-30 or -50 penalty recovery. How ?

[alexsv]

Hi all.

Three months ago I got a penalty, but its difficult to say which one exactly. It looks to be -30 or -50, for certain keywords my site is on 3rd page, for others is on 4th, 5th etc. Can anyone tell me how to get rid of this penalty ? I know there used to be a lot of such topics on this forum, but I woud like to know the current situation.

Thanks.

[tedster]

Hello alexsv, and welcome to the forums.

The essential situation with any penalty - and this does sound like a penalty and not just an algo change - is to discover what you are doing that Google has penalized. Then fix that and submit a reconsideration request through your Wembaster Tools account.

There's nothing completely new in the penalty area that we've heard of, although the exact "number" of the penalty continues to shift around. The common areas for penalties are backlink shcemes (including paid links that pass PR), hidden content, deceptive redirects, over-optimization -- and all the areas that Google mentions in their Webmaster Guidelines [google.com].

Many of our key discussions about penalties and other ranking challenges are available in the Hot Topics area [webmasterworld.com], which is always pinned to the top of this forum's index page.

[tez899]

The most common mistake for those digging yourself into the -30 penalty is lack of variety in anchor texts. Recent algo changes have become much stricter on this, but possibly due to interlinking and lack of the 'natural' stuff.

You must know what's put you in the position, work backwards if you don't, and work along side the Google guidelines. Once you've cleaned up your site, file a reconsideration request.

[Xstnva]

Alexsv,

A few months ago, my site was hit with this -50 "penalty". It went through all my links, removed paid, requested NOFOLLOW's on those sites that were giving me "site-wide" links. Once that was completed, I went through the Guidelines to double check and then request re-inclusion. I never heard back from Google about anything, but I set up Google Alerts for my Domain Name. Around 90 days from my penalty date,(which was eerie) I received a Google Alert about my Domain Name. A majority of my rankings were back in place, except for some of the positions I had gained due to Paid Links.

[cangoou]

@tez899: I think I got a -30 penalty for the lack of variety in anchor texts. Would you recommend just trying to find links with other anchor-texts, or would you write to the other webmasters linking to you begging to change or remove the link?

[johnnie]

cangoou, above a certain amount of links, it's the ratio that starts to play along. So either of those two should help, although getting more links would ofcourse be more beneficial. Don't forget to submit a reconsideration request.

[Shaddows]

Further to johnie's advice, if you go changing anchor text on existing links, Google may infer (righlt or wrongly) that you have direct controlover those links and devalue them.

Google likes freely given links that are unsolicited by the beneficiary. Anything that may imply the opposite carries risk.

Also, if you can do either anyway, adding more links is clearly the best way to go.

[cangoou]

Thanks for your replys! Is there a way to do it without a reconsideration request? Since it's a manually process and Google is downsizing and what I read in this and other forums I assume it's a process which takes very long... So has somebody managed getting rid of such a penalty without a reconsideration request?

[Shaddows]

Sure, some expire. Some appear to get auto-reveiwed after a set period (1 week, or more likely 1- 2- 3- or 6-months)

Others get dropped in great swathes, as happened last weekend (and oftern just before or after a big update)

A reconsideration just speeds up the process so you don't have to wait for automation.

Other filters seem to be set dynamically. That is, just by moving to the right side of the threshold, you get de-filtered. These dynamics also seem to become semi-permanant after a short period (i.e. you get a grace period to sort out the problem, then you get penalised for it)

[SEOPTI]

I think it's about 6 months for the -50 to get a review.

[gouri]

Is the best way to determine if you have a -30 or -50 penalty by looking at where your site comes up for keyword searches (and seeing if it has moved down by about 30 or 50 positions) or is typing just your domain name in google (without the .com extension for example) and if it is not on the first page then you may have a -30 or -50 penalty?

[cangoou]

Well, I have a problem to see if it's a -30 or -50 as well, because on a keyword search my domain is yoyo-ing between 38 and 62 (before 1.1. it was 11, since then it's down and up and down...)