TRAFFIC
FOR YOUR
RECONSIDERATION
Google can penalise your site if it considers you’ve made a violation, from
cloaking or link schemes to keyword stuffing and more. But a well-presented
reconsideration request is the first step to getting
back on track, says Fili Wiese
THREE OUT OF FOUR
RECONSIDERATION requests
submitted by penalised sites tend
to be rejected by Google. In fact,
many site owners are unsuccessful
even on their third or fourth attempt.
That’s an unreasonably high failure
rate but you can avoid being part of
it by following good practice. As a
former long-time employee of Google
Search, I’ve found myself uniquely
qualified to lend a little expert advice
on getting a Google penalty revoked
at the first attempt. Why? Because
during my tenure with the Mountain
View-based search engine, I issued
(and lifted) hundreds of thousands of
Google penalties.
Once applied to a website, a
manual penalty – or ‘manual spam
action’ as it’s formally referred to by
Google – instantly puts a hold to any
site development or progress. Simply
put, it is beside the point to commit
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iGB Affiliate Issue 71 OCT/NOV 2018
resources to improving the site in a
fast-paced industry, when any feature
release depends on a prior, successful
penalty removal. That may take days,
weeks or even months, depending on
the gravity and extent of the Google
Webmaster Guidelines violation that
triggered the penalty initially.
Among the most common reasons
for a failed attempt to secure a penalty
removal is the notion that it’s a viable
strategy to apply for reconsideration
“Reconsideration
requests are
often rejected
simply because of
insufficient effort.
Google does
not reward a half-
assed job”
immediately while trying to fix or even
just investigate the issue. Instead, this
is a sure way to earn a negative score
for wasting time and resources, as the
request is processed and rejected (see
Figure 1). This kind of rejection is
easily avoided.
Reconsideration requests are often
rejected simply because of insufficient
effort. Google does not reward a half-
assed job. The blame isn’t with the
webmaster though. They are usually
most committed to a swift penalty
removal and a return to business
as usual. It is partial, outdated or
incomplete data that leads to an
insufficient clean-up and a consequent
reconsideration request rejection.
The issue stems from the notion
that either the few samples highlighted
in a Google Search Console (GSC)
penalty message or data provided via
GSC are sufficient to understand,
analyse and tackle the problem. That