First: If a site has had technical problems (e.g. repeatedly
unavailable URLs), should the webmaster file a reconsideration request
after the problems have been resolved?
A: There's no need to submit a reconsideration request if you've just
been having technical problems. Googlebot is pretty persistent and
will continue to attempt to recrawl sites that have returned errors;
we don't expect everyone to have 100% uptime!
How soon we'll recrawl (and, if necessary, reindex) generally depends
on what kind of errors your site was returning, and how persistent
they were. Check out my last Pop Picks thread for some details on
this:
The short of it is that site downtime is something that our regular
crawling processes can handle, and there's no need to submit a
reconsideration request if you were only having technical problems.
Next, he commented on how some site owners see a drop in traffic or
rankings and assume it's due to a penalty. They start submitting
reconsideration requests and become frustrated if their site doesn't
return to its previous performance.
> [Algorithmic changes] may be more common than people accept
> and [perceiving reconsideration requests] as an open door to set their
> ranking right, because they believe Google are at fault, is not
> productive for them, or for improving search returns.
This is a really great point that I've been thinking a lot about
lately. Many webmasters are aware that we send notifications about
some violations of our guidelines, but not all; so since not everyone
will know definitively whether they have a "penalty" or not, we do
provide an open invitation for anyone to submit a reconsideration
request. We couldn't really say "Only send a reconsideration request
if you have a penalty," since not everyone knows whether they do.
I think some people become caught up in the mindset that if their site
is performing poorly and they've put a bunch of work into it already,
that there must be some factor beyond their control that's "keeping
them down." Like a penalty! Yeah! So they fixate on the
reconsideration process and, like you said, "do little and wait." But
in my experience, at least 75% of the posts that I see here saying "I
must have a penalty! Help!" are for sites that *do not* have a
penalty. I'm always surprised by how frequently this happens.
My takeaway from this is that, if your site's performance has suddenly
changed for the worse, then by all means feel free to review it for
compliance with our webmaster guidelines and file a reconsideration
request. BUT DON'T STOP THERE. Think of this as a "just in case" step,
but don't assume that your site's performance is out of your control.
In most cases, it isn't.
- Have your friends and family look at your site and give you
feedback. They may see things you don't because you're too familiar
with the site to be objective. (Think of this as a mini-usability
study.)
- Ask for site reviews in forums like this one.
- Compare your site to some of your favorite websites. What can you
learn from them? What can you do better than them? Why would someone
visit and revisit your site--or, better yet, bookmark and share your
site with friends and colleagues? What can you do to make your site
unique in your industry?
- Experiment with your site to see what's most effective. Website
testing is a growing trend and there are many tools available to help
you get reliable information about what your visitors like best.
Google offers a free testing platform at www.google.com/websiteoptimizer , and there are many others available.
- Network. Establish yourself as an expert in your niche. Participate
in other blogs or forums on this topic, leave comments, share your
opinion, give advice; if you provide great information to others,
they'll get to know you and respect your opinion, and may start
referring people to your site. (Note that "participate" doesn't mean
"spam forums with links to your site"; it means making a genuine
contribution that shows that you know your stuff and that gives people
a reason to want to read more of what you have to say.) Building your
reputation will build your site's reputation.
- Continue to build up original and compelling content (or tools).
These are just a few ways that you can continue to improve your site
and take an active role in your site's success. A reconsideration
request is an option that's available to you, but it certainly
shouldn't be your only remedy, nor your last.
Favorite line:, "But in my experience, at least 75% of the posts that
I see here saying "I must have a penalty! Help!" are for sites that
*do not* have a penalty. I'm always surprised by how frequently this
happens. "
I'd agree with the surprise factor, as these people sought out the
group, how many other didn't find the group? Though I think the
estimate of 75% is low. I think part of the problem is that there are
a lot of unsubstantiated theories out there on how to test for a
"penalty" and too many made up penalties as well.
Thanks for the great post Susan, bookmarked, shared on FF, and will be
referred to again.
> First: If a site has had technical problems (e.g. repeatedly
> unavailable URLs), should the webmaster file a reconsideration request
> after the problems have been resolved?
> A: There's no need to submit a reconsideration request if you've just
> been having technical problems. Googlebot is pretty persistent and
> will continue to attempt to recrawl sites that have returned errors;
> we don't expect everyone to have 100% uptime!
> How soon we'll recrawl (and, if necessary, reindex) generally depends
> on what kind of errors your site was returning, and how persistent
> they were. Check out my last Pop Picks thread for some details on
> this:
> The short of it is that site downtime is something that our regular
> crawling processes can handle, and there's no need to submit a
> reconsideration request if you were only having technical problems.
> Next, he commented on how some site owners see a drop in traffic or
> rankings and assume it's due to a penalty. They start submitting
> reconsideration requests and become frustrated if their site doesn't
> return to its previous performance.
> > [Algorithmic changes] may be more common than people accept
> > and [perceiving reconsideration requests] as an open door to set their
> > ranking right, because they believe Google are at fault, is not
> > productive for them, or for improving search returns.
> This is a really great point that I've been thinking a lot about
> lately. Many webmasters are aware that we send notifications about
> some violations of our guidelines, but not all; so since not everyone
> will know definitively whether they have a "penalty" or not, we do
> provide an open invitation for anyone to submit a reconsideration
> request. We couldn't really say "Only send a reconsideration request
> if you have a penalty," since not everyone knows whether they do.
> I think some people become caught up in the mindset that if their site
> is performing poorly and they've put a bunch of work into it already,
> that there must be some factor beyond their control that's "keeping
> them down." Like a penalty! Yeah! So they fixate on the
> reconsideration process and, like you said, "do little and wait." But
> in my experience, at least 75% of the posts that I see here saying "I
> must have a penalty! Help!" are for sites that *do not* have a
> penalty. I'm always surprised by how frequently this happens.
> My takeaway from this is that, if your site's performance has suddenly
> changed for the worse, then by all means feel free to review it for
> compliance with our webmaster guidelines and file a reconsideration
> request. BUT DON'T STOP THERE. Think of this as a "just in case" step,
> but don't assume that your site's performance is out of your control.
> In most cases, it isn't.
> - Have your friends and family look at your site and give you
> feedback. They may see things you don't because you're too familiar
> with the site to be objective. (Think of this as a mini-usability
> study.)
> - Ask for site reviews in forums like this one.
> - Compare your site to some of your favorite websites. What can you
> learn from them? What can you do better than them? Why would someone
> visit and revisit your site--or, better yet, bookmark and share your
> site with friends and colleagues? What can you do to make your site
> unique in your industry?
> - Experiment with your site to see what's most effective. Website
> testing is a growing trend and there are many tools available to help
> you get reliable information about what your visitors like best.
> Google offers a free testing platform atwww.google.com/websiteoptimizer > , and there are many others available.
> - Network. Establish yourself as an expert in your niche. Participate
> in other blogs or forums on this topic, leave comments, share your
> opinion, give advice; if you provide great information to others,
> they'll get to know you and respect your opinion, and may start
> referring people to your site. (Note that "participate" doesn't mean
> "spam forums with links to your site"; it means making a genuine
> contribution that shows that you know your stuff and that gives people
> a reason to want to read more of what you have to say.) Building your
> reputation will build your site's reputation.
> - Continue to build up original and compelling content (or tools).
> These are just a few ways that you can continue to improve your site
> and take an active role in your site's success. A reconsideration
> request is an option that's available to you, but it certainly
> shouldn't be your only remedy, nor your last.
PS. I think that Google should take a stance to report 100% of the
"duplicate content penalties" imposed on sites. For every person
coming to the groups or considering writing a reconsideration request
for their "duplicate content penalty" that someone at digitalpointless
pointed them to they get a link to something saying that "we notify
all webmasters of their duplicate content penalty in webmaster tools,
if you haven't seen a message, you don't have one."
> Favorite line:, "But in my experience, at least 75% of the posts that
> I see here saying "I must have a penalty! Help!" are for sites that
> *do not* have a penalty. I'm always surprised by how frequently this
> happens. "
> I'd agree with the surprise factor, as these people sought out the
> group, how many other didn't find the group? Though I think the
> estimate of 75% is low. I think part of the problem is that there are
> a lot of unsubstantiated theories out there on how to test for a
> "penalty" and too many made up penalties as well.
> Thanks for the great post Susan, bookmarked, shared on FF, and will be
> referred to again.
> On Sep 8, 12:19 pm, Susan Moskwa wrote:
> > Chibcha posted some questions about reconsideration requests which
> > I'll attempt to tackle. You can read his full post here:
> > First: If a site has had technical problems (e.g. repeatedly
> > unavailable URLs), should the webmaster file a reconsideration request
> > after the problems have been resolved?
> > A: There's no need to submit a reconsideration request if you've just
> > been having technical problems. Googlebot is pretty persistent and
> > will continue to attempt to recrawl sites that have returned errors;
> > we don't expect everyone to have 100% uptime!
> > How soon we'll recrawl (and, if necessary, reindex) generally depends
> > on what kind of errors your site was returning, and how persistent
> > they were. Check out my last Pop Picks thread for some details on
> > this:
> > The short of it is that site downtime is something that our regular
> > crawling processes can handle, and there's no need to submit a
> > reconsideration request if you were only having technical problems.
> > Next, he commented on how some site owners see a drop in traffic or
> > rankings and assume it's due to a penalty. They start submitting
> > reconsideration requests and become frustrated if their site doesn't
> > return to its previous performance.
> > > [Algorithmic changes] may be more common than people accept
> > > and [perceiving reconsideration requests] as an open door to set their
> > > ranking right, because they believe Google are at fault, is not
> > > productive for them, or for improving search returns.
> > This is a really great point that I've been thinking a lot about
> > lately. Many webmasters are aware that we send notifications about
> > some violations of our guidelines, but not all; so since not everyone
> > will know definitively whether they have a "penalty" or not, we do
> > provide an open invitation for anyone to submit a reconsideration
> > request. We couldn't really say "Only send a reconsideration request
> > if you have a penalty," since not everyone knows whether they do.
> > I think some people become caught up in the mindset that if their site
> > is performing poorly and they've put a bunch of work into it already,
> > that there must be some factor beyond their control that's "keeping
> > them down." Like a penalty! Yeah! So they fixate on the
> > reconsideration process and, like you said, "do little and wait." But
> > in my experience, at least 75% of the posts that I see here saying "I
> > must have a penalty! Help!" are for sites that *do not* have a
> > penalty. I'm always surprised by how frequently this happens.
> > My takeaway from this is that, if your site's performance has suddenly
> > changed for the worse, then by all means feel free to review it for
> > compliance with our webmaster guidelines and file a reconsideration
> > request. BUT DON'T STOP THERE. Think of this as a "just in case" step,
> > but don't assume that your site's performance is out of your control.
> > In most cases, it isn't.
> > - Have your friends and family look at your site and give you
> > feedback. They may see things you don't because you're too familiar
> > with the site to be objective. (Think of this as a mini-usability
> > study.)
> > - Ask for site reviews in forums like this one.
> > - Compare your site to some of your favorite websites. What can you
> > learn from them? What can you do better than them? Why would someone
> > visit and revisit your site--or, better yet, bookmark and share your
> > site with friends and colleagues? What can you do to make your site
> > unique in your industry?
> > - Experiment with your site to see what's most effective. Website
> > testing is a growing trend and there are many tools available to help
> > you get reliable information about what your visitors like best.
> > Google offers a free testing platform atwww.google.com/websiteoptimizer > > , and there are many others available.
> > - Network. Establish yourself as an expert in your niche. Participate
> > in other blogs or forums on this topic, leave comments, share your
> > opinion, give advice; if you provide great information to others,
> > they'll get to know you and respect your opinion, and may start
> > referring people to your site. (Note that "participate" doesn't mean
> > "spam forums with links to your site"; it means making a genuine
> > contribution that shows that you know your stuff and that gives people
> > a reason to want to read more of what you have to say.) Building your
> > reputation will build your site's reputation.
> > - Continue to build up original and compelling content (or tools).
> > These are just a few ways that you can continue to improve your site
> > and take an active role in your site's success. A reconsideration
> > request is an option that's available to you, but it certainly
> > shouldn't be your only remedy, nor your last.
> PS. I think that Google should take a stance to report 100% of the
> "duplicate content penalties" imposed on sites. For every person
> coming to the groups or considering writing a reconsideration request
> for their "duplicate content penalty" that someone at digitalpointless
> pointed them to they get a link to something saying that "we notify
> all webmasters of their duplicate content penalty in webmaster tools,
> if you haven't seen a message, you don't have one."
> On Sep 8, 12:47 pm, JLH wrote:
> > Favorite line:, "But in my experience, at least 75% of the posts that
> > I see here saying "I must have a penalty! Help!" are for sites that
> > *do not* have a penalty. I'm always surprised by how frequently this
> > happens. "
> > I'd agree with the surprise factor, as these people sought out the
> > group, how many other didn't find the group? Though I think the
> > estimate of 75% is low. I think part of the problem is that there are
> > a lot of unsubstantiated theories out there on how to test for a
> > "penalty" and too many made up penalties as well.
> > Thanks for the great post Susan, bookmarked, shared on FF, and will be
> > referred to again.
> > On Sep 8, 12:19 pm, Susan Moskwa wrote:
> > > Chibcha posted some questions about reconsideration requests which
> > > I'll attempt to tackle. You can read his full post here:
> > > First: If a site has had technical problems (e.g. repeatedly
> > > unavailable URLs), should the webmaster file a reconsideration request
> > > after the problems have been resolved?
> > > A: There's no need to submit a reconsideration request if you've just
> > > been having technical problems. Googlebot is pretty persistent and
> > > will continue to attempt to recrawl sites that have returned errors;
> > > we don't expect everyone to have 100% uptime!
> > > How soon we'll recrawl (and, if necessary, reindex) generally depends
> > > on what kind of errors your site was returning, and how persistent
> > > they were. Check out my last Pop Picks thread for some details on
> > > this:
> > > The short of it is that site downtime is something that our regular
> > > crawling processes can handle, and there's no need to submit a
> > > reconsideration request if you were only having technical problems.
> > > Next, he commented on how some site owners see a drop in traffic or
> > > rankings and assume it's due to a penalty. They start submitting
> > > reconsideration requests and become frustrated if their site doesn't
> > > return to its previous performance.
> > > > [Algorithmic changes] may be more common than people accept
> > > > and [perceiving reconsideration requests] as an open door to set their
> > > > ranking right, because they believe Google are at fault, is not
> > > > productive for them, or for improving search returns.
> > > This is a really great point that I've been thinking a lot about
> > > lately. Many webmasters are aware that we send notifications about
> > > some violations of our guidelines, but not all; so since not everyone
> > > will know definitively whether they have a "penalty" or not, we do
> > > provide an open invitation for anyone to submit a reconsideration
> > > request. We couldn't really say "Only send a reconsideration request
> > > if you have a penalty," since not everyone knows whether they do.
> > > I think some people become caught up in the mindset that if their site
> > > is performing poorly and they've put a bunch of work into it already,
> > > that there must be some factor beyond their control that's "keeping
> > > them down." Like a penalty! Yeah! So they fixate on the
> > > reconsideration process and, like you said, "do little and wait." But
> > > in my experience, at least 75% of the posts that I see here saying "I
> > > must have a penalty! Help!" are for sites that *do not* have a
> > > penalty. I'm always surprised by how frequently this happens.
> > > My takeaway from this is that, if your site's performance has suddenly
> > > changed for the worse, then by all means feel free to review it for
> > > compliance with our webmaster guidelines and file a reconsideration
> > > request. BUT DON'T STOP THERE. Think of this as a "just in case" step,
> > > but don't assume that your site's performance is out of your control.
> > > In most cases, it isn't.
> > > - Have your friends and family look at your site and give you
> > > feedback. They may see things you don't because you're too familiar
> > > with the site to be objective. (Think of this as a mini-usability
> > > study.)
> > > - Ask for site reviews in forums like this one.
> > > - Compare your site to some of your favorite websites. What can you
> > > learn from them? What can you do better than them? Why would someone
> > > visit and revisit your site--or, better yet, bookmark and share your
> > > site with friends and colleagues? What can you do to make your site
> > > unique in your industry?
> > > - Experiment with your site to see what's most effective. Website
> > > testing is a growing trend and there are many tools available to help
> > > you get reliable information about what your visitors like best.
> > > Google offers a free testing platform atwww.google.com/websiteoptimizer > > > , and there are many others available.
> > > - Network. Establish yourself as an expert in your niche. Participate
> > > in other blogs or forums on this topic, leave comments, share your
> > > opinion, give advice; if you provide great information to others,
> > > they'll get to know you and respect your opinion, and may start
> > > referring people to your site. (Note that "participate" doesn't mean
> > > "spam forums with links to your site"; it means making a genuine
> > > contribution that shows that you know your stuff and that gives people
> > > a reason to want to read more of what you have to say.) Building your
> > > reputation will build your site's reputation.
> > > - Continue to build up original and compelling content (or tools).
> > > These are just a few ways that you can continue to improve your site
> > > and take an active role in your site's success. A reconsideration
> > > request is an option that's available to you, but it certainly
> > > shouldn't be your only remedy, nor your last.- Hide quoted text -
> How long should a webmaster wait before submitting a second
> Reinclusion Request?
> I've been waiting three weeks without seeing any changes and I'm not
> sure how much longer to wait before "reapplying" as it were.
I would turn this question around and ask
a) Why are you reapplying?
b) Have you changed anything on your site during those three weeks?
Although we don't currently let people know what the outcome of their
reconsideration request was, let me stress that RECONSIDERATION
REQUESTS DO NOT GO INTO A BLACK HOLE. They all get reviewed and
processed.
This means that if you've submitted a reconsideration request and
haven't seen any changes after a few weeks (as stated on the request
form, you should "allow several weeks for the re-evaluation process"),
you don't need to submit another request "just in case the first one
got lost." If nothing has changed, you can infer that either
a) Whatever problem was hurting your site's performance in the first
place is still present, or
b) Nothing was wrong with your site in the first place (aside from the
fact that it wasn't ranking the way you wanted), so there was nothing
to reconsider.
Think of it this way: say I had a bag and I only wanted green cubes in
the bag. If you have a cube that used to be red but you recently
painted it green, you could submit a request which I could then
review, I would see that your cube used to not be in the bag because
it was red, but now it's green, so I let it in the bag. But if you
have a red cube and you submit a request saying "Please put this red
cube in the bag!", nothing's gonna change (your cube's not going in
the bag) because it doesn't meet my requirements. Similarly, if you
had a green sphere that I didn't want in the bag because it was round
and not square, submitting a request saying "Look, my object is
green!" isn't going to do anything because it was never about the
green-ness in the first place for that particular object.
Perhaps that's a rambly metaphor :-) but the point is that a
reconsideration request isn't a magic reset button. Just submitting
one doesn't mean your site's going to rank on page 1, or rank the way
it did last week, or that its ranking will change at all. The point of
a reconsideration request is to let us know that you've changed
something on your site and you want us to reconsider our treatment of
your site in light of that change.
In summary: if you haven't changed anything since your last request,
don't bother submitting another request. If, however, you've found
something else on your site that you realize may have still been
violating our webmaster guidelines, you're welcome to fix that issue
and then submit a new reconsideration request noting your changes. If,
however, you still don't see any changes after that second request,
you should probably consider the possibility that your site's
performance isn't related to anything a reconsideration request can
help you with, and instead look at some of the other site-improvement
tips I suggested above.
I knew you were going to throw my question right back at me Susan -
way to go!
Since submitting the Reinclusion Request on 18th August, I have posted
here on the group asking for more help, and several replies have
identified areas that *might* have caused a penalty to be applied
against my site:
http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/browse_...
Over the course of the next few days I will implement these changes
and then file for Reinclusion - again!
- John's suggestions were fully implemented in the original
Reinclusion Request but, as noted in the thread above, I've yet to see
my site be reincluded in the SERPs.
> > How long should a webmaster wait before submitting a second
> > Reinclusion Request?
> > I've been waiting three weeks without seeing any changes and I'm not
> > sure how much longer to wait before "reapplying" as it were.
> I would turn this question around and ask
> a) Why are you reapplying?
> b) Have you changed anything on your site during those three weeks?
> Although we don't currently let people know what the outcome of their
> reconsideration request was, let me stress that RECONSIDERATION
> REQUESTS DO NOT GO INTO A BLACK HOLE. They all get reviewed and
> processed.
> This means that if you've submitted a reconsideration request and
> haven't seen any changes after a few weeks (as stated on the request
> form, you should "allow several weeks for the re-evaluation process"),
> you don't need to submit another request "just in case the first one
> got lost." If nothing has changed, you can infer that either
> a) Whatever problem was hurting your site's performance in the first
> place is still present, or
> b) Nothing was wrong with your site in the first place (aside from the
> fact that it wasn't ranking the way you wanted), so there was nothing
> to reconsider.
> Think of it this way: say I had a bag and I only wanted green cubes in
> the bag. If you have a cube that used to be red but you recently
> painted it green, you could submit a request which I could then
> review, I would see that your cube used to not be in the bag because
> it was red, but now it's green, so I let it in the bag. But if you
> have a red cube and you submit a request saying "Please put this red
> cube in the bag!", nothing's gonna change (your cube's not going in
> the bag) because it doesn't meet my requirements. Similarly, if you
> had a green sphere that I didn't want in the bag because it was round
> and not square, submitting a request saying "Look, my object is
> green!" isn't going to do anything because it was never about the
> green-ness in the first place for that particular object.
> Perhaps that's a rambly metaphor :-) but the point is that a
> reconsideration request isn't a magic reset button. Just submitting
> one doesn't mean your site's going to rank on page 1, or rank the way
> it did last week, or that its ranking will change at all. The point of
> a reconsideration request is to let us know that you've changed
> something on your site and you want us to reconsider our treatment of
> your site in light of that change.
> In summary: if you haven't changed anything since your last request,
> don't bother submitting another request. If, however, you've found
> something else on your site that you realize may have still been
> violating our webmaster guidelines, you're welcome to fix that issue
> and then submit a new reconsideration request noting your changes. If,
> however, you still don't see any changes after that second request,
> you should probably consider the possibility that your site's
> performance isn't related to anything a reconsideration request can
> help you with, and instead look at some of the other site-improvement
> tips I suggested above.
> I think some people become caught up in the mindset that if their site
> is performing poorly and they've put a bunch of work into it already,
> that there must be some factor beyond their control that's "keeping
> them down." Like a penalty! Yeah! So they fixate on the
> reconsideration process and, like you said, "do little and wait." But
> in my experience, at least 75% of the posts that I see here saying "I
> must have a penalty! Help!" are for sites that *do not* have a
> penalty. I'm always surprised by how frequently this happens.
But a large proportion of these posters claim to have had very good
positions for months/years/forever and face a sudden and quite
precipitous drop.
>But a large proportion of these posters claim to have had very good
>positions for months/years/forever and face a sudden and quite
>precipitous drop.
I can say from recent, first-hand experience that the above is a VERY
good point Phil!
Could very well be true, but that doesn't mean that the drop(s) was
due to a penalty.
If Google decides that thin affiliate sites shouldn't rank as well any
more and takes measures to purge them from the top results and the
group is flooded with weak amazon affiliate sites full of "reviews"
who's only purpose is to feed visitors to Amazon that doesn't mean
that fixing canonicalization and getting rid of your link exchange
scheme is going to get the site ranking again after a reconsideration
request.
At some point Google has to draw the line and say we just don't need
another worthless hotel review site with cheesy "cheap hotels in
Phoenix, cheap hotels in Denver" internal link structure, or another
hapless directory where the only visitors are other site owners
looking for an easy link. Changing how google handle such sites that
match a pattern send many flocking here, but as Susan says, if the
site is ranking differently than before it doesn't always mean it's a
penalty, and maybe they should look at other options.
My favorites are the ones that state that they haven't changed
anything in 17 years. If that isn't a big giant red flag I don't know
what is. Perhaps the lack of keeping the site up to date is exactly
why its fallen off the face of the earth?
> > I think some people become caught up in the mindset that if their site
> > is performing poorly and they've put a bunch of work into it already,
> > that there must be some factor beyond their control that's "keeping
> > them down." Like a penalty! Yeah! So they fixate on the
> > reconsideration process and, like you said, "do little and wait." But
> > in my experience, at least 75% of the posts that I see here saying "I
> > must have a penalty! Help!" are for sites that *do not* have a
> > penalty. I'm always surprised by how frequently this happens.
> But a large proportion of these posters claim to have had very good
> positions for months/years/forever and face a sudden and quite
> precipitous drop.
> > How long should a webmaster wait before submitting a second
> > Reinclusion Request?
> > I've been waiting three weeks without seeing any changes and I'm not
> > sure how much longer to wait before "reapplying" as it were.
> I would turn this question around and ask
> a) Why are you reapplying?
> b) Have you changed anything on your site during those three weeks?
> Although we don't currently let people know what the outcome of their
> reconsideration request was, let me stress that RECONSIDERATION
> REQUESTS DO NOT GO INTO A BLACK HOLE. They all get reviewed and
> processed.
> This means that if you've submitted a reconsideration request and
> haven't seen any changes after a few weeks (as stated on the request
> form, you should "allow several weeks for the re-evaluation process"),
> you don't need to submit another request "just in case the first one
> got lost." If nothing has changed, you can infer that either
> a) Whatever problem was hurting your site's performance in the first
> place is still present, or
> b) Nothing was wrong with your site in the first place (aside from the
> fact that it wasn't ranking the way you wanted), so there was nothing
> to reconsider.
> Think of it this way: say I had a bag and I only wanted green cubes in
> the bag. If you have a cube that used to be red but you recently
> painted it green, you could submit a request which I could then
> review, I would see that your cube used to not be in the bag because
> it was red, but now it's green, so I let it in the bag. But if you
> have a red cube and you submit a request saying "Please put this red
> cube in the bag!", nothing's gonna change (your cube's not going in
> the bag) because it doesn't meet my requirements. Similarly, if you
> had a green sphere that I didn't want in the bag because it was round
> and not square, submitting a request saying "Look, my object is
> green!" isn't going to do anything because it was never about the
> green-ness in the first place for that particular object.
> Perhaps that's a rambly metaphor :-) but the point is that a
> reconsideration request isn't a magic reset button. Just submitting
> one doesn't mean your site's going to rank on page 1, or rank the way
> it did last week, or that its ranking will change at all. The point of
> a reconsideration request is to let us know that you've changed
> something on your site and you want us to reconsider our treatment of
> your site in light of that change.
> In summary: if you haven't changed anything since your last request,
> don't bother submitting another request. If, however, you've found
> something else on your site that you realize may have still been
> violating our webmaster guidelines, you're welcome to fix that issue
> and then submit a new reconsideration request noting your changes. If,
> however, you still don't see any changes after that second request,
> you should probably consider the possibility that your site's
> performance isn't related to anything a reconsideration request can
> help you with, and instead look at some of the other site-improvement
> tips I suggested above.
> >But a large proportion of these posters claim to have had very good
> >positions for months/years/forever and face a sudden and quite
> >precipitous drop.
> I can say from recent, first-hand experience that the above is a VERY
> good point Phil!
> Although we don't currently let people know what the outcome of their
> reconsideration request was, let me stress that RECONSIDERATION
> REQUESTS DO NOT GO INTO A BLACK HOLE. They all get reviewed and
> processed.
> This means that if you've submitted a reconsideration request and
> haven't seen any changes after a few weeks (as stated on the request
> form, you should "allow several weeks for the re-evaluation process"),
> you don't need to submit another request "just in case the first one
> got lost." If nothing has changed, you can infer that either
> a) Whatever problem was hurting your site's performance in the first
> place is still present, or
> b) Nothing was wrong with your site in the first place (aside from the
> fact that it wasn't ranking the way you wanted), so there was nothing
> to reconsider.
I'm going to play devil's advocate here - 'several weeks' is that 2?
Is it 3? Is it 12?
Not sure if you've had much cause to contact Google as anything other
than a Google employee, but let's just say that experience can
sometimes leave quite a lot to be desired. (I've seen some pretty
poor service responses from the sales side, who I presume have far
more resources than you engineers?)
Is there any reason you guys cant respond to cases of b) above? If
the review ascertains that b) is the case then would it not be trivial
to feed this back to the submitter?
> > Although we don't currently let people know what the outcome of their
> > reconsideration request was, let me stress that RECONSIDERATION
> > REQUESTS DO NOT GO INTO A BLACK HOLE. They all get reviewed and
> > processed.
> > This means that if you've submitted a reconsideration request and
> > haven't seen any changes after a few weeks (as stated on the request
> > form, you should "allow several weeks for the re-evaluation process"),
> > you don't need to submit another request "just in case the first one
> > got lost." If nothing has changed, you can infer that either
> > a) Whatever problem was hurting your site's performance in the first
> > place is still present, or
> > b) Nothing was wrong with your site in the first place (aside from the
> > fact that it wasn't ranking the way you wanted), so there was nothing
> > to reconsider.
> I'm going to play devil's advocate here - 'several weeks' is that 2?
> Is it 3? Is it 12?
> Not sure if you've had much cause to contact Google as anything other
> than a Google employee, but let's just say that experience can
> sometimes leave quite a lot to be desired. (I've seen some pretty
> poor service responses from the sales side, who I presume have far
> more resources than you engineers?)
> Is there any reason you guys cant respond to cases of b) above? If
> the review ascertains that b) is the case then would it not be trivial
> to feed this back to the submitter?
> > > Although we don't currently let people know what the outcome of their
> > > reconsideration request was, let me stress that RECONSIDERATION
> > > REQUESTS DO NOT GO INTO A BLACK HOLE. They all get reviewed and
> > > processed.
> > > This means that if you've submitted a reconsideration request and
> > > haven't seen any changes after a few weeks (as stated on the request
> > > form, you should "allow several weeks for the re-evaluation process"),
> > > you don't need to submit another request "just in case the first one
> > > got lost." If nothing has changed, you can infer that either
> > > a) Whatever problem was hurting your site's performance in the first
> > > place is still present, or
> > > b) Nothing was wrong with your site in the first place (aside from the
> > > fact that it wasn't ranking the way you wanted), so there was nothing
> > > to reconsider.
> > I'm going to play devil's advocate here - 'several weeks' is that 2?
> > Is it 3? Is it 12?
> > Not sure if you've had much cause to contact Google as anything other
> > than a Google employee, but let's just say that experience can
> > sometimes leave quite a lot to be desired. (I've seen some pretty
> > poor service responses from the sales side, who I presume have far
> > more resources than you engineers?)
> > Is there any reason you guys cant respond to cases of b) above? If
> > the review ascertains that b) is the case then would it not be trivial
> > to feed this back to the submitter?
> But
> in my experience, at least 75% of the posts that I see here saying "I
> must have a penalty! Help!" are for sites that *do not* have a
> penalty. I'm always surprised by how frequently this happens.
I would hate to think how many time I have said that of a site and
then someone (and maybe others) give the mesage a *one star* ... don't
figure
> Is there any reason you guys cant respond to cases of b) above? If
> the review ascertains that b) is the case then would it not be trivial
> to feed this back to the submitter?
The logic behind not doing this is that it could give spammers the
ability to "test" our systems. For example, they try some new spam
tactic, wait awhile, submit a reconsideration request, and see whether
we respond with "We didn't detect anything spammy about your site!" If
so, they know they can get away with that tactic for now. If not, they
stop putting energy into it and try something different.
But how about if you limit the number of responses? If you only made
one response, on the first reconsideration request, and then notify
users on subsequent submissions that they've used there 'golden
ticket' it might cover most of the innocents while avoiding giving out
much to spammers?
Just a thought - but I can undertand about the stress test spammers
might run.
> > Is there any reason you guys cant respond to cases of b) above? If
> > the review ascertains that b) is the case then would it not be trivial
> > to feed this back to the submitter?
> The logic behind not doing this is that it could give spammers the
> ability to "test" our systems. For example, they try some new spam
> tactic, wait awhile, submit a reconsideration request, and see whether
> we respond with "We didn't detect anything spammy about your site!" If
> so, they know they can get away with that tactic for now. If not, they
> stop putting energy into it and try something different.
Agreed, but I think the true spammers are running their own A/B
testing just fine without the help of reconsideration requests. Build
a site with X method, see what happens, build a site with Y method see
what happens, compare. Domains are cheap. I'd think that the real
hard core spammers wouldn't trust Google enough to even log-in to
webmaster tools much less verify the site.
I've always thought you should add some sort of off line verification
method to the system to discourage stuff like this. Mail a password
to an actual physical address to verify the owners location, no big
problem if you've got 1 or 20 sites, but a problem if you've got
30,000 you'd like to play with in webmaster tools. Plus that would be
some good data for Google to mine, for hotspots of spamming activity
on a map.
I always look for a physical address and land line phone number before
doing business with a site, seems like a trustworthy metric to at
least establish at least a baseline. If the site owner doesn't want
to divulge their real name and address to Google to get reindexed,
Google should just treat the reconsideration request as annoymous and
if that detracts from the trust worthyness of the request so be it.
> > Is there any reason you guys cant respond to cases of b) above? If
> > the review ascertains that b) is the case then would it not be trivial
> > to feed this back to the submitter?
> The logic behind not doing this is that it could give spammers the
> ability to "test" our systems. For example, they try some new spam
> tactic, wait awhile, submit a reconsideration request, and see whether
> we respond with "We didn't detect anything spammy about your site!" If
> so, they know they can get away with that tactic for now. If not, they
> stop putting energy into it and try something different.
Yeah... I'm not saying the logic is unassailable, just that that's my
understanding of it right now.
I'll be sure to pass you guys' suggestions along, though.
> Agreed, but I think the true spammers are running their own A/B
> testing just fine without the help of reconsideration requests. Build
> a site with X method, see what happens, build a site with Y method see
> what happens, compare. Domains are cheap. I'd think that the real
> hard core spammers wouldn't trust Google enough to even log-in to
> webmaster tools much less verify the site.
> I've always thought you should add some sort of off line verification
> method to the system to discourage stuff like this. Mail a password
> to an actual physical address to verify the owners location, no big
> problem if you've got 1 or 20 sites, but a problem if you've got
> 30,000 you'd like to play with in webmaster tools. Plus that would be
> some good data for Google to mine, for hotspots of spamming activity
> on a map.
> I always look for a physical address and land line phone number before
> doing business with a site, seems like a trustworthy metric to at
> least establish at least a baseline. If the site owner doesn't want
> to divulge their real name and address to Google to get reindexed,
> Google should just treat the reconsideration request as annoymous and
> if that detracts from the trust worthyness of the request so be it.
> On Sep 9, 11:56 am, Susan Moskwa wrote:
> > On Sep 8, 4:04 pm, Red Cardinal wrote:
> > > Is there any reason you guys cant respond to cases of b) above? If
> > > the review ascertains that b) is the case then would it not be trivial
> > > to feed this back to the submitter?
> > The logic behind not doing this is that it could give spammers the
> > ability to "test" our systems. For example, they try some new spam
> > tactic, wait awhile, submit a reconsideration request, and see whether
> > we respond with "We didn't detect anything spammy about your site!" If
> > so, they know they can get away with that tactic for now. If not, they
> > stop putting energy into it and try something different.
"Yeah... I'm not saying the logic is unassailable, just that that's my
understanding of it right now..."
I hope I didn't come off as contentious, I wasn't trying to be, just
wanted to offer bit of a different viewpoint. I like the
reconsideration request, I really do. :)
"'...ll be sure to pass you guys' suggestions along, though."
Thank you, that's more than I could have hoped for.
> Yeah... I'm not saying the logic is unassailable, just that that's my
> understanding of it right now.
> I'll be sure to pass you guys' suggestions along, though.
> On Sep 9, 12:18 pm, JLH wrote:
> > Agreed, but I think the true spammers are running their own A/B
> > testing just fine without the help of reconsideration requests. Build
> > a site with X method, see what happens, build a site with Y method see
> > what happens, compare. Domains are cheap. I'd think that the real
> > hard core spammers wouldn't trust Google enough to even log-in to
> > webmaster tools much less verify the site.
> > I've always thought you should add some sort of off line verification
> > method to the system to discourage stuff like this. Mail a password
> > to an actual physical address to verify the owners location, no big
> > problem if you've got 1 or 20 sites, but a problem if you've got
> > 30,000 you'd like to play with in webmaster tools. Plus that would be
> > some good data for Google to mine, for hotspots of spamming activity
> > on a map.
> > I always look for a physical address and land line phone number before
> > doing business with a site, seems like a trustworthy metric to at
> > least establish at least a baseline. If the site owner doesn't want
> > to divulge their real name and address to Google to get reindexed,
> > Google should just treat the reconsideration request as annoymous and
> > if that detracts from the trust worthyness of the request so be it.
> > On Sep 9, 11:56 am, Susan Moskwa wrote:
> > > On Sep 8, 4:04 pm, Red Cardinal wrote:
> > > > Is there any reason you guys cant respond to cases of b) above? If
> > > > the review ascertains that b) is the case then would it not be trivial
> > > > to feed this back to the submitter?
> > > The logic behind not doing this is that it could give spammers the
> > > ability to "test" our systems. For example, they try some new spam
> > > tactic, wait awhile, submit a reconsideration request, and see whether
> > > we respond with "We didn't detect anything spammy about your site!" If
> > > so, they know they can get away with that tactic for now. If not, they
> > > stop putting energy into it and try something different.
I think a little communication is warranted. I understand the fact
about spammers - there will always be spammers! Lord knows, there are
a bunch of them that have taken over my niche and use all kinds of
black hat stuff to outrank everyone else - then they hack your site so
you get a google penalty. It's a tough line, but if your going to
ding sites you need to at least point them in the right direction. On
this board you have the good - Payne, webado, bbdeath, etc... and then
you have some idiots that have no clue about SEO or what it even
spells. In one discussion my competitors that were behind my sites
hack even left some derogatory comments trying to get me to drop my
domain - that was a hoot (remember that one webado?)
The discussion board is a start, but there are a lot of people that
run their own sites and don't have a SEO team and it could literally
take them months or even years to get back up depending on what was
wrong. Many of these people were hacked and did nothing wrong. I
think in the case of an obvious and blatant hack that Google should
step in and help out or at least speed up the process. Its the right
thing to do. Google even profits off these discussion boards (see
adwords links in side bar) - the least they can do is communicate
better.
> "Yeah... I'm not saying the logic is unassailable, just that that's my
> understanding of it right now..."
> I hope I didn't come off as contentious, I wasn't trying to be, just
> wanted to offer bit of a different viewpoint. I like the
> reconsideration request, I really do. :)
> "'...ll be sure to pass you guys' suggestions along, though."
> Thank you, that's more than I could have hoped for.
> On Sep 9, 2:53 pm, Susan Moskwa wrote:
> > Yeah... I'm not saying the logic is unassailable, just that that's my
> > understanding of it right now.
> > I'll be sure to pass you guys' suggestions along, though.
> > On Sep 9, 12:18 pm, JLH wrote:
> > > Agreed, but I think the true spammers are running their own A/B
> > > testing just fine without the help of reconsideration requests. Build
> > > a site with X method, see what happens, build a site with Y method see
> > > what happens, compare. Domains are cheap. I'd think that the real
> > > hard core spammers wouldn't trust Google enough to even log-in to
> > > webmaster tools much less verify the site.
> > > I've always thought you should add some sort of off line verification
> > > method to the system to discourage stuff like this. Mail a password
> > > to an actual physical address to verify the owners location, no big
> > > problem if you've got 1 or 20 sites, but a problem if you've got
> > > 30,000 you'd like to play with in webmaster tools. Plus that would be
> > > some good data for Google to mine, for hotspots of spamming activity
> > > on a map.
> > > I always look for a physical address and land line phone number before
> > > doing business with a site, seems like a trustworthy metric to at
> > > least establish at least a baseline. If the site owner doesn't want
> > > to divulge their real name and address to Google to get reindexed,
> > > Google should just treat the reconsideration request as annoymous and
> > > if that detracts from the trust worthyness of the request so be it.
> > > On Sep 9, 11:56 am, Susan Moskwa wrote:
> > > > On Sep 8, 4:04 pm, Red Cardinal wrote:
> > > > > Is there any reason you guys cant respond to cases of b) above? If
> > > > > the review ascertains that b) is the case then would it not be trivial
> > > > > to feed this back to the submitter?
> > > > The logic behind not doing this is that it could give spammers the
> > > > ability to "test" our systems. For example, they try some new spam
> > > > tactic, wait awhile, submit a reconsideration request, and see whether
> > > > we respond with "We didn't detect anything spammy about your site!" If
> > > > so, they know they can get away with that tactic for now. If not, they
> > > > stop putting energy into it and try something different.
> In one discussion my competitors that were behind my sites
> hack even left some derogatory comments trying to get me to drop my
> domain - that was a hoot (remember that one webado?)
Would love to read that - link pls?
> I
> think in the case of an obvious and blatant hack that Google should
> step in and help out or at least speed up the process.
Unfortunately the spammers would probably abuse this as well - hack
their own sites and cry :(
But I do wonder if there isn't some small piece of ground Google could
give in order to help the little guy...
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