Possible Google Penalty ¿How to recover? ¿301 redirection?

[Deleted member 731332]

I am going through a similar thing with one of my websites. Lots of links from irrelevant .tk domains, blog spot links with the same thing described here, some low quality websites that have copied my content and linking back to me with the same anchor text etc, and getting hammered with links from low quality coupon websites.

Building new websites now, but hoping to recover this one. I am working on a few things and disavowing all the crap links that just keep coming in, as well as DMCA take down requests on the copied content.

Doesn’t look good. I’ll report back if anything works and keep an eye out on this thread to see if anything works for you. Good luck!

Thank you to everyone who is helping on this thread.

 

[Deleted member 731332]

Just wanted to give an update.

I did a thorough audit of content that had lost its rankings and it appears that my losses were related to the may 05 google update.

The content was just not as relevant to the queries as it used to be, and maybe not authoritative on the topic.

I updated the content and made it much deeper in scope, much more authoritative, with better sources where needed and links to those sources. I also aligned it more with what is ranking now. Almost a total rewrite and much more added. Articles are all nearly 3000 words or more after adding content.

I did disavow a ton of links, even the no follow links coming from an insane amount of coupon websites. It is my understanding that google is handling no follow links differently now.

I also found that a plug-in I was using was auto generating a ton of pages over time that had very thin content. It was a plug-in that shouldn’t even be creating pages, only database entries, but that is how it works. I removed all those pages and used 301 redirect to redirect any traffic from those pages to the home page.

I then deleted some thin content pages I wrote a long time ago and merged some of that content with other content. Same deal with the 301 redirects to home page on anything that was removed.

My website is now gaining positions fairly fast. I have not built any links. It may need new links to restore rankings fully.

Also noteworthy, my website was not passing core vitals in search console. I fixed all the issues with site speed, and cumulative layout shift.

It does appear that it is possible to recover in my case. I hope this will help.

 

[gentzalli]

Just wanted to give an update.

I did a thorough audit of content that had lost its rankings and it appears that my losses were related to the may 05 google update.

The content was just not as relevant to the queries as it used to be, and maybe not authoritative on the topic.

I updated the content and made it much deeper in scope, much more authoritative, with better sources where needed and links to those sources. I also aligned it more with what is ranking now. Almost a total rewrite and much more added. Articles are all nearly 3000 words or more after adding content.

I did disavow a ton of links, even the no follow links coming from an insane amount of coupon websites. It is my understanding that google is handling no follow links differently now.

I also found that a plug-in I was using was auto generating a ton of pages over time that had very thin content. It was a plug-in that shouldn’t even be creating pages, only database entries, but that is how it works. I removed all those pages and used 301 redirect to redirect any traffic from those pages to the home page.

I then deleted some thin content pages I wrote a long time ago and merged some of that content with other content. Same deal with the 301 redirects to home page on anything that was removed.

My website is now gaining positions fairly fast. I have not built any links. It may need new links to restore rankings fully.

Also noteworthy, my website was not passing core vitals in search console. I fixed all the issues with site speed, and cumulative layout shift.

It does appear that it is possible to recover in my case. I hope this will help.

How is it looking now? Did you recover completely?