WMT notice - unnatural links

[makin]

Hi,

Today I opened my inbox and I found a funny email from GMT notifying me that my site have unnatural links. I never bought links, sometimes I make linkbuilding but is the same that I made two years ago. This website have 5 years old and is updated every day. My traffic have gone down by 25% since December, and two weeks ago was growing up.. now, after this notification, I'm a little disconcerted because no make sense. Why they send this meesage now and not 5 months before or 2 years? I never changed my linkbuilding's strategy.. there was some update that I miss?

Thank you!

[tedster]

sometimes I make linkbuilding but is the same that I made two years ago

When it comes to links that webmasters generate on their own power, Google is not as forgiving as it was two years ago. What exactly to you do when you build links?

[JesterMagic]

It could also be your competition/hackers building your links for you to try and get you in trouble with Google. It has happened to me

[makin]

@tedster I have three ways to make link building:

- Link exchange with other websites related with the same topic, always I try to do no reciprocal links. I mean, A --> MyWebsite , MyOtherWebsite --> A. My websites only share adsense code, each one have different IP/server/content. It is about: 60% of my linkbuilding

- Link exchange with my websites: I have around 100 websites with the same topic. PR 2 - PR 4. My websites only share adsense code, each one have different IP/server/content. 20% of my link building.

- Partnerships with newspapers: In my niche I can offer a white label of my product to the newspaper. Once they added product in his domain, automaticaly they add a link in the partners section located in the footer of his newspaper website. About 20% of my strategy.


As well, there are natural links with social sharing.

I'm not very regular doing link building, I don't if it matters.

I hope that this information will be thankful for somebody.

Thanks!

[nomis5]

I have around 100 websites with the same topic. PR 2 - PR 4

That's your problem. No idea what the specific problem is but with that amount of websites you do not have adequate control on what is going on.

[makin]

Yes sounds difficult to manage them but I have a panel where my content managers add quality content every day. These websites are growing up in google. Could be one of the problems but not the main.


I think that google think that I'm buying links in the newspapers because these newspapers have PR 5 - PR7.

[ZydoSEO]

I would be VERY careful interlinking your own web sets... especially 100 of them. If A links to B, B links to C, C links to D, D links to E, E links to F, F links to G, G links back to A... for example, Google has gotten very good at detecting such linking schemes... which fall into the "unnatural" category. If you're still doing link building with forum signatures, article submission, directory submission, etc. this too raises red flags and are all considered "unnatural" especially if done in mass.

[lucy24]

which fall into the "unnatural" category

For a given definition of "unnatural" that is... and we're stuck with g###'s definition aren't we?

If only the criterion could instead be: Would the link exist if the sites did not belong to the same person?

[martinacastro]

@makin

you know if your site is penalized?

since you recieved the notification, your SERPs for your main Keywords go down?

[tedster]

google think that I'm buying links in the newspapers because these newspapers have PR 5 - PR7.

If you offer them your white label product in exchange for a link, that is now a kind of "paid link" in Google's eyes.

[martinacastro]

I agree with tedster

take a look to link schemes at google [support.google.com ]

"Using automated programs or services to create links to your site"

"•Links embedded in widgets that are distributed across various sites"

[makin]

Guys, I listened your advices and I have made several changes in my linkbuilding strategy. I removed all my links of newspaper service and CMS, and then I have reported it to Google via the reconsider form.

As surprise, today they answered me exactly with the same mail as the last one. In the email, they ask me to remove all my paid links or link scheme. Ofc, I don't buy links and link scheme is too much ambigu.

So, what can I do? My indexed pages are increasing and my traffic is decreasing slowly, furthermore today my PR has been evaporated, 5 to 0.

I have some blogs with quality content, good PR an traffic that are linking my site btw, I only make related links....

@martinacastro today my PR goes down to 5 to 0. My site is indexed yet but I'm very worried because it's not normal. Also, I'm losing some positions in important keywords. So, I think that I have a kind of ban.

[ZydoSEO]

link scheme is too much ambigu

hmmmm Did it ever dawn on you that perhaps the following is your issue?

I have some blogs with quality content, good PR an traffic that are linking my site btw, I only make related links.

How many blogs do you own?

How many blogs do you own that link to the penalized site?

How many times does each of those blogs link to your penalized site?

How do those blogs link to the penalized site? With a single contextual link on one or two relevant posts on each site linking only to the penalized site? Or do you have blogroll links or header/footer links on those "quality" blogs pointing to the penalized site?

What keyword phrases are those blogs using to link to your penalized site? How keyword rich are the anchors? How varied are the anchors? How many different URLs are you linking to on the penalized site from your other blogs?

What percentage of the backlinks for your penalized site come from your blog network?

Do your blogs ONLY link to the penalized site or do they also link to each other?

Depending on how you answer these and other similar questions, it might very well be that you have created what Google considers to be a linking scheme by interlinking your own sites.

[makin]

hmmmm Did it ever dawn on you that perhaps the following is your issue?

Yes, I mean that is ambigu because I'm not doing anything strange. I answer below your questions.

How many blogs do you own?

I have about 40-60 blogs (Is like a wikipedia but each blog is a "animal" for example) 100% original content. But only 10 are linking my site.

How many times does each of those blogs link to your penalized site?

No more than one.

How do those blogs link to the penalized site? With a single contextual link on one or two relevant posts on each site linking only to the penalized site? Or do you have blogroll links or header/footer links on those "quality" blogs pointing to the penalized site?

Sidebar or footer links. I removed all my rss feeds.

What keyword phrases are those blogs using to link to your penalized site? How keyword rich are the anchors? How varied are the anchors? How many different URLs are you linking to on the penalized site from your other blogs?

I change the url/anchor text depending on blog.

What percentage of the backlinks for your penalized site come from your blog network?

No more than 5%.

Do your blogs ONLY link to the penalized site or do they also link to each other?

About 90% of my blogs that are linking the penalized site have other links.


BTW, I think that the problem is with the partners. They have removed the links but they have millons of pages cached that have the link. So, google think that they didn't removed the links..... I asked to my partners if it's possible to remove the cache, but they answered that is not possible.. so, I have a big problem because I have millons of pages linking me! and I think that google detects it as cross-linking:

Building partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking

I added the domains of my partners in the disavow link but I think that is a slow progress and furthermore I have to add each url that is linking to my site which I want to ignore... My partners have millons of pages linking me and I don't know how to add all of them....

So, my question is: what can I do? How google can ignore the incoming links of my partners?

Thanks, and sorry for this long post!

[linkbuildr]

If all your links were built by you that's your problem right there...I imagine you also over inflated anchor text as well?

[makin]

If all your links were built by you that's your problem right there...I imagine you also over inflated anchor text as well?

There are 400 domains linking my websites, and about 20 - 30 are mine. I'm not doing anything different from other websites. So, I imagine that the problem is the cache of my partners, am not?

[backdraft7]

I had a competitor slap up a few p-o-r-n-o links to my site, there's got to be a special place in Hades for people like that. Luckily the site operator was home and deleted the links and the dudes account. Always be diligent and never think it can't happen to you!

[makin]

I checked the domains that was linking me to detect the weak domains and change the anchor distribution. After some work, I made a list with the domains that I want to remove or change the anchor text. Then, I contacted one per one to the owners of these domains. It take me 1 week, but now I can say that I don't have weak links linking me. I have removed more than 100 domains.

If I check manually all my domains, I don't see any weak domains linking me, but I don't know if google see the same, I mean, I think that google have to crawl all the domains and pages to verify that I don't have weak links.

So, my question is:

When you send a reconsideration to google, is google checking semi-manually if all the weak links to my domain have disappeared? Or google just use the data that have in that moment? Because, If I check my webmaster tools right now I can see that is outdate because is showing me links that right now doesn't exists..so, I don't what is the best process to make this more agile.. I can't wait google to recrawl again all my links.. It can take months..

Thanks!

[Kendo]

If I have 25 versions of a site, each using a different url like ar.site.com. cn.site.com, de.site.com, etc and each has unique pages because they are in different languages.

Then if I add a footer with a legend with links to each site, I would then have 25 sites linking to each other.

Would Google penalise this and how would they justify such action?

[netmeg]

Yea they might and they don't have to justify it.