Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
It definitely is minus penalty - all terms for every keyword are beyond page 5 (even site name)
I've never brought a link or sold anything.
I did a press release last month and got another link from yahoo directory and business directory. Also an SEO company made a mistake and wrote 15 unique aritcles and posted them to 12 sites each. Each article used the same keyword - but i was already top for that keyword. (they've been removed now).
will i recover from this? how long does it take? is is just a google mistake that will rectify?
Is google minus 50 penalty permanent? or do most sites get released?
please tell us if you have been released? how long it took and what you did?
than you
[edited by: tedster at 8:04 am (utc) on Dec. 19, 2009]
[edit reason] combined separate threads [/edit]
Also an SEO company made a mistake and wrote 15 unique aritcles and posted them to 12 sites each. Each article used the same keyword - but i was already top for that keyword. (they've been removed now).
When were these articles released? It seems that the biggest mistake is to hire someone else to do something. They will do it in in 10 minutes or get you a 4000 forums links in a day. The Y! directory is a plus, not a negative and press releases are OK, or at least Google can't hold them against you.
IMO you will recover but once they filter expires, usually a matter of months. Once released articles spread all over the internet, you can't really remove them. How many other links did you have prior to this?
I doubt it's a google mistake as you say, in fact it works very well since you technically tried to cheat :). Just wait it out for a while
I was featured on something and got 4 totally unsolicited sitewide links. Total number of pages? Hundreds of thousands but Google has to index them all. I am excited but who knows how Google will react? The good news is that I am listed among listed similar sites.
those articles were quality ones (good firm and friend)...even though i didn't ask for them. She removed them from Ezine and other main ones (there were a few which could be removed)....it was only 15 articles to 10 directories - so not major.
Last month i had around 1100 links. I noticed some spammy links that i don't know how they got there (i wrote them all down and put them in my report back to google).
I'm also removed keyword links back to homepage (e.g. on product review pages, at the bottom)
I wonder if removing these keyword links back to homepage will do anything.
You know at exactly the same time both my two main sites got this penalty! How could that be.
I'll sure wait it out but now there is some spam sites above me on the results.
please - if you have any advice i'm all ears
thank you so much
[edited by: tedster at 3:17 pm (utc) on Dec. 19, 2009]
[edit reason] no personal urls, please [/edit]
Did you send articles and PR for both sites?
yeah and still have sitelinks when search for site-name.com ...but every other keyword now on page 5 or more for both sites (this penalty happened simultaneously)
On site 1, i've just removed all the review pages which were pointing links to home with my keyword - about 50 pages or more (and on some of the other pages put a "no follow" tag with the link as "homepage".
If i check the backlinks i have a load of spammy links - surely google would discount them (they are nothing to do with me !)
?
Since both of your sites were punished there must be something else besides the articles. Unless they brought the attention and then Google acted on something they saw?
How many pages do you have indexed?
yeah there must be something else - do you think the backlink spammy links on both sites had something to do with it ? (not from me at all - i've never paid for any links or black hat tactics)
the indexed pages are the same as before the filter / penalty
site 1 = 1310
site 2- 510
new domain !
serious - i saw that some people came out of it.
isn't that a bit rash to do that ?
When you see a -50 submit a removal request for this domain. Set up the content on a new domain.
You just need to dig in and get your hands dirty in terms of possibilities for penalization.
Sometimes Google makes a mistake and labels websites and promotion efforts incorrectly
Sometimes other can link to you from large networks and hurt rankings.
Sometimes, in fact very often, webmasters / owners can hire other companies, or do things that they thought were perfectly within reason but were in fact against the Google guidelines.
-50 penalties, in my experience, have been almost entirely about links. So take a very strong look at
-Internal navigation / linking patterns
-Inbound links, and quality / rate of recent inbound links
Of particular note, I would be looking at the similarity between links that both penalized domains share. You might very well find your answer there.
There are tons of posts here at WBW on how to do a reinclusion that are excellent summaries. The only piece I would add is be very sure that each domain is completely clean before submitting, be thorough in explanation of what was done. Take ownership, if in fact you spot things that were done by people you allowed access that you think, in hindsight were a bad idea.
Just ask yourself, what is better? Waiting a year or more in this prison waiting for bubba and praying or having the content indexed on a new domain within a month?
It's time they start to inform webmasters about penalties in webmaster tools. I think as long as they do not inform people they don't wish reconsideration requests.
i also have spammy links that i didn't put there and don't want - could that have brought me down ?
the only thing i can think of is i have my keyword in headers on each page - i'm deoptimizing today.
any more advice is greatly appreciated
i also have spammy links that i didn't put there and don't want - could that have brought me down ?
My guess is that when this happens, Google manually checks it and they probably determined (right or wrong) that you got those links there. I doubt they trust the algo for such penalties.
I believe reinclusion is for when your site is de-indexed completely, not for penalties.
I am considering setting up a new domain now and 301 the penalised site as I am fed up waiting for release from Google prison!
I believe reinclusion is for when your site is de-indexed completely, not for penalties.
Google changed the name to "reconsideration request" specifically because the form can be used for penalty situations or even suspected problems on Google's end. The site does not need to be banned to submit one any longer.
For hope - see this thread from July [webmasterworld.com]. As I wrote there, I have been involved with a few sites this year who went into, and then out of, a -50 penalty. Some rankings were restored with days of submitting a request, and one site took three months.
There is this possibility to consider. Some penalties may be tripped because the site's activities are beyond a calculated threshold for usual behavior in their niche. The release from the penalty sometimes seems to happen when that threshold is re-calculated, rather than after a set time period in the penalty box. In other words, the threshold can change rather than the website.
I think I should try to lift your spirits though: at the time the penalty was first spotted, I also had several sites going in and out of this penalty on much shorter, month-long cycles. Most came out, but that one stuck in it for more than 2 years.
Good luck!
There is this possibility to consider. Some penalties may be tripped because the site's activities are beyond a calculated threshold for usual behavior in their niche. The release from the penalty sometimes seems to happen when that threshold is re-calculated, rather than after a set time period in the penalty box.
I am almost certain that this--or a combination of things--was the event in my case. I've had steady traffic for quite some time, but after a marketing campaign in early July 2009, I was hit with a -50 (that continued falling to page 6, 7, 8 and bottomed out at 9). The marketing effort generated an increase in traffic and several (maybe 30-50) spammy-looking IBLs from places not even associated with my niche.
Strangely though, I didn't submit a reconsideration request. I waited it out, and the site returned to page 1 around the middle of October 2009. The only change between August and October, included the addition of new content.
Sitewide links or ..?
The marketing effort generated an increase in traffic and several (maybe 30-50) spammy-looking IBLs from places not even associated with my niche.
30-50 individual links?
That actually seems like a rather modest marketing effort :) We don't know how old your site is and how many links did it have before the above said "marketing effort" but most sites by the end of their first year accumulate so many irrelevant links from places like "rate this site" and "domain spy" and "who hosts where" that it would take at the very least 300-500 or, more realistically, 3000-5000 of really bad links to tip any balance over.
If you are talking about multiple links from 30-50 different domains, then I guess it's a whole different story...
If you are talking about multiple links from 30-50 different domains, then I guess it's a whole different story...
One of the major domain owners has started to make mfa sites. My sites was linked from about 60 of them for 2 months. That made me some decent money due to the increase in traffic. I have to wonder what would have happened if the sites weren't of the same theme
The site is a magazine, so we have plenty of marketing efforts and promos throughout the year. But this particular stretch (Jul-Aug) produced some really bad links. I don't know whatthe thresholds are--I just know the -50 lasted from Jul-Aug, and I chose those links as the culprit.
