Unnatural links warning and steps to fix it

[imrubbish]

Hi there,

Firstly our website is - imrubbish.co.uk

Basically we were unintentionally using a rogue seo company for about 5 months who charged a lot of money and built absolute rubbish quality links.

When i saw the type of links being built i immediately stopped them as i knew they were bad news but the damage had been done.

I have since moved to a completely ethical seo company who for the past 6 months have tried with me to remove this penalty without success.

Here are the steps we have taken.

Unnatural links warning.

1. Submitted a file with all the links we know are bad and resubmitted.

Not good enough

2. We then used disavow tool as there were so many links we had no control of. Along with a detailed write up of what has happened and who had done it.

Not good enough

Now the problem my seo guy thinks is because there are more and more links appearing almost daily that are still left over rubbish from the old seo company.

I think there might also be other problems - maybe my anchor test distribution is spammy etc, i dont know and i am hoping someone can maybe help with a couple more pointers.

I have asked a similar question before where there was a discussion about even just leaving it and concentrating on building more ethical links with brand anchor text but that was not working so we used the disavow tool.

We have been stuck in this rut for over a year now and could really do with some extra help/guidance from anyone who has experience or knowledge of what we should do.

I saw the post yesterday about this very subject and hope someone could help drill done specifically what could be the problem in our case.

We would also look at hiring someone if they could help.

Thank you

Jon

[TomRayner]

Hi Jon

This is such a shame, as it looks a great website with a cool domain name. It always makes me angry when an SEO agency prays on the naivety of a webmaster, as your previous company did.

What I'd ask first is what sources have you used to identify your bad backlinks? In an ideal world, you should be using multiple. In the past, I've had success with removing penalties but only when using a combination of Google webmasters report, Open site explorer, MajesticSEO (historical index) and LinkDetox. I'd highly recommend majestic's historical index as it is the most complete crawl out there as far as I know, while LinkDetox can help you diagnose a number of links and see if they're toxic or suspicious.

The next question I'd have is how is your current SEO guy classifying the bad links? I've found that it is important to be as vigilant as possible with your classification - probably more so than you think you need to be.  This means if you see any link with targeted anchor text, either partial or exact, get rid of it.  Blogrolls/site-wide links: Gone. If at any point you can look at a link and think: "That looks like I asked for it to be there/it was placed there" consider it for removal.

Have you been explicit in your reconsideration request? Of course, this is only relevant if you get a message back confirming manual action has been taken.  If you don't and no manual action has been taken, the penalty is not present and doesn't require a reconsideration.

You need to give a detailed account to Google of what steps you have taken to have the links removed.  How you found the link (by source), where you found the contact details (on site, contact form, who.is data), when you contacted them, when you followed up etc. Anything you can't get removed after multiple requests should only then be disavowed, in Google's eyes. The Disavow tool is great but Google really wants you to be as thorough as you can and make every effort to have the links removed before you disavow.

In addition, don't be afraid to use the domain:example.com function liberally. You'll disavow any link on the entire domain with this, which can be a big help.

In some circumstances, I actually recommend starting with a fresh domain - it can actually be less work starting with a fresh, clean link profile and earning some high quality links this way. I'd consider this if I were you, but I can completely understand the attachment to your domain.

Hope this helps in some way and feel free to ask me anything else you may be wondering.

All the best!

[Futura]

Yes Tom, I am also agreed with you to suggest taking new domain and it must be very beneficial to start market freshly.

[DarinPirkey]

There was a great article by Pinpoint Designs on this exact topic.

I'm having the same issue as you with a bad domain trying to turn it into a good one.  I have a client who seems to have gotten hit by Penguin and then a unnatural link penalty (manual) we did get the removal notice of the manual penalty but our rankings have not recovered yet.  Jon's advice is great but I would also take a look at the article above posted on SEOmoz.

[imrubbish]

Hi,

It was a manual penalty the site received. I dont want to give up hope on it yet, our domain is very brandable and has been established for 5 years with a good proportion of repeat business. We also have 5 or 6 very high quality almost impossible to get links.

I would like to get this manual penalty removed that has and is the number one objective. Because of the penalty we setup recyclingbins.co.uk and wheeliebins.co.uk the former is doing very well so in that sense it may be a blessing - a deep hard to fathom blessing as it meant we had to improve other areas of business.

Would you be available to talk about this? I am in a contract with seo company i have, but i would like to look at getting someone with specific expertise in this to help? I could get the existing seo company on creating good links with natural brand anchor text then.

Thank you

Jon

[ShaMenz]

Hi im rubbish,

I would generally agree with Tom on the need to be completely honest with yourself when assessing links.

It is also a good idea to make sure that you have carefully read the finer detail of Google's quality guidelines. Make sure you know what qualifies as a link scheme in Google's eyes. This page provides some specific examples that might be eye opening if you have not read them recently.

If you think that the ongoing issue is caused by the appearance of more links, then there are a couple of things you should do:

1. Make sure that you disavow entire domains as Tom suggested, so that any other links in existence at that domain will also be disavowed.
2. Carefully monitor and identify new links as they appear. If it seems that unnatural links are still accumulating without explanation, highlight the issue in a reconsideration request and make sure that you provide scrupulous detail for the Webspam team to follow up. Be very clear - "these links have not been initiated by us".

Since you're in the UK it might be useful to know there are a couple of Search conferences coming up in the next couple of weeks that include sessions and workshops on link removal and penalty recovery.

BrightonSEO in the South - 11 & 12 April. I believe individual conference tickets are all gone, but there are still places in the Link Removal workshop with Tim Grice (which comes with a full day conference ticket included)

ionSearch in the North (Leeds) - 18 & 19 April. The conference includes both an Expert Panel on Link Removal and workshop sessions. Tim Grice will also be speaking here, as well as Christoph Cemper (owner of the company that develops Link Detox) and myself (rmoov.com).

A final note on starting again with a new domain: This absolutely has to be purely a business decision. With the obvious amount of time, money and effort put into your site's branding to date, even stripping back the entire link profile and "rebooting" your domain is likely to be a better business proposition than having to recreate an entire brand.

Hope that helps,

Sha

[TomRayner]

Hi Jon

Sorry I didn't see this earlier - tried to private message you but I don't believe I can at the moment.  If you'd like, feel free to drop an email at tom [at] sowhatmedia.co.uk

Obviously replace the [at] with @.  Hopefully I can help you out a bit more there.

[MarieHaynes]

Hi Jon,

You mentioned that you submitted a file with your known bad backlinks and that you also disavowed those links, but did you actually make attempts to get those links manually removed?  Google wants to see that you have tried to remove as many of your unnatural links as possible.  You also need to document this well in a Google Doc so that they can see your efforts.

If you have indeed tried to remove backlinks then the next most common reason for sites to fail at reconsideration is because you haven't identified enough of your links as unnatural.  Sometimes what looks natural to you actually may be a link that goes against the quality guidelines.

Don't give up on this domain!  I've yet to see one that couldn't be saved.