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Thanks a lot you guys. We've have it revoked !!!

Thanks Marie, I can't believe that I overlooked it Taking care of tht now

Thanks for your assistance Andy.

Do you mean to say that even if links are nofollow, the page layout can still impact us?

I'm not exactly sure what you by by a wix banner, but the "Get Domain!" button is nofollow. At least, that's what I can see in my browser. Please see for yourself.

Sure, here's one of my pages:

http://www.webdesign.org/web-design-fails.22423.html

Yes, it has the rel="nofollow" attribute and you can see is as red in seo-browser.com:

http://seo-browser.com/index.php?address=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.webdesign.org%2Fweb-design-fails.22423.html&button0.x=47&button0.y=0&button0=Simple

We used to sell text links on our site WebDesign.org , I told about that via Twitter in public, Google penalized us and here’s the history of the issue in more detail. I write it here to ask if you guys know how to sort out this issue coz I’m not exactly sure at this point.

Before I tackle the issue itself, here's some background.

OUTBOUND LINKS ISSUE

Jun 22, 2013

We received an Unnatural outbound links penalty (Manual spam action message in our Google Webmaster Tools account) from Google

July 1, 2013

We nofollowed all homepage links and submitted a reconsideration request

July 10, 2013

Google replied that we still violate their quality guidelines

July 15, 2013

We removed links to low quality and irrelevant  sites (such as Chinese stores, etc) and submitted another reconsideration request

July 22, 2013

Manual Spam Action revoked

INBOUND LINKS ISSUE

November 8, 2013

We got a message from Google about Unnatural links to your site - impacts links (Message in our Google Webmaster Tools account)

November 27, 2013

We Submitted a Disavow file with Deadly Risky links (found via generating a LinkDetox report) and submitted a reconsideration request

December 15, 2013

Manual Action revoked (main keyword ranking got from 41 to 4)

February  6, 014

And here's the actual issue:

OUTBOUND LINKS ISSUE (Again)

I told via Twitter in public that our site sells links. Matt Cutts noticed that and we got another Unnatural outbound links penalty (Manual action). Main keyword ranking decreased from 9 to 65. We removed all outbound links on the homepage and submitted a reconsideration request.

April 15, 2014

Google replied that we still violate their quality guidelines. We nofollowd all outbound links with JavaScript (wrong move because Google did not take it as nofollowed) and submitted another reconsideration request.

April 19, 2014

Google rejected our reconsideration request and said that we still violate their quality guidelines.

April 23, 2014

We nofollowed properly this time (with PHP) and submitted another reconsideration request.

May 4, 2014

Google replies that we still violate their quality guidelines.

So, at this point I’m kinda lost in terms of what to do next because we've nofollowed all our outbound links (both paid and natural ones).

What would you recommend?

Thanks guys, that makes sense. I'm doing what you suggested now. Once I find all my pages with affiliate links, is it possible to use .htaccess so that it requites those links automatically? Basically, it should go to a specific page, find the link I define, and change it to a new one. Is that even possible with .htaccess?

I have a custom CMS. I offer a few affiliate products through my site. Now I need to update all my aff. links and I'm not sure how I can find all the pages (posts) on my site that have affiliate links. What's the best way to do that?

I've found a bunch of nofollow links with the help of Link Detox. Now, should I disavow such links (after contacating site owner directly and unsuccessfuly) or i can just filter my nofollow links and handle dofollow ones only?

Here's the deal. I got a message in the Manual Action section in GWT:

Unnatural links to your site—impacts links

On one hand, Matt Says that I need to do my best to take down links on sites that Google hinted me about (I've got a sample link) and it that does not work, I can apply the Disavow tool. Matt says it on this page in his video:

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2604772?ctx=MAC

On the other hand, if you take a look at the text on the same page, it says that I'm not supposed to do anything at all if I got this message. Here's  the quote:

"If you don't control the links pointing to your site, no action is required on your part. From Google's perspective, the links already won't count in ranking.  "

I am not sure why I need to apply the Disavow tool if, " the links already won't count in ranking".

I have a follow-up question, guys. Still trying to figure out which directories to use and which not to.

So, is it safe to say that it's still ok to place (or keep) links on directories with the following features in place:

1. human editied

2. paid

3. no keyword as anchor text.

Please tell me what you think about it based on your real-life experience. Thanks.

Thanks for your reply, Keri. So, once I'm in the Moz Analytics interface, how do I go to the Pro one? I don't have the Back to PRO link in my brand new Moz account. So, I'm not sure how to do  that.

Is it me or you don't get (and not supposed to) email notifications when your site gets a manual action penalty? I mean I can see it in the Google Webmaster Tools interface, but I never get notifications in my Inbox.  Is that how it works or I just need to set it up somehow?

I have two accounts with Moz.com

Account One (about a year old) has both the options to switch over between Moz Pro and Moz Analytics. Account Two (a trial so far) just has the option to use Moz Analytics.

So new or trial accounts don't have access to Moz Pro?

I'm guest posting on some sites and one of them placed my back link as follows:

mysite.com

I'm not sure what he's trying to achieve with the help of rel="noindex"? The first that jumps into my mind is that Google will index the post but skip my backlink. So, there's no sense in such a bakclink, ringht?

Hey guys, I really hope that such a tool exists out there. Here's the problem. My boss asked me to create a graph that shows the traffic, rankings and notes on our site updates in one place.

Here's what I did

I just made a screenshot of my Google analytics and rankings from RankTracker. Then I added it all in one Photoshop file and tried to combine them so that I can see if traffic drops coincided with keyword drops. Also, I added some manual notes about the updates on my site (like text updates on the homepage, etc).

So, is there a tool that allows to combine Google traffic data with ranking data. Plus it should allow to add my own comments ?

Here's the result of my crazy drawings so that you understand why I'm not happy about doing that in Photoshop

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_oX-XIT7OSCRC1jWUcxR3AwdkE/edit?usp=drive_web

Thanks for all your assistance, guys. I totally get it now

Here's the deal. I keep track of my keyword rankings with the help of Rank Tracker from seopowersuite.com for the most part. I ran it on a daily basis and my keyword was not in top 100 for a few months. Moz.com panel shows pretty much the same (not in top 50) for the same months. That said, if I check that keyword ranking in my Google Webmaster Tools (avg. position) it says that its position (ranking?) was on average: 49, 7, 7, 8 (for the last four months). So, I'm not sure how it's even possible? How come Rank Tracker and Moz don't see any rankings and Google gives me sorta decent avg. positions at the same time. I assume that avg. postion means that same as avg. ranking, right? I'm not sure what I'm missing here.

Thanks, could you be more specific as for the networks that still work? Please email me at seowar [ at ] gmail [ dot ] come

Hey guys,

Here's the deal.

I know that Google is fighting private blog netowrks and directories. That said, does it also mean that it does not make any sense to buy listings on directories like dir.yahoo.com ?

Thanks in advance.