5th Reconsideration Request, Have i missed anything...

[ScottBaxterWW]

Hi Guys,

I wonder if any of you can help me out.I'll be shortly submitting another reconsideration request to Google.I've been working on removing bad / spammy links to our site http://goo.gl/j7OpL  over the past 6 months and so far every reconsideration request I have submitted has been knocked back with the following message:----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear site owner or webmaster of http://goo.gl/j7OpL  ,

We received a request from a site owner to reconsider http://goo.gl/j7OpL  for compliance with Google's Webmaster Guidelines.

We've reviewed your site and we still see links to your site that violate our quality guidelines   .

Specifically, look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could be intended to manipulate PageRank. Examples of unnatural linking could include buying links to pass PageRank    or participating in link schemes   .

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

If you find unnatural links to your site that you are unable to control or remove, please provide the details in your reconsideration request.

If you have additional questions about how to resolve this issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum   for support.

Sincerely,

Google Search Quality Team

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've removed over 70% of all our links - we had some large sitewide links on big sites with exact match anchor text to our main money keyword, I've also removed a large link network that our previous SEO company setup.

Today I have completed an overhaul of all our internal links, near enough every blog post that we added to the site had a link back to the home page with an exact match money keyword.

1 thing that I did notice was when we got hit by the penalty it didn't affect every keyword we target just our main / most competitive keyword, yes some of our other keywords took a dip in rankings but not as much as our main keyword.

When I submit our next reconsideration request I'll also attach a spreadsheet of links that I can't remove either because I can't find any contact details / blocked by whois or I'm just not getting a response when I email them.

If anyone can point out anything else that I have missed or might have missed that would be great.

Thanks,

Scott

[RyanKent]

Hi Scott,

Removing manual penalties for manipulative links is a complex task. The result for most people is to repeatedly have the Reconsideration Request declined. If you tried another 5 times, the results are not likely to change. At a high level there is likely an error in one of three areas:

1. You need to use a comprehensive list of all known backlinks to your site. Using the list from Google is not even close to enough. I use Google WMT + OSE + Raven (Majestic) + AHREFs + SEMrush + Bing. If you do not start with a comprehensive list of links, you will continue to miss addressing manipulative links and Google will not even pay any attention to your Reconsideration Request.

2. You need to ensure your idea of a manipulative link is calibrated with Google. The process begins with being intimately familiar with Google's Guidelines. A few questions to ask for each link:

• if search engines did not exist, would this link be here?

• who created the link / content? If the link was created by the site owner, it would likely be considered manipulative

• how credible is the site? the web page? the content? is it focused on a specific topic or a grab bag?

• what value does this link / page offer to users?

The above list is not comprehensive, and there are other factors to weigh. There are corner cases as well. What I can share is the PA and DA of the pages involved should not be given any consideration at all. Additionally, there is not any automated tool which can be used for making an organic vs manipulative link determination. I have reviewed several and, to put it nicely, they seem to offer completely false hope to desperate site owners.

3. You need to make a solid, good-faith effort to contact linking sites to request the links be removed. Do not simply change anchor text as that does not make the link any less manipulative. Don't give up simply because the WHOIS e-mail is not valid. Try the WHOIS e-mail, the site e-mail and the Contact Form (if any) on the site. If a site owner denies your link removal request the first time, respond to them in a very polite manner and ask in a different way.

I have been involved with the Reconsideration Request for numerous clients in your situation. Items 1 & 2 are the most common issues and they are show stoppers.

Good Luck.

[ScottBaxterWW]

Great answer yet again Ryan.

Thanks for your detailed response.

Thanks,

Scott

[MarieHaynes]

Ryan's given you a super generous answer! I wanted to add a couple of things:

You mentioned that you will attach a list of links that you couldn't get removed.  It may help to go even further.  What I usually do is attach a document that contains a copy of each email that I have sent for sites that I was unsuccessful with.  And, if I got a negative response back I would include that email as well.

I also include screenshots of every contact form that I have submitted.  It may be overkill but from Google's perspective if you just say, "I tried to contact them" that's not enough.

You're probably already doing this, but be super humble in your request and make sure that you tell Google you are committed to following the quality guidelines from this point on.  I think part of the reason why Google makes webmasters go through this is because they want to be sure that they understand the gravity of trying to game the system with SEO tactics.

And like Ryan said...be really tough on yourself when it comes to links.  I have seen a number of webmasters that say, "NO!  That's not an unnatural link!  It came from an article that I wrote", or something like that.  But in reality almost every link that you have had a hand in creating is one that is considered unnatural to Google.

Good luck!  If you are successful, it would be great for you to post about your success here in the Q&A to encourage others.

Marie