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...
But wouldn’t it be nice if Google responded to people in some way. Even an auto-generated email, “your request has been denied” would tell people more than silence.
I have to say that getting a ‘request has been denied’ would have helped tremendously, because I could have asked a few friends for help and they very likely would have reminded me of or found those old posts.
The silence made me wonder if it had ever been reviewed at all, and I didn’t dig deeper to figure out what I could still have been doing wrong.
Wow,
The comments here are great and useful for anyone. Matt, How does someone who submited a reconsideration request know that the site is being reviewed or not. Not only Reconsideration but I have seen so many people writing their issues with URL’s in your little Black book you always carry in the conferences?
Not only SEO’s and search marketers attend the conferences, I have seen business owners who attend the conferences and they all cant be active as we all be in this industry. It might be of great help for those who are not active like us in the SEO world.
Thank you for your comments with useful information
Suresh
Interesting article. Well my pag rank is low but I still get lot’s of google referrals.
Matt – I’m in the same boat as Wendy so let me clarify one thing so I understand –
Any links in a sponsored review post or sold text link must have no follow to pass the test?
I also agree with Wendy about receive a “failed test” notice with perhaps a sentence or some dot points to explain why. I’ve had a request sitting there that I just thought no one had got around to viewing yet, I didn’t realize there might be more to be done to my blog.
Yaro
I hate to harp on the issue, but I would like to point out that Donna, Yaro and myself (and many others) are people that I would consider have advanced level knowledge of SEO and internet marketing.
If even we can’t get a reconsideration request right, I do believe it suggests that a clearer policy is in order. I think it is also clear that we are not here to game the system, and in good faith are working hard to comply with Google’s terms.
I guess that is why Matt is helping us out, but I do think that we are a very small percentage of people who need the help, yet aren’t getting it. But maybe that’s just the mommy in me coming out, wanting to be sure that everyone is taken care of. =)
We started a network of about 100 business-related blogs in late 2005. Following Google’s rules, we built nearly all of them to a PageRank of 6. A couple of weeks ago most of our blogs were suddenly reduced to a PR of zero. No warning. No explanation. Little hope of a speedy response or help figuring out what went wrong.
We’re a small business that is trying, like so many others, to earn its keep by offering a valuable service. Google has made this both easier and harder. Right now we just feel frustrated.
Needless to say, we’re following this conversation closely.
My best to Donna.
Ouch, Google is located in California, now the Dead Kennedy’s “California Uber Alles” is ringing in my head… I wonder why? Shall we raise our arms and salute mein fuhrer ?
Sounds like an S&M discussion here rather than an SEO discussion. Oh Bondage, Up Yours!
@Matt Cutts – If the affected bloggers close their eyes, click their heels three times and mutter “There’s no place like home”, will you grant their wishes for the little emerald bars to reappear or will you just send your flying monkeys after them again ?
UPDATE: little green pixels have returned.
Wow, that was fast! Matt is all powerful.
Yay Donna!!
Congrats, I’m very happy for you.
I have a question for Matt (in case he pops in here again) – If we don’t post our website here for you to see and check and solicit you for help, but we have done all the right things (or never did sell links in the first place!!) and we don’t submit re-inclusion requests, will we eventually get our PR back through standard google crawls / PR updates etc?
Super-Glad to report that my pixels are back too, but not on /craft-boom/. Perhaps the rest of the community can chime in – would you consider an editorial review of an advertiser’s product a paid review, if the advertiser neither requested nor paid for said review?
Again, it’s not about the pixels, I honestly want to know what Google and my peers think on this issue. link to review in question
Allow me to add (as I should have earlier):
Thank you again Matt. Your help is much appreciated!
I’m certainly thankful as well, Matt. Now everyone, what is the takeaway to be learned here?
If you choose to render your site Google-friendly (and I won’t argue the pros or cons of that decision atm), and then subsequently submit a reconsideration request…
1. Don’t expect to get a reply of any sort.
2. Don’t wait forever. If nothing happens within a few weeks, assume that you missed something. Go back and find whatever you missed and fix it.
3. Resubmit the request.
Lesson over. 🙂
Actually I think the real lesson learn is place Matt’s name in the title of your posts so he see it and then work an angle where he needs to defend this spam team to get action.
@Matt:
I do believe in the FINGER theory which states:
“If I give you my finger you take my whole hand!”
That’s what happend here Matt. You should not have posted here but you should have made an inconspicuous post on your blog talking about Reinclusion Requests and how you take them seriously hence provide people with a certain degree of comfort and confidence that their issues are treated seriously. EMail replies with your decisions on those requests would also rock.
On the other hand, issues like this could be resolved by personal email and not exposing urself to haters and interpretation which always happens in such a discussion.
Regards.
Christine, if the issue was paid links/posts, I would do a reconsideration request.
chantal and Easton Ellsworth, my advice is to take your questions over to Google’s Webmaster Help group. That’s the more scalable option that I should have suggested earlier on in the thread. For example, if Easton took his site over to the webmaster help group, someone might say “Hey, http://www.knowmoremedia.com/2006/11/sponsored_reviews.html lists sponsored reviews flowing PageRank from even within the last week. Maybe that’s your issue?” whereas I don’t have the chance to look at everyone’s site.
Donna, your points are not bad ones. We’ve talked seriously about giving feedback from reconsideration requests. The main problem we’re worried about is leaking information to the hardcore spammers that would use lots of requests to probe Google for anything that they could exploit.
The comments thread was very useful. I guess the original posting got buried by the comments 😉
My 2 cents,
– Google should get back with the status of reconsideration.
– We submitted our sites for reconsideration (oneindia.in) starting early December. No idea what is happening.
– For users of GWT, I think it would have helped if we had received a message stating we have been penalized for such-an-such reason. Everyone was running in all directions to figure out what went wrong.
– Learnt about http://www.bad-neighborhood.com/text-link-tool.htm Then we saw we had 2 links that were in bad neighborhood. Immediately deleted it in all pages (atleast we think we have deleted in all pages!)
– So far no news from Google if we have done our job right
Webmasters would appreciate if google releases a utility for checking if a link is in bad neighborhood or not.
I personally feel there is nothing wrong in having sponsored posts “provided” it is relevant to the portal on which it is being hosted. After all the webmaster needs to bring food on the table.
@MattCutts: Spammers could not probe your system as common sense and a quick look at those websites could really tell you if those sites are legit or spam. Then a quicklook at backlink profile … and that’s it. Sites can be labeled as spam or not and you could chose to whom you send feedback. You don’t need AI for this and, as Reinclusion Reqs are human-handled (right?) then they also see those websites.