I dumped text link ads. I nofollowed paid links. I javascripted links that might be mistaken for paid links. I canceled my sponsored review accounts. I switched to a different method of monetization (Scratchback) that serves Google-friendly, nofollowed links. (And btw, Google, that put a huge dent in my revenue, just so you know). Finally, after I cleaned up everything that might possibly make you hate me, I filed a reconsideration request about 5 weeks ago.
And I did all that for...what? Did you give me my PR back? No, you did not. Did you even communicate with me to tell me that you still think I'm naughty for some unknown reason? No, you did not. You simply did nothing. Others knelt down to you and you promptly rewarded them by giving them their PR back. Why have I not been awarded the same mercy? Did I miss something? Did I fail to nofollow something that you felt should be nofollowed? Or do you just dislike SEO Scoop and want me to forever grovel in my pitiful PR-ness?
In all fairness, it really doesn't matter what PR SEO Scoop has. It is meaningless and valueless. Still, I can't help but feel as though I've been slighted or overlooked, whilst all the other poor souls who have begged forgiveness have been noticed and forgiven? Why not me? Just curious, Matt...
Hi,
I am absolutely amazed at the fact that here I find a kind of back garden where there is Matt Cutts giving specific feedback and supposedly checking on penalized web sites while sharing the specifics of why they have been penalized.
I have a site since 2000 with over 5 years of PR7 that was wiped to PR4 last August. I have done everything in my power to attend Google expectations, including complete cleanup of anything that could have been even barely suspicious, have eliminated and no-followed my own links to my other sites, have submitted re-inclusion request but I didn’t have any feedback. Nothing.
Now, I am not based in the US, I am not friends with Matt Cutts or any of the SEO guys that often write about him, but I am getting seriously disappointed by Google stance and actions on this front.
If you help individuals like Donna understand what’s wrong with her site you should do this with everyone who gently ask. Otherwise this is more than unfair.
The more time goes by the less I am proud of this relationship where I feel that the little transparency and support is never corresponded and the little help I ask is given out to others even when I have asked and awaited much longer the same answers.
How can Google keep my own trust and daily investments if it treats me like this?
I am really disappointed by what I am seeing.
So let me get this straight. You gave up the MAJORITY of your income just to get back a few px of green in the toolbar that you acknowledge is worthless when it comes to rankings? Interesting! I assume this is not your money site and it’s a vanity thing or else this just makes no sense whatsoever.
Matt, did you really have an issue with the disclaimer? That comment is surely going to be dug up by a lawyer at some stage. I’m not seeing a similar disclaimer on Google?! I mean “The compensation received may influence the advertising content” is EXACTLY *letter by letter* what Google Adsense (that thing that pays everyone’s salaries at G) does. Pay more and it influences the advertising content on Google too. Not only that, but I don’t see how Google forking over money to politicians/lobby groups – just a fancy American way to say bribing – to get their votes on things like the Doubleclick case constitutes any difference in practice?
Matt, i think you should say your Web Spam Team to start with Google, with Google partners sites, with Yahoo, MSN and first top 10000 sites by Alexa. They all have atleast 1 paid link somewhere. Not with sites that earn 200$ per month., that’s just evil.
So, Matt, tell us when is Google going to stop playing playground bully and play nice again? The internet used to be a free and happy place where people could earn a living, then Google decided that wasn’t good enough.
@matt
If the links arn’t paid for but “look” paid for and just go to your own projects then can you submit whois info in the reconsideration request ?
Also lets say more than 10 sites you own got hit 😉 best plan is submit a reconsideration request for each ?
Way to go @Matt!
Wipe out all Paid Reviews with linkjuice flow.
A lot of cr4ppy services get advertised this way and cost (Evian drinkers – N.A.I.V.E.) people money with no ROI. At least let’s keep those “burned” people within the subscriber list of the blogs with the reviews and not to everyone else due to the high rankings of cr4ppy services in search engines.
Regards and keep it up!
PS: I h8 the very concept of paid reviews.
I was going to keep my mouth shut but now I’m getting a bit tired of the Matt bashing – Matt was cool enough to come here and help Donna get her PR back. So even if we don’t all agree with the links/paid links/losr PR saga, I honestly don’t think THIS is the place to rant about it. I want to come here in two weeks time and see Donna’s greenie’s back to where they should be – not totally gone because we managed to totally pee them off ovewr at the big G.
Hush now puhleeeeze!!
Christine: OK, so Matt Cutts will come to Donna’s site and offer advice. In case you haven’t figured it out Donna is highly respected and well known in the search community. And Matt Cutts comes here and offers her help. This makes him a good guy? I guess it does if you’re on his radar screen but what about the thousands of innocent webmasters who aren’t. If Donna can’t figure this out without the help of Google’s lapdog and a couple of their engineers, what chance do the rest of us have.
So sorry, Christine, Google doesn’t give a tinker’s d*mn about you, me OR Donna except when it looks like they can get some good PR (public relations) out of it.
Wow! Sorry Christine – but I have to say this is the healthiest discussion I’ve seen on this topic for a long while – if not ever.
And Matt, thanks for engaging us on this topic – you truely do represent the side of Google that we’d all like to see more of, once again.
I think we’re all on the same page here, but please – if Google wants to make it’s own rules – let it. Surely it’s not the ultimate answer to Search?
I mean – these are early days.
Donna sorry to hear about all this that you are going through. But on the other hand it is nice you are getting special treatment from Matt because you have a top SEO blog.
I am sure Matt is using you to set an example for the rest of the SEO’s.
Perhaps you have bad karma right now because you are moving from Coldfusion to PHP. 🙂
Sam I am, I mentioned the disclaimer because I noticed it before I talked to the reconsideration person and thought that might have been an issue. After talking to the reconsideration person, I knew that there were still paid posts on the site, so I came back to give Donna more information.
Robin Good, there were two main reasons I wanted to participate in this thread. First, it’s important for people to know that we take reconsideration requests seriously; reading Donna’s post, you might come away with the impression that the requests are ignored or just fall on the floor, and that’s not the case at all. Second, the information that I gave to Donna can be helpful for other people who are considering submitting a reconsideration request.
For example, now Wendy from the first comment has a lot more information about how Google views a reconsideration request for paid posts/links. She can go back and ask “Do I want to change that eBay arbitrage post for Salehoo, or the Babychums post, or the one for the home-based magazine so that the paid posts don’t flow PageRank?” She can ask herself that without me explaining why her reconsideration request wasn’t successful, and based on this comment thread she’ll have more information to make her choice.
In your case, your reconsideration requests look like they came in August at a point when your site had no penalties. It was only a couple weeks later (in an unrelated matter) that we were checking on a particular signature that we looked at your site. So I can give the general advice of “If you’ve removed any/all paid links from your site and it’s been 4-5 months since the last reconsideration request you did, it doesn’t hurt to do another one.” That would apply to your site, but also as general advice to other people’s sites as well.
Hope that helps,
Matt
Yeah, when you pointed out the ones that Donna missed, I realized that I had a few back there as well. But that doesn’t explain the page rank loss on all of my internal pages in /blog/, does it?
Additionally, there is a blog at /craft-boom/ that went down to a PR of 0, but we have never sold a review over there. We had an advertiser that paid for a certain amount of banner impressions, and because the service was relevant to the audience, the author wrote up a review anyway. That wasn’t solicited nor paid for by that advertiser. I know it is slippery ground, but it was not a paid review in any way.
I think this is why this is touching such a nerve with people (myself included). It’s hard to draw a line between advertising and editorial content sometimes, but I assure you, I take relevant, quality advertising seriously, and I take unbiased, valuable content seriously as well. I turn away more advertisers than I take on (even for banner ads run through my adserver). And if I think something is valuable for our audience, we will write about it.
Thank you for the feedback and help, Matt.
Matt, isn’t easier to tell us more about paid links then give people tips how to send reinclusion request after you slap them with something?
Bruno, I wanted to make sure that people knew that submitting a reconsideration request while your site still has paid posts that pass PageRank can be a reason why the reconsideration request doesn’t get approved.
Wow.
I am finally pleased to have someone from Google addressing my issue. Thanks, from the heart.
For everyone’s knowledge: I submitted a reconsideration request in August as Google had taken Master New Media.org completely out of the search results. The story is public and costed me over 10,000 (some more to Google itself).
http://tinyurl.com/yvr5pt – it may not have been right to do it but magically after a week I was back in.
In September then Google came down again penalizing the same site by lowering all my sites PR from 7 to 4 or from 6 to 4. As I had already cleaned up anything that was possibly wrong and even made it public I have been baffled ever since at what is one to do when, nonetheless serious and repeated efforts to produce very high quality content on a daily basis for multiple years, one is penalized with no way of knowing what to correct or do.
Now, I couldn’t believe my eyes seeing your responses and genuine desire to help out our friends here, but the simultaneous feeling that someone here was being helped on a less than fair or orderly way rose very strong in me.
People like me are more than willing to provide a perfect platform for Google and its advertising strategy, and I have tangibly proven this, but if I am to be treated like a participant in a billion dollar lottery because there are too many players to be fair for everyone, and I am left to be pleading for help when it would be both of our interest to be clear with each other, I really lose all my love, motivation and passion and start seriously to evaluate better and more profitable ways.
I know I am not alone.
2008 will positively mark, as I have already written, a major re-evaluation of Google relevance in many a business strategy as well as attent re-evaluation of what it means to in terms of economic risks to invest so much in a partner that isn’t there when you need it, or that can stab you the moment you get to look too much the other way.
I wish that this situation could be improved and that Google took the necessary steps to avoid this.
Frankly I have lost much confidence that this will happen but will positively take the steps and recommendations made here above as the best I can work with.
Who works so hard for you Google, shouldn’t be treated this way.
PS – all NoFollowed now.
Good to know, Wendy. I’ll pass that on.
Matt, just to be fair and to see whether this has any effect I have just resubmitted a reconsideration request as you have kindly suggested.
pls Matt, can you take a look at my site pls? (under my nickname)
I have a pagerank penalty (thats not that bad), but also a penalty -50
I have changed my website to a article directory
al links are nofollowed now.
thx
I like the fact that matt takes the time to respond here.. things can go wrong.. sometimes a reconsideration is not well processed. But everyone sold in the past, did boost others for money. Can happen. You make mistakes.. you get punished. After that, simply wait like anyone else…
Regards