you have a really strong backlink profile already.  Create an awesome experience for the users of your site through good quality content, a consistent UX, and stop focusing on the keyword Juicing so much. Good Luck!

Here are some: http://www.similarsites.com http://www.similarsitesearch.com http://www.alexa.com

I agree. Just another link. Even nofollow links are good links, but no, this one is not a nofollow link. It's a dofollow as they say..link :).

I appreciate the shoutout Rob. Thanks to you both for reading. I really appreciate that. You are both sp right. Engagement is key. And the best part, you just never know what that relationship you work at building via the comment might lead to, whether it's traffic, links a guest post or just a great friendship...all are very worthwhile in my book. Dana

I agree with Irving. And it is not rare to stumble upon junk sites who are using redirects to boost their ranking.

Hi All, Mini update here. Matt Cutts posted a video exactly about this issue on YouTube yesterday. Basically he says 'PageRank' loss via 301's is a MYTH :D. In my opinion this sounds like great news to me. I assume i won't have to change all my external links to a new url just to save +- 10% juice Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Filv4pP-1nw Hope this info is usefull to you guys ( and gals) :), Lawrence Shaw watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Filv4pP-1nw

I think what the OP wants to do is create a few micro sites with the main objective of getting links to his main website. OP, its not worth the time and effort. If the microsite serves a purpose other than simply linking to your site from within the articles then go for it. If your hoping to see an improvement in rankings by doing this, its not going to be worth your while. Greg

Yahoo and botw are ok links if you have the budget (depending on the category), but getting high authority links from relevant sites in your niche will have more impact, and often cost you less money.