Website's future after google "manual action"

[BUYSMM]

This is a question for people who have received this kind of message in their Webmaster tools:
Unnatural inbound links violate Google Webmaster Guidelines

How long did it took for you to feel the results of this manual action?
In other words how long did it took to lose your rankings & traffic from google after getting this message?

Was your website removed from search engine completely or just decreased in rankings?


Here is the message from google:
Google has detected a pattern of links from other sites to your site that is either unnatural or irrelevant. This pattern attempts to artificially boost your site's ranking in search results. Such unnatural ranking would cause search results to show preference for results not relevant to the user's actual query. It also violates Google Webmaster Guidelines. Therefore, when determining your site's ranking, we will demote links to your site as a factor in our calculations. This manual spam action has been applied to example.com. To fix this, remove a majority of unnatural links and file a reconsideration request. After we determine that you have complied with our guidelines, we will remove this manual action.

 

[Lauriat]

what do you think was reason for manual action? I know it's backlinks, but where exactly did you go wrong? anchor texts? Sape? or maybe blog network?

 

[imthepundit]

Disavow the links and seek review to see what happens.

 

[BUYSMM]

Guys that's not the question.
I thought that this manual action will affect rankings immediately, but around a week passed and I don't see any decent decrease in rankings.
So I'd like to know if it takes time to feel the manual action or it has been already applied and just stopped the rankings growing.

what do you think was reason for manual action? I know it's backlinks, but where exactly did you go wrong? anchor texts? Sape? or maybe blog network?

I think it was too high exact anchor text backlinks ratio.

Disavow the links and seek review to see what happens.

Google clearly states that just disavowing backlinks and asking for reconsideration request will be not tolerated.
They want to see that you have spent more time fixing the mess you've done than you spent by adding low quality backlinks.
Google says that in order to remove the backlinks you have to contact the website owner who placed a backlink on his site and ask him to remove it and only those backlinks you can't get removed should be disavowed.

 

[Ambitious12]

May be you spammed a lot and you got the message because I never got message like this.

 

[BUYSMM]

May be you spammed a lot and you got the message because I never got message like this.

Nope, I didn't spam.

 

[lingy21]

I had a similar message last week but instead of penalizing my site they just went after the links which went to pages that no longer existed so my ranking never really changed. Was it a partial or sitewide penalty?

 

[BUYSMM]

I had a similar message last week but instead of penalizing my site they just went after the links which went to pages that no longer existed so my ranking never really changed. Was it a partial or sitewide penalty?

As I understood from their message it was a sitewide penalty, but today is the 8th day since I got a message and I don't see any decrease in rankings. That's actually awesome, but I don't understands what's going on and should I take any actions.

 

[Ambitious12]

Nope, I didn't spam.

Then why you are getting such messages,thats something questionable.

 

[BUYSMM]

Then why you are getting such messages,thats something questionable.

Did you known that google doesn't allow buying backlinks?
Most of BHW members buy them and anyone who buys can get this kind of message, I don't know what was the exact reason my website attracted their attention, but the fact is that they can take manual action on any site who gets a decent amount of exact match anchor backlinks, because they are bought links.

 

[starki]

In other words how long did it took to lose your rankings & traffic from google after getting this message?

Normally instantly when the message appears, sometimes there is a slight delay, more like hours than days.

Was your website removed from search engine completely or just decreased in rankings?

A website never gets removed/de-indexed for unnatural inbound backlinks. They just de-index PBNs and sites that exist for unnatural outbound links only or sites they consider pure spam. Everything else gets a hefty bump in rankings, if you are on page one usually page 5-6.

 

[BUYSMM]

Normally instantly when the message appears, sometimes there is a slight delay, more like hours than days.


A website never gets removed/de-indexed for unnatural inbound backlinks. They just de-index PBNs and sites that exist for unnatural outbound links only or sites they consider pure spam. Everything else gets a hefty bump in rankings, if you are on page one usually page 5-6.

Thanks for answer.
I'm not sure what should I do with the website now. The rankings are same as they were before (no drops).
But I'm afraid to continue with linkbuilding because my website is under their watch now.
I probably should try to go for reconsideration request and if it succeeds I'd continue building backlinks slowly or just keep it as it is now and don't invest more for that site.

 

[starki]

A reconsoideration request would require removing/disavowing links.. If you get it lifted, the site won't rank in it's old positions again, the penalty is gone, but quite a few pretty strong links are probably gone as well. If you'd be caught again, it would be a repeated violation, making reinclusion really difficult.

Not an easy choice, you can either go 5 steps backward and then very slowly fordward again, give it a try with a new domain and the same content or leave it as it is. Really depends on how well the site still ranks and how much of your backlink profile is what Google would classify as "unnatural" (guest posts, PBNs, SAPE, all sorts of paid links, especially those with keyword anchors).

From my experience: If it's an aged site with a strong and solid base of natural (or at least naturally looking) links, removing the links Google doesn't like is worth it. If it's project only driven by PBNs and other blackhat stuff, trying the reinclusion route is pointless because you'd pretty much have to remove all links to remove the penalty.

 

[yasburrows]

One day was all it took. Nothing appears on the first four pages of google search. If you are still appearing on the first four pages then do absolutely nothing as someone has made a "cock up" and you haven't been penalised!

I attempted 3 reconsideration requests, none of which were favourable (although I am trying an SEO "expert" at the moment - review to follow in a couple of weeks)

This is a question for people who have received this kind of message in their Webmaster tools:
Unnatural inbound links violate Google Webmaster Guidelines

How long did it took for you to feel the results of this manual action?
In other words how long did it took to lose your rankings & traffic from google after getting this message?

Was your website removed from search engine completely or just decreased in rankings?


Here is the message from google:
Google has detected a pattern of links from other sites to your site that is either unnatural or irrelevant. This pattern attempts to artificially boost your site's ranking in search results. Such unnatural ranking would cause search results to show preference for results not relevant to the user's actual query. It also violates Google Webmaster Guidelines. Therefore, when determining your site's ranking, we will demote links to your site as a factor in our calculations. This manual spam action has been applied to example.com. To fix this, remove a majority of unnatural links and file a reconsideration request. After we determine that you have complied with our guidelines, we will remove this manual action.

 

[yasburrows]

Unfortunately not my experience. Website is 12 years old, didn't do anything remotely blackhat until I got a bit "greedy" 6 months ago. Stupid mistake-deleted all of those links and still got a rejection.

A reconsoideration request would require removing/disavowing links.. If you get it lifted, the site won't rank in it's old positions again, the penalty is gone, but quite a few pretty strong links are probably gone as well. If you'd be caught again, it would be a repeated violation, making reinclusion really difficult.

Not an easy choice, you can either go 5 steps backward and then very slowly fordward again, give it a try with a new domain and the same content or leave it as it is. Really depends on how well the site still ranks and how much of your backlink profile is what Google would classify as "unnatural" (guest posts, PBNs, SAPE, all sorts of paid links, especially those with keyword anchors).

From my experience: If it's an aged site with a strong and solid base of natural (or at least naturally looking) links, removing the links Google doesn't like is worth it. If it's project only driven by PBNs and other blackhat stuff, trying the reinclusion route is pointless because you'd pretty much have to remove all links to remove the penalty.

 

[alvincrows]

so sad to heard that

 

[BUYSMM]

After around 25 days of getting the unnatural links notice on Webmaster tools I have noticed a decent drop in traffic.
It's a bit weird that it took so long to feel the results of getting slapped.
As I heard from other people it was nearly instantaneous, anyone else experience similar delay as I did after the manual action message?

 

[Rachmaninoff]

After around 25 days of getting the unnatural links notice on Webmaster tools I have noticed a decent drop in traffic.
It's a bit weird that it took so long to feel the results of getting slapped.
As I heard from other people it was nearly instantaneous, anyone else experience similar delay as I did after the manual action message?

I got an instant dropped though.

I have the same penalty as yours and manage to get it back http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/black-hat-seo/843237-whats-google-penalty.html?

 

[zubidoo]

I just got hit by the exact same message on a huge money site. Mine's a partial penalty. Did you end up getting it removed?

 

[Marcus Abacus]

For 90% of times, there's no future. ( And that's an honest answer). Move on with some other domain.