How do I know for sure if my site has been slapped?

[SoundsLikeJoy]

I'm new to this SEO business - and I focus on inbound marketing. My client's site is www.SubconsciousMind.com. Just a few weeks ago it was showing in the top search results for several major keywords. Now, it has disappeared all together and there are competitors showing that have very little SEO (metatarsi not set up properly, etc.). So, I know there has to be an opportunity.

Some obvious things: 
There aren't a lot of links and the majority seem to be bad (bad linking farms)
Social media is set up by a robot
Articles are poorly written obviously ONLY for SEO

My client hired a SEO company awhile back to get results, not understanding black hat / white hat and it worked for several years. Now - it is really hurting her. The sites she is linking to doesn't have any contact info to get the "unlinked." I've read I can use the disavow tool.

I asked her if she got anything from Google about "being slapped". She doesn't even receive the emails to her site because she trusted someone else to set it all up.

Should I rebuild from scratch? Any recommendations? We are funning adwords now as a quick fix.

[Philip-DiPatrizio]

How to see if your site has received a manual penalty from Google?  Sign up for Google Webmaster Tools (http://www.google.com/webmasters).

From within there you will be able to see if the website has received a manual penalty from Google.  Once you've got the account setup and verified, look on the left menu for "Search Traffic" and then "Manual Actions".  If there is a MANUAL penalty imposed, you'll see it there.  It will either be "partial" or "site-wide".  The former means that only some pages are affected.  The latter means that all pages are affected.

If you have a manual penalty, you will NEED to do outreach to get links removed, and THEN you submit a disavow for the ones you were unable to remove.  You're right, most spam sites won't have contact info, but you can check http://www.who.is and find an email address in most cases.  You will more than likely not get the result you're looking to get if you forego the link removal process and skip straight to a disavow.

One last note, if there's no manual penalty in Google Webmaster Tools, then the site may be penalized algorithmically.  If you know there are spammy links in place, you should act as if you were penalized manually, with the only difference being that you won't be submitting a reconsideration request to Google.  If the site quality is poor, you will want to research Panda recovery options.

By the way, www.SubconsciousMind.com doesn't seem to exist.  So either you typo'd the name, or you have an ever bigger problem on your hands now

[AlanMosley]

Philip gives good advise, I would add, that if there is no manual penalty, then the algorithm will be dismissing links at best, it would not be penalizing you for them. not for links anyhow

but as Philip said, the domain seems to be parked

[johnny122]

Is it really www.SubconsciousMind.com ? PR 0 and listed at domainnamesales ?

[SoundsLikeJoy]

Thank you so much for your input... yes, you are all correct - I had the wrong URL. It is actually www.SubconsciousChange.com

I so appreciate your input and will start working right away on those bad links.

[Philip-DiPatrizio]

Happy to help

And I took a quick look at the backlink profile for subconsciouschange.com... definitely spammy.  A nice cleanse will get you on the right track!

[SoundsLikeJoy]

Hi Philipp,

I checked with Google Webmasters and there is no penalty - good news! I've also attempted to contact those sites with spammy links and I am getting no response. So - would you recommend at this point that I simply go through the disavow at this point?

Thanks in advance,

Joeaux

[Philip-DiPatrizio]

If you feel like you have done everything within your power to try and get the links removed, but there's just no way, then you should disavow the URL or domain.  You should attempt to reach the owners of the domain 2-3 times before giving up.  During my link removals, there have been a decent number of webmasters that finally responded on my 2nd or 3rd attempt.

As for disavowing URL or domain, if the entire domain is something you'd never want a link from, disavow the entire domain.  Even if you only have ONE link from the entire site.  Still, disavow the domain.  Only disavow the URL if you think the site in general is good quality but you happen to be on 1 particular spammy page for some reason.