Penalized for "Unnatural Links" on Webmaster Tools

[PaulDylan]

Has anyone ever logged in to Google Webmaster tools and seen a message about them seeing unnatural links (as a warning)

Our homepage lost all its rankings. I will submit a reconsideration request. We don't engage in link buying practices (some directories, thats all.)

Any feedback, please?

Thanks

[RobertFisher]

Pablo, Wait. Do not submit for reconsideration yet. If you are missing something, you could create more problems than you solve. So,

Go through the site and see what is going on. If Google is questioning "unnatural links" look at all and see where they may be right. You want to try to fix this before you submit for reconsideration.

Is there any way for you to give us a domain name so that we can see what is there, that would really help with helping you. What % nofollow, how fast have you garnered the links, what directories? What paid directories, any link wheels or reciprocal links that you know of? Etc.

Hope this helps, be patient for a minute, it will help.

Best

[PaulDylan]

this is for www.fortune3.com

we're a shopping cart software company so our link building comes from:

-Customer Websites

-Directories (Business.com and other authoritative directories)

-Blogs (our own mostly.)

-Press Releases

I did find www.aolstalker.com linking. ....what do you think?

[Brian-M]

Pablo might it be the dofollow text links you're placing on your client's websites pointing back to you?  Like the one in the footer of this page? http://www.belljewels.com/

[PaulDylan]

Hi Brian,

Thanks for your input. The fact of the matter is that THAT is standard practice with all shopping cart software companies. You can look through millions of websites and at the bottom you'll see Powered by or Ecommerce by...etc.

Design firms do this, etc. I don't believe that's the issue but that's something we may need to ask in our reconsideration request.

[PaulDylan]

Hi Brian,

Thanks for your input. The fact of the matter is that THAT is standard practice with all shopping cart software companies. You can look through millions of websites and at the bottom you'll see Powered by or Ecommerce by...etc.

Design firms do this, etc. I don't believe that's the issue but that's something we may need to ask in our reconsideration request.

[stubby]

I am pretty new to SEO (or at least new to being serious about it), so use my advice at your own risk.

My guess is that this stems from situations like this:

Powered by FORTUNE3 • shopping cart software or the other keyword perfect variations of it at the bottom of your customer's sites.  Would they have put that there if you didn't pre-code it into the software and charge them money to remove it?

The sites are also all unrelated.  You might think they are related because they are your customers, but is ray bans, jeep parts, car covers, and homeowners rights manuals, gun lasers, and all the other sites related to shopping cart software?  None of them has any other mention of shopping cart software on their whole site, except for the forced link.

Also, these are effectively paid links, since you put them into the software by default, and you charge people $50 to remove them.  Thinking in reverse (sort of), you are paying $50 to them to keep the link.  It's a forced, or paid link.

Think of it this way, if you offered to your customers to remove it for free, or gave them a way to do it easily and told them how (even for non-techies, like a check box in the admin panel they use for processing orders), what percentage would remove it.

I used to have a store on Big Commerce.  They did the same thing, except I could remove it in the accessible code, and it is one of the first things I did right away.  I really did not want to be forced to advertise for them.

Anyway, I am curious to see how this plays out, as I suspect you are not the only shopping cart provider with this situation.

By the way, here is another example of it, and it is sure to catch them too.  Go Daddy Spammy Link Building

[Brian-M]

Yeah, I agree Paul, it is standard practice, but unfortunately that doesn't mean Google approves it.  I haven't heard of Google penalizing shopping cart software footer links, however, I do know that Google has penalized sites who put their link in blog gadgets that they give away.  And, really, there's not a lot of difference in the two.  And if you've worked with Google much you'll know that Google isn't fair.  It may be that you had a manual review and that manual reviewer gave you the ax, while another manual reviewer would not.

[RobertFisher]

Paul,
I am at a loss on this. The reason being that i don't see anything all that "unnaturaly:"

You have some great high quality links to begin with.
Your anchor text is fairly diverse (Shopping cart software is what you do so..., and then the others around it are also fairly well used, etc.)

TLD distribution is 74% .com with the rest spread out, about 1% .edu, etc.

Your first 20 linking root domains are ubiquitous, high DA sites.

So, I have a big, big, hmmmmm. IF yours is unnatural, then GoDaddy is the spawn of satan's links.....?????

I would still move slowly on the resubmission give yourself at least 24 hours to really survey all and then go for it with your ducks in a row.

Good luck, please let us know how it goes.

[blocker0408]

I have just had the same issue on 9 of my blogs, deindexed, hardly any outgoing links, no interlinking at all. Google is getting ridiculous, it's the fact you don't know where you stand that's the worst of it.

[PaulDylan]

Thanks Robert. Yes, I believe we have a good link profile and work hard at it. This is really a shame. I don't see any reason to really waste more time and not submit a rec request to Google in the next few hours.

I will keep everyone posted and thanks for contributing.