Please help on this penalized site!

[palicomp]

OK, this is slowly frying my brain and would like some clarification from someone in the know, we have posted multiple reconsideration requests the regular "site violates googles quality guidelines" .."look for unnatural links etc" email back in March 2012,

I came aboard the business in August 2012 to overcome bad SEO companies work. So far i have filled several disavow requests by domain and cleared over 90% of our backlink profile which where all directory, multiple forum spam links etc from WMT, OSE and Ahrefs and compiled this to the disavow tool, as well as sending a google docs shared file in our reconsideration request of all the links we have been able to remove and the disavow tool, since most where built in 2009/2010 a lot where impossible to remove.

We managed to shift about 12 - 15% of our backlink profile by working very very hard too remove them. The only links that where left where quality links and forum posts created by genuine users and relevant non spam links As well as this we now have a high quality link profile which has also counteracted a lot of the bad "seo" work done by these previous companies, i have explained this fully in our reconsideration request as well as a massive apology on behalf of the work those companies did, and we are STILL getting generic "site violates" messages, so far we have spent in excess of 150 hours to get this penalty removed and so far Google hasn't even batted an eyelid.

We have worked SO hard to combat this issue it almost feels almost very personal, if Google read the reconsideration request they would see how much work we have done too remove this issue. If anyone can give any updates or help on anything we have missed i would appreciate it, i feel like we have covered every base!!

Chris

www.palicomp.co.uk

[Brian-H]

I don't have the time to look in detail but have you ruled out that it is not onsite or link-wheel's, have you checked  the ip distribution of your links etc?

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey Chris

Often, it would seem they want to see a continued effort on your part to clean up and the link profile still looks pretty stinky in OSE. That said, I appreciate, it's almost impossible to get many links removed so you can only do so much.

It may be that you just have to keep trying, keep cleaning up, keep emailing, send letters, make phonecalls etc and just show even more willing before they will let you out of penalty jail.

Have you had a professional audit done with regards to the problems on the site? Have you looked at duplication etc?

Can you detail what you have done in your reconsideration requests?

Marcus

[palicomp]

Hi Marcus, i agree, sure, in detail:

• built high quality natural link profile with varied anchor text since Aug

• provided a text document of removed links (about 12 - 15% of WMT/OSE/Ahrefs link profile) in recon request

• provided a list of every directory and bad looking forum links, irrelevant websites in disavow tool by domain:

• made a simple text copy on google docs of disavow in recon request.

• apologised on behalf of work done by previous companies

• promised all future work will be compliant to webmaster standards.

I have ran several audits since working with Palicomp, everything from canonicalisation to crawl errors to dupe content and ive found a small amount of source code duplicates (down to cubecarts awful cms) but not much else

[Brian-H]

I think Marcus is trying to say check duplicate content comparing to other sites with tools such as copyscape and that if you have done all the basics then you may need a second opinion with a full audit and review.

[palicomp]

Hi Brian, will definately look at this thanks, i know that our duplicate issues across the site are slim and other onpage things - massive increase in site loading times etc etc are going well, thanks

[Brian-H]

Site load times and duplicate content between pages are not things that would get a violate google guidelines warning.

Duplicate content or thin content will hold you back and class you as a low quality site but I think google is more saying that you are doing bad things such as link wheels, manipulating PR, spam linking, copying content from sites etc.

[palicomp]

so far copyscape/plagspotter has shown nothing, website has been changed since the warning came in and a lot of content was changed. i feel that one issue might be down to the enjin.com list of forums that run one forum but span hundreds of websites with different layouts (horrid spam that wasnt actually created by bad seo's!)  ive been asking for ages to get this removed and its all been filed into our disavow. Like i said i think 90%+ of our backlinks across WMT/ahrefs/OSE have been requested to disavow.

None of our blog content has been duplicated but this is new and didnt exist when the unnatural warning was issued, its just so frustrating how i feel we have covered every angle and you find most of your working life becoming a minion to the google algorithmn!

[palicomp]

Just an update Marcus - this morning we got our "manual spam penalty revoked" notice so lets see if rankings return.

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey Peter, that's great news, keep us posted on how that works out from a traffic perspective and would love a poke around in your analytics once the dust has settled.

Cheers,

Marcus

[palicomp]

thanks Marcus, we have whilst trying to remove the bad replace with good and get white hat all the way, so my biggest worry now is too see how much recovery actually happens, the general consensus seems to be anywhere between 10 - 90 days!

Chris

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey Chris (peter? sorry)

Yeah, will be interesting, every case is unique I figure but certainly, if you get rid of the problems you can at least concentrate on moving forwards.

Keep me posted.

[palicomp]

Absolutely, our rankings have been static since i started so i hope we will see some results soonish will keep you posted.

Chris

Ps - Peter owns the business and set our Moz account up! i do the work! hah

[Marcus_Miller]

Ha, okay, got it!

Go after some long tail content and start adding some value to the site and you should have a broader scope and some pages that will rank on their own merit. Gives you something constructive to do and some possible link targets!