Got Google Warning But No Penalty - Should I Ask for Reconsideration?

[sbrault74]

I got the following warning from Google yesterday:

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"Google Webmaster Tools notice of detected unnatural links to [...]

We encourage you to make changes to your site so that it meets our quality guidelines. Once you've made these changes, please submit your site for reconsideration in Google's search results.

"

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But my website didn't lose any traffic or ranking so far. Anyway, I'm currently cleaning up my link profile.

My question is, since the website didn't seem to have a penalty, should I still submit the website for reconsideration once the clean up is done? If I clean up my link profile, would that warning just go away? Should I avoid a manual review of my website?

Thanks for your help.

[SEODinosaur]

Yes you should these affects will not take place until a few month from now however they will take place. i would highly recommend fixing the issues and asking for a reconsideration: http://www.seroundtable.com/google-links-warnings-15461.html _read this article. _

[RyanKent]

Donnie, I agree with your sharing that link. It is perfect for Stephanie's question. However, I disagree with your conclusion.

For many site owners, the message is a warning. I would advise all site owners to clean up their spammy links, but especially those who received this warning. They MAY be penalized in the future but there is no reason to submit a Reconsideration Request if the site is not penalized.

The link you shared quotes Matt Cutts:

If you received a message yesterday about unnatural links to your site, don't panic. In the past, these messages were sent when we took action on a site as a whole. Yesterday, we took another step towards more transparency and began sending messages when we distrust some individual links to a site. While it's possible for this to indicate potential spammy activity by the site, it can also have innocent reasons. For example, we may take this kind of targeted action to distrust hacked links pointing to an innocent site. The innocent site will get the message as we move towards more transparency, but it's not necessarily something that you automatically need to worry about.

If we've taken more severe action on your site, you'll likely notice a drop in search traffic, which you can see in the "Search queries" feature Webmaster Tools for example. As always, if you believe you have been affected by a manual spam action and your site no longer violates the Webmaster Guidelines, go ahead and file a reconsideration request. It'll take some time for us to process the request, but you will receive a followup message confirming when we've processed it.

[ThompsonPaul]

Stephane - in my opinion, you're right to be confused.

This question demonstrates PERFECTLY the stupidity Google has perpetrated with this latest round of unnatural link notifications.

Up until now, Google has clearly stated that if you get one of these warnings, your rankings are going to be impacted and you must take action. I know - I was in the room at SMX Advanced in June when Matt Cutts stated exactly that.

Now Cutts and Google are backpedaling and saying "actually, just because you received the warning, doesn't mean we are actually going to take any action - you may or may not need to do something about it. and you have no way of knowing unless and until your rankings tank"

I've always respected Matt a great deal, but this last round of notifications and his explanation of it (for better transparency) are absolute bullshit and rather than clarification, have just horribly muddied the already murky waters.

For what it's worth, here's what I would recommend

• go ahead and clean up any obviously spammy links you may have acquired, assuming there are any (but don't panic & go overboard)
• keep careful documentation of your clean up efforts
• do NOT submit a reconsideration request - at this point there's nothing to reconsider as your rankings haven't been affected
• make sure you're tracking your organic search traffic volume and rankings carefully so you can spot any drops as soon as they happen
• continue to try to acquire good-quality, varied, natural links from other good websites (to help offset any questionable links)
• if you see any significant rankings drops, then submit your reconsideration request with the documentation of the link cleanup work you've done (and including the links you haven't been able to clean up because they're outside your control.)

The link warning won't go away because it's just a message that's been sent and can't (to my knowledge) be recalled, but if you do in fact have spammy links and clean them up, you "shouldn't" see any future effects on your rankings - but you'll have no way of knowing. You'll just have to sit and wait to see.

Paul