In the reconsideration request form they specifically mention, "If you
used a search engine optimization (SEO) company, please note that.
Describing the SEO firm and their actions is a helpful indication of
good faith that may assist in evaluation of reconsideration requests."
If it was an SEO tactic put forth by an SEO firm to find sites that
accept links with any anchor text and deep links that are not reviewed
such as the ones John mentioned:
This may be a strong indication by Google to be as forthright as
possible about that, it also may be a strong indication that Google
may see some other questionable practices that took place and now
would be the time to mention them in the request. Our tools are
limited, and they can go over old caches and history that none of us
on the outside have access to.
I'm hoping that this doesn't cause a storm of people now worried about
some shady seo linking to them in a spammy way to hurt their
rankings. From what I gather from this thread is that once a site has
been flagged and penalized that all of the details including on site
and off site factors get looked at very closely, much closer than
before. Remember that Google has a copy of every page on the web that
they've crawled and can quickly pull up any relationships between
them. So if on 10/16/07 thirty seven links start appearing with the
anchor text "Dining Room Furniture" to a product page on sites that
don't monitor their commenter's links, they'll be able to notice it.
On it's own this may be ignored as it is generally accepted that
external sites cannot hurt your ranking (though that has been removed
from Googles documentation) but when coupled with other signals it may
add up to something. I would imagine that it also has to be weighed
as fraction of the whole of the links. In other words, if a site has
36,000 links to it and 34,000 links are from theme sponsorships, 1,000
are from keyword rich blog comments, 500 are from web directories, and
only 10 are from actual sites giving out an editorial link that would
be a pretty good sign that someone was trying to improve their ranking
by external methods. If 99% of the links are questionable, then it
may give them cause to not only devalue them but devalue the site as a
whole as well. It's like the interlinking of commonly owned sites
problem, or domain farming as its often called. For legitimate sites
like Google, youtube, and blogger, some interlinking is possible, but
only because if you look at the millions of links they have, only a
very small percentage are from their own properites. Where it gets a
site into trouble is when the majority of its links are from a common
individual that a ranking penalty would make sense. I'm only guessing
here and have absolutely no inside knowledge, just trying to talk it
out.
> Similar to how you have removed spammy links in your own forum, you
> may want to consider what you can do to help clean up similar links on
> other people's sites. Blogs and newspaper sites such ashttp://media.www.dailypennsylvanian.comsometimes receive short
> comments such as "dont agree", apparently only for a link back to a
> site. These comments often use keywords from that site instead of a
> user name, perhaps "tree bench" for a furniture site or "sexy shoes"
> for a footwear site. If this kind of behavior might have taken place
> for your site, you may want to work on rectifying it and include some
> information on it in your reconsideration request. Given your
> situation, the person considering your reconsideration request might
> be curious about links like that, so the more you can explain about
> that, that may help as well.
Thanks John, unfortunatly i have no information on the links you are
talking about. Can you email me the search result that will find them?
I will then contact the sites and ask for removal and will add it to
the request.
> Similar to how you have removed spammy links in your own forum, you
> may want to consider what you can do to help clean up similar links on
> other people's sites. Blogs and newspaper sites such ashttp://media.www.dailypennsylvanian.comsometimes receive short
> comments such as "dont agree", apparently only for a link back to a
> site. These comments often use keywords from that site instead of a
> user name, perhaps "tree bench" for a furniture site or "sexy shoes"
> for a footwear site. If this kind of behavior might have taken place
> for your site, you may want to work on rectifying it and include some
> information on it in your reconsideration request. Given your
> situation, the person considering your reconsideration request might
> be curious about links like that, so the more you can explain about
> that, that may help as well.
> Thanks John, unfortunatly i have no information on the links you are
> talking about. Can you email me the search result that will find them?
> I will then contact the sites and ask for removal and will add it to
> the request.
> you can email me on cs*at*farawayfurniture.co.uk
> Many Thanks!
> On Feb 26, 10:50 pm, JohnMu wrote:
> > I think that's a great start, ShyBoy.
> > Similar to how you have removed spammy links in your own forum, you
> > may want to consider what you can do to help clean up similar links on
> > other people's sites. Blogs and newspaper sites such ashttp://media.www.dailypennsylvanian.comsometimesreceive short
> > comments such as "dont agree", apparently only for a link back to a
> > site. These comments often use keywords from that site instead of a
> > user name, perhaps "tree bench" for a furniture site or "sexy shoes"
> > for a footwear site. If this kind of behavior might have taken place
> > for your site, you may want to work on rectifying it and include some
> > information on it in your reconsideration request. Given your
> > situation, the person considering your reconsideration request might
> > be curious about links like that, so the more you can explain about
> > that, that may help as well.
I'd guess that when checking a site (and its link graph) that has
filed a reinclusion request stating the site was involved in some sort
of link monkey business, that's a completely other story than with a
site that was attacked by negative SEO methods. Although I (with my
last post in this thread) fell for the "since when do inbound links
count as negative votes" argument too, it's quite clear that removing
the traces (admitted shady links) is a prerequisite for a penatly
lift. I doubt that's common knowledge to folks who promote white hat
sites with black hat methods. Getting links wiped out at places that
didn't check the intention of inserted links in the first place is a
PITA, IOW it's impossible to get all shady links removed.
Sebastian
> In the reconsideration request form they specifically mention, "If you
> used a search engine optimization (SEO) company, please note that.
> Describing the SEO firm and their actions is a helpful indication of
> good faith that may assist in evaluation of reconsideration requests."
> If it was an SEO tactic put forth by an SEO firm to find sites that
> accept links with any anchor text and deep links that are not reviewed
> such as the ones John mentioned:
> This may be a strong indication by Google to be as forthright as
> possible about that, it also may be a strong indication that Google
> may see some other questionable practices that took place and now
> would be the time to mention them in the request. Our tools are
> limited, and they can go over old caches and history that none of us
> on the outside have access to.
> I'm hoping that this doesn't cause a storm of people now worried about
> some shady seo linking to them in a spammy way to hurt their
> rankings. From what I gather from this thread is that once a site has
> been flagged and penalized that all of the details including on site
> and off site factors get looked at very closely, much closer than
> before. Remember that Google has a copy of every page on the web that
> they've crawled and can quickly pull up any relationships between
> them. So if on 10/16/07 thirty seven links start appearing with the
> anchor text "Dining Room Furniture" to a product page on sites that
> don't monitor their commenter's links, they'll be able to notice it.
> On it's own this may be ignored as it is generally accepted that
> external sites cannot hurt your ranking (though that has been removed
> from Googles documentation) but when coupled with other signals it may
> add up to something. I would imagine that it also has to be weighed
> as fraction of the whole of the links. In other words, if a site has
> 36,000 links to it and 34,000 links are from theme sponsorships, 1,000
> are from keyword rich blog comments, 500 are from web directories, and
> only 10 are from actual sites giving out an editorial link that would
> be a pretty good sign that someone was trying to improve their ranking
> by external methods. If 99% of the links are questionable, then it
> may give them cause to not only devalue them but devalue the site as a
> whole as well. It's like the interlinking of commonly owned sites
> problem, or domain farming as its often called. For legitimate sites
> like Google, youtube, and blogger, some interlinking is possible, but
> only because if you look at the millions of links they have, only a
> very small percentage are from their own properites. Where it gets a
> site into trouble is when the majority of its links are from a common
> individual that a ranking penalty would make sense. I'm only guessing
> here and have absolutely no inside knowledge, just trying to talk it
> out.
> On Feb 26, 4:50 pm, JohnMu wrote:
> > I think that's a great start, ShyBoy.
> > Similar to how you have removed spammy links in your own forum, you
> > may want to consider what you can do to help clean up similar links on
> > other people's sites. Blogs and newspaper sites such ashttp://media.www.dailypennsylvanian.comsometimesreceive short
> > comments such as "dont agree", apparently only for a link back to a
> > site. These comments often use keywords from that site instead of a
> > user name, perhaps "tree bench" for a furniture site or "sexy shoes"
> > for a footwear site. If this kind of behavior might have taken place
> > for your site, you may want to work on rectifying it and include some
> > information on it in your reconsideration request. Given your
> > situation, the person considering your reconsideration request might
> > be curious about links like that, so the more you can explain about
> > that, that may help as well.
> > Thanks John, unfortunatly i have no information on the links you are
> > talking about. Can you email me the search result that will find them?
> > I will then contact the sites and ask for removal and will add it to
> > the request.
> > you can email me on cs*at*farawayfurniture.co.uk
> > Many Thanks!
> > On Feb 26, 10:50 pm, JohnMu wrote:
> > > I think that's a great start, ShyBoy.
> > > Similar to how you have removed spammy links in your own forum, you
> > > may want to consider what you can do to help clean up similar links on
> > > other people's sites. Blogs and newspaper sites such ashttp://media.www.dailypennsylvanian.comsometimesreceiveshort > > > comments such as "dont agree", apparently only for a link back to a
> > > site. These comments often use keywords from that site instead of a
> > > user name, perhaps "tree bench" for a furniture site or "sexy shoes"
> > > for a footwear site. If this kind of behavior might have taken place
> > > for your site, you may want to work on rectifying it and include some
> > > information on it in your reconsideration request. Given your
> > > situation, the person considering your reconsideration request might
> > > be curious about links like that, so the more you can explain about
> > > that, that may help as well.
Sorry I posted this in questions where I should have replied here.
Our problems are the same if not similar to that of Shyboy except the
real problem started from mid December. since 1994 we have
consistantly
been in the top 30 in our selected keywords.
We never subscribe to purchased links in any form. Our Site http://www.xen.co.za we believe maintained and have made use of being as unique as our
market allows.
We are indexed but lost all main index page positions while our
competitors remained the same. Business is non existent, more so
because we have also lost our index page position on Google South
Africa English geolocation.
I have tried the tests and followed the info from all above.
I have discovered an interesting problem in using Mat Cutts's search.
We find a huge variety of sites that show our name but no links that
point to
those sites from the Xen site.
One entity operates from a number of free service servers under
the name of Blabest and Amduan.
An example of some 200 pages all have the keyword xen swimwear but no
back link. All http://www.amduan.freewebportal.com/tight-bikini.html.
Every one the same. This entity goes to point of claiming that the
linked website has been deleted but in truth appears to be within the
same operation.
Except for some pictures this is a perfect example of a spam artist.
He uses overlays on his pages. It appears that he uses contrast
backgrounds with all the text. Then overlays some rubbish links over
that.
We have others such http://www.swimwearboutique.com/ who do not stock
or advertise Xen product but have hidden pages named after ours and
other net established brands. The main object of is too gain hits from
another branding.
The question is, are we being penalized because these sites way of
operation?
We have checked server security_ mod files, XSS and even resorted to
joining
Webmaster tools. All to no avail. December 25 was the last time that
www.xen.co.za/index.php has been list in the serps in any page under
position 600- 900 with keyword previously positioned pages 1-3.
I might add that besides visiting some 1044 links using the Matt Cutts
method I have individually tested some 200 of the five hundred links
we have on our site and found no evidence of spam. Sure some are
returning as dead link. So do our competitors.
Anyone further have suggestions?? Most greatfull for any input.
> > > Thanks for the reply Matt, but how can i stop links from themes that
> > > are already out there?
> > > On Feb 22, 8:02 pm, Matt Cutts wrote:
> > > > Shyboy, those are good steps and I'd tackle them in earnest. After you
> > > > feel comfortable about the paid links being gone, I'd do a
> > > > reconsideration request.
> > > > Matt
> > > > On Feb 22, 10:50 am, ShyBoy wrote:
> > > > > ok, forum is now gone. I know it's a bit drastic, but I had no choice
> > > > > and to be honest, it was a pain to moderate anyway for the amount of
> > > > > users it had. It was only a way for us to quickly announce new
> > > > > products etc with some extra pictures.
> > > > > Matt, Yes, I have sponsored links and I honestly had no idea it was a
> > > > > problem. I never actually bought a link from a high pr site just for
> > > > > the sake of the PR. The amount of people sponsoring links without ever
> > > > > saying they had any problems and a recommendation from my SEO guy led
> > > > > me to believe it was not something that was wrong.
> > > > > Removed the forum
> > > > > Removed reciprocal links
> > > > > Got rid of the proxy site
> > > > > Sent emails to all the other sites copying us to remove text
> > > > > Will never sponsor any themes ever again.
> > > > > Anything else you can suggest?
> > > > > Thanks everyone for all the great replies and advice up to now.
> > > > > On Feb 22, 6:30 pm, Matt Cutts wrote:
> > > > > > ShyBoy, have you been collecting backlinks in any unusual ways? It
> > > > > > looks like you may have, and I would pay special attention to that.
> > > > > > For example, if you had been attempting to get PageRank via paid links
> > > > > > on various templates, then when that PageRank stops flowing (e.g. if
> > > > > > Google improves its detection in various ways), the fact that you have
> > > > > > less PageRank can also mean that a site won't rank as well.
> > > > > > If that applies to you, my advice would be to pay special attention to
> > > > > > that issue, in addition to the other good advice you've already
> > > > > > gotten.
> > > > > > Matt
> > > > > > On Feb 22, 10:12 am, ShyBoy wrote:
> > > > > > > Thanks guys. If I remove the forum tonight, how long would you say it
> > > > > > > will take for the site to return to normal? Aaron, you seem very sure,
> > > > > > > can I take that as a definite?
> > > > > > > Many thanks everyone, I feel much better now.
> > > > > > > On Feb 22, 3:59 pm, Aaron Pratt wrote:
> > > > > > > > JLH - Please warn people whn you link to malware sites, I clicked on
> > > > > > > > one of those spam links and it tried to take over my computer. :(
> > > > > > > > yes, that site is under a -SPAM penalty.
> > > > > > > > On Feb 22, 10:48 am, JLH wrote:
> > > > > > > > > I suspect spammy links may have been a culprit here, some have been
> > > > > > > > > indexed:
> > > > > > > > > This being said, anyone of those links that currently exist, or that
> > > > > > > > > you've already cleaned up could have triggered and automatic penalty
> > > > > > > > > from Google. Since the forum seems to be the problem, I'd get rid of
> > > > > > > > > it, at least from a robots point of view and block the crawling (since
> > > > > > > > > it uses session IDs is a good enough reason to not let a crawler into
> > > > > > > > > it)
> > > > > > > > > Cleaning up the spammy links, blocking the forum so it can't happen
> > > > > > > > > again, getting rid of the exchanged link scheme, should all be written
> > > > > > > > > up and included in the reconsideration request.
> > > > > > > > > On Feb 22, 6:51 am, silverstall wrote:
> > > > > > > > > > As Robo has pointed out there are other issues which may be the casue
> > > > > > > > > > for the loss in the serps.
> > > > > > > > > > Blocking the IP of the proxy server itself may help prevent further
> > > > > > > > > > attacks however you must check it is the proxy server you have blocked
> > > > > > > > > > and not a visitor - a human or a robot that accessed your site via
> > > > > > > > > > the proxy link that was indexed.
> > > > > > > > > > A proxy attack of this nature i think can sometimes bring the
> > > > > > > > > > attention of a closer scrutiny of your site by google. Previously
> > > > > > > > > > Pages may have escaped their filters but because they have been
> > > > > > > > > > recrawled and re-examined they are now subject to penalties. I am sure
> > > > > > > > > > this was the case when we recently had a proxy attack as when i looked
> > > > > > > > > > at some of our pages in finer detail i thought how the hell did i
> > > > > > > > > > overlook that or why the hell did she put that in etc. Also i ran a
> > > > > > > > > > check of ALL our pages at copyscape and was horrified to see how many
> > > > > > > > > > times some text had been copied. Regretably your homepage when i ran
> > > > > > > > > > it through copyscape churns up a lot of duplicate content found
> > > > > > > > > > elsewhere
> > > > > > > > > > I am afraid there is a lot of work ahead. I know i have recently been
> > > > > > > > > > there and it requires a closer loook at EVERY single page on your site
> > > > > > > > > > before thinking about filing for re-inclusion. Having re-styled,
> > > > > > > > > > rephotograped and rewritten our homepage and all key level 1 pages i
> > > > > > > > > > found our serps are returning so on a positive note a proxy attack can
> > > > > > > > > > act as a wake-ip call to improve quality and cut out all the errors.
I sent a message to all the papers i could find that had our spam
links on them. I have notified them of the situation, apologised and
hopefully they will remove soon.
Anything else that anyone found that might be considered bad? I am
completely out of my depth now so would really appreciate a response.
I have amended the form to as follows:
-------------------------
Dear Sir/madam,
We are experiencing a massive drop in search results due to what seems
like a penalty on our site www.farawayfurniture.co.uk
We have submitted a previous re-inclusion form thinking that the
problem was cause by a proxy hijack.
After starting the following thread on Google groups
http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/browse_... and reading some of Matt Cutts and other helpful member's helpful
advice, it seems that our problems were of a much more serious nature
caused by bad practices primarily due to external bad advice and
naivety on our behalf. We are extremely sorry for our actions and we
take full reponsibility for them and the consequences and are taking
major steps to resolve any infractions.
The problems we believe have led to the penalty:
Theme sponsorship - We sponsored themes which were downloaded by
wordpress bloggers to use on their blog. These themes contained our
link in the footer of the page. We had no idea this was against
Google's guidelines. Now we do, we sincerely apologise and promise it
will not happen again.
Reciprocal link exchanges - We carried link exchanges with related
sites.
Forum with some spam from other users - Even though we moderated the
forum daily, it was filling up with user registrations with links to
questionable websites.
Spam Comments on Blogs - We have been pointed to some spam comments on
blogs that link to our site using keyphrases such as 'Dining
Furniture'.
Actions we took:
Theme Sponsorship - We have completely ceased to sponsor themes. Over
the last 5 days, we have spent countless hours trying to contact all
the worst of the themes (porn themes) to ask them to remove our links.
I have sent over 400 emails requesting the webmasters to remove our
link from the footer. We promise to never do theme sponsorships again
Reciprocal link exchanges - We have now completely removed the
reciprocal link exchange pages from our site. We will not do any type
of link exchanges again.
Forum - We have now completely removed our forum from our site. It was
too risky and time consuming and an easy target for spammers. We are
currently developing a blog for the site instead that will showcase
our driver's journeys complete with pictures
Spam on Blogs: I have contacted the sections of the blogs that I have
found up to now and apologised for the actions taken on behalf of
Faraway Furniture. I will personally ensure this does not happen again
in the future!
As already said, we are extremely sorry for any inconvenience caused
and we promise that Faraway Furniture will strictly adhere to the
Google Guidelines in the future.
> Similar to how you have removed spammy links in your own forum, you
> may want to consider what you can do to help clean up similar links on
> other people's sites. Blogs and newspaper sites such ashttp://media.www.dailypennsylvanian.comsometimes receive short
> comments such as "dont agree", apparently only for a link back to a
> site. These comments often use keywords from that site instead of a
> user name, perhaps "tree bench" for a furniture site or "sexy shoes"
> for a footwear site. If this kind of behavior might have taken place
> for your site, you may want to work on rectifying it and include some
> information on it in your reconsideration request. Given your
> situation, the person considering your reconsideration request might
> be curious about links like that, so the more you can explain about
> that, that may help as well.
> I sent a message to all the papers i could find that had our spam
> links on them. I have notified them of the situation, apologised and
> hopefully they will remove soon.
> Anything else that anyone found that might be considered bad? I am
> completely out of my depth now so would really appreciate a response.
> I have amended the form to as follows:
> -------------------------
> Dear Sir/madam,
> We are experiencing a massive drop in search results due to what seems
> like a penalty on our sitewww.farawayfurniture.co.uk
> We have submitted a previous re-inclusion form thinking that the
> problem was cause by a proxy hijack.
> After starting the following thread on Google groupshttp://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/browse_...
> and reading some of Matt Cutts and other helpful member's helpful
> advice, it seems that our problems were of a much more serious nature
> caused by bad practices primarily due to external bad advice and
> naivety on our behalf. We are extremely sorry for our actions and we
> take full reponsibility for them and the consequences and are taking
> major steps to resolve any infractions.
> The problems we believe have led to the penalty:
> Theme sponsorship - We sponsored themes which were downloaded by
> wordpress bloggers to use on their blog. These themes contained our
> link in the footer of the page. We had no idea this was against
> Google's guidelines. Now we do, we sincerely apologise and promise it
> will not happen again.
> Reciprocal link exchanges - We carried link exchanges with related
> sites.
> Forum with some spam from other users - Even though we moderated the
> forum daily, it was filling up with user registrations with links to
> questionable websites.
> Spam Comments on Blogs - We have been pointed to some spam comments on
> blogs that link to our site using keyphrases such as 'Dining
> Furniture'.
> Actions we took:
> Theme Sponsorship - We have completely ceased to sponsor themes. Over
> the last 5 days, we have spent countless hours trying to contact all
> the worst of the themes (porn themes) to ask them to remove our links.
> I have sent over 400 emails requesting the webmasters to remove our
> link from the footer. We promise to never do theme sponsorships again
> Reciprocal link exchanges - We have now completely removed the
> reciprocal link exchange pages from our site. We will not do any type
> of link exchanges again.
> Forum - We have now completely removed our forum from our site. It was
> too risky and time consuming and an easy target for spammers. We are
> currently developing a blog for the site instead that will showcase
> our driver's journeys complete with pictures
> Spam on Blogs: I have contacted the sections of the blogs that I have
> found up to now and apologised for the actions taken on behalf of
> Faraway Furniture. I will personally ensure this does not happen again
> in the future!
> As already said, we are extremely sorry for any inconvenience caused
> and we promise that Faraway Furniture will strictly adhere to the
> Google Guidelines in the future.
> ------------------------------------------
> On Feb 26, 10:50 pm, JohnMu wrote:
> > I think that's a great start, ShyBoy.
> > Similar to how you have removed spammy links in your own forum, you
> > may want to consider what you can do to help clean up similar links on
> > other people's
