Can I only submit a reconsideration request if I have a penalty?
-
Hey guys,
One of the sites I'm looking after took a hit with their rankings (particularly for one keyword that went from 6/7 to 50+) post-Penguin in May. Although, after cleaning-up the link profile somewhat we started to see some slow and steady progression in positions.
The keyword that dropped to 50+ was moving upwards in advance of 20. However, a couple of weeks back, the keyword in question took another slide towards 35-40. I therefore wondered whether it would be best to submit a reconsideration request - even though the site did not receive a manual penalty.
The website has a DA of 40 which more than matches a lot of the competitor websites that are ranking on first page for the aforementioned keyword. At this stage, I would have expected the site to have returned to its original ranking - four-and-a-half months after Penguin - but it hasn't. So a reconsideration request seemed logical.
That said, when I came to go through the process on Webmaster Tools I was unable to find the option! Has it now been removed for sites that don't receive manual penalties?
-
You CAN submit a reconsideration if you want to, but in the case of purely algorithmic non-manual penalties you will just get a response that says, "there are no manual penalties on your site right now" and no change to your rankings. My opinion is that it's pointless unless you have a manual penalty OR honestly think your site has been unfairly impacted or attacked.
-
Hello Matthew,
I will give a different angle to your quote:
"If your site isn't appearing in Google search results, or it's performing more poorly than it once did (and you believe that it does not violate our Webmaster Guidelines), you can ask Google to reconsider your site."
You mentioned "Cleaning-up profile" so in a way you admit to google that you believed that the profile WAS violating quality guidelines. I will also assume that you did not receive a manual penalty warning thus do not submit a reconsideration request, no need to hit alarms when its not needed.
Manual penalties most of the times mean that someone reported your web site for spam. What you describe seems as an algorithm update that your site didnt pass resulting in position dropping. Should you fix the problems you should get your #SERP back, if not carry on working the way you did (that is adding good content, getting Tier one authoritative links and removing the spammy ones).
Hope this helps!
-
have you seen this conversation and especially the last statement there (JohnMu)?
http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/SH56eHjNEL0
it seems that you don`t have the option at the moment...
-
Here is what Google says;
"If your site isn't appearing in Google search results, or it's performing more poorly than it once did (and you believe that it does not violate our Webmaster Guidelines), you can ask Google to reconsider your site."
I've bolded the key bit. According to that, I should be able to submit a reconsideration. Trouble is, there is doesn't appear to be anywhere to option to do it! There is nothing under the Manual Actions tab to click.
-
take a look at this post:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.de/2013/06/backlinks-and-reconsideration-requests.html
this should help you to answer your question
to sum it up: there should be a valid reason why you submit a reconsideration request... what "valid reason" might be can be found in the article of google (link above)
-
Did you look for a warning in webmaster tools under search traffic - > manual actions.
If you see something in there, a button called 'request a review' is there to submit a request.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Can we add header tags followed by header tags without text in-between? Best practice?
Hi all, I need clarification on this. We are adding new pages where H2 is followed by few bold bullet point headings with plain text description under each bullet point. I am just wondering whether we can given these bold bullet points as H3 tags as just leave as text. In the below example, can "**Good for website" **and "**Good for visitors" **be H3 tags or not? Benefits of SEO (H2) Good for website: Followed for best practices to show in search results Good for visitors: Will give better user experience. Number of H3 tags followed by a H2 is fine? In fact header tags followed by any header tag if Okay without plain text in-between? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Can 'Jump link'/'Anchor tag' urls rank in Google for keywords?
E.g. www.website.com/page/#keyword-anchor-text Where the part after the # is a section of the page you can jump to, and the title of that section is a secondary keyword you want the page to rank for?
Algorithm Updates | | rwat0 -
We are being penalized for one specific key word (and phrases it appears in), how can we figure out why?
Overall our SEO efforts have worked well, slow and steady increases in rankings across the board for all products and categories, EXCEPT for one particular brand name. Key words and phrases for that brand consistently under perform all other key words and phrases. Strategies etc. are the same, and we have not received any notifications about 'manual action' but I'm convinced there is something affecting our ranking on that brand. This has been going on for approximately two years, prior to that we ranked very well for this brand. What sorts of tests can I run to try and find the problem?
Algorithm Updates | | absoauto0 -
How can a site with two questionable inbound links outperform sites with 500-1000 links good PR?
Our site for years was performing at #1 for but in the last 6 months been pushed down to about the #5 spot. Some of the domains above us have a handful of links and they aren't from good sources. We don't have a Google penalty. We try to only have links from quality domains but have been pushed down the SERP's? Any suggestions?
Algorithm Updates | | northerncs0 -
Submitting Audio Sitemaps?
There are a number of pages on our website where Bands upload their latest tracks so visitors can listen to them. It occurred to me that maybe I am missing a trick and should submit an audio-sitemap.xml to Google. However I can't seem to find any articles about it on Google Help, but know that video and image sitemaps are used. Does anyone know if audio sitemaps can be submitted and if they are of SEO value? Website: http://goo.gl/CN0e5
Algorithm Updates | | Ubique0 -
Meta Keywords ... Client request
I have a client who would like to include Meta Keywords in their site as they have seen competitors with it, we haven't used Meta Keywords tag before as doesn't impact ranking as we all know - however if I am to put them in - is there a limit - would 200 + negatively impact the site? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | lauratagdigital0 -
Proper Way To Submit A Reconsideration Request To Google
Hello, In previous posts, I was speaking about how we were penalized by Google for unnatural links. Basically 50,000 our of our 58,000 links were coming from 4-5 sites with the same exact anchor text and img alt tags. This obviously was causing our issues. Needless to say, I wen through the complete link profile to determine that all of the links besides this were of natrural origins. My question here is what is the accepted protocol of submitting a reinclusion request; For example, how long should it be? Should I disclose that I was in fact using paid links, and now that I removed (or at least nofollowed) them? I want to make sure that the request as good as it should so I can get our rankings up in a timely manner. Also, how long until the request is typically aknowledged? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | BestOdds0 -
How can Chrome rankings vary wildly from Mozilla and IE8?
Our website (www.theideapeople.com) has generally ranked on page 4 on Google search for the phrase "charlotte web design" for the past year...regardless of which browser I used. Oh, and my browser location is always set to Charlotte, NC. I also have the Moz toolbar installed and logged-in. Today, I Googled the same keyword using Chrome and we were on page 1 in 4th position! The other browsers still showed us on page 4, as usual. Has anybody else noticed this wild variance with Chrome? Is Chrome learning that I work at The Idea People?!!
Algorithm Updates | | theideapeople0