Is Google's reinclusion request process flawed?

[BrowserMediaLtd]

We have been having a bit of a nightmare with a Google penalty (please see http://www.browsermedia.co.uk/2012/04/25/negative-seo-or-google-just-getting-it-painfully-wrong/ or http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/10093-why-google-needs-to-be-less-kafkaesque for background information - any thoughts on why we have been penalised would be very, very welcome!) which has highlighted a slightly alarming aspect of Google's reinclusion process.

As far as I can see (using Google Analytics), supporting material prepared as part of a reinclusion request is basically ignored. I have just written an open letter to the search quality team at http://www.browsermedia.co.uk/2012/06/19/dear-matt-cutts/ which gives more detail but the short story is that the supporting evidence that we prepared as part of a request was NOT viewed by anyone at Google.

Has anyone monitored this before and experienced the same thing? Does anyone have any suggestions regarding how to navigate the treacherous waters of resolving a penalty?

This no doubt sounds like a sob story for us, but I do think that this is a potentially big issue and one that I would love to explore more.

If anyone could contribute from the search quality team, we would love to hear your thoughts!

Cheers,

Joe

[Andropenis_Australia]

Not sticking up for them but you have to appreciate the amount of people that would probably try to send them all sorts of viruses anyway they can, also they probably don;t have or want to take the time looking at everyone so closely, basically they will just see if the offending stuff is still there, if it is they won't give you any love.

Honestly, it's probably something so simple you have overlooked it. Keyword ratio's above 6% can be taken as spam depending on content amount, non relevent link coming in/going out, links from already penalzed sites, anything unnatural is now what google has been focusing on, not just backlinks, so go through your site, obviously the HP is the first point to start at, if you are really sure there is nothing going on in the way of spaminess or over optimization, comb through your other pages. It will usually be a problem one your best ranked pages. Or, ex best ranked pages if you have been hit with a penguin slap.

[BrowserMediaLtd]

Thank you for your thoughts.

I agree that they must be swamped and most of the 'complaints' you can see on the Google forums fully deserve to be penalised in my humble opinion, but I think that the total lack of communication is more damaging than helpful.

If they want to improve the web, why do they not give more details about what is causing the problem? By being more transparent and helping webmasters to eradicate spammy techniques, everyone will be forced into improving their sites for all the right reasons.

If they don't have the resource to handle the reinclusion requests, then they shouldn't have it as an option.

I still feel that it is very poor not to even look at the files that were prepared - that shows a lack of respect.

I agree that it is likely to be something simple. The 'spike' theory is still the strongest contender for me, due to the timings of events, but that is alarming if it proves to be true as we were effectively penalised for doing exactly what Google encourages (creating good content that will naturally attract links).

Another possible cause is the fact that we have got a number of directory links over the years. Whilst I have never considered these to be high quality links, I have never seen Google saying that you shouldn't submit your site to them (indeed, they used to actively suggest that submitting to Yahoo! was a good idea) and it is a way for Google to outsource some human assessment of sites (assuming that the directories do check your sites).

If it is the directories, then the door for negative SEO is so wide open that it is alarming. As many have said, completely ignoring such links would be better than penalising you.

We are still no closer to understanding what we have done wrong, despite every effort to adhere to the guidelines and a lot of work trying to audit / document our link profile. With very little faith in the reinclusion process, where can we possibly turn to now?

We will see. There were multiple views of the open letter from Google, so somebody somewhere has seen it and I just hope that there is some form of response.

The irony is that we spend most of our life defending Google and encouraging clients to improve what they are doing online. On this occasion, I really find it hard to defend them. I appreciate that we are a drop in a mighty ocean, but the principle is one that I think is an important one and one that I will pursue.

Thanks again for your contribution,

Joe