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...
This is so sad.
Matt, see this is where I simply cannot understand where you are coming from, period. How is it possible in your mind to equate the phrase “hardcore spammers” in even the tiniest way whatsoever with people who give a damn about PageRank, or who would waste any energy whatsoever on reinclusion requests?
I mean… are you kidding?
Wow, I did a one paid post. It got so long to get reviewed and even longer to get paid. So I pulled the Pay Per Post article. However, I had placed their link on about a dozen of older posts that were popular.
Then I read on a blog somewhere that Google was not happy with this process.They were gone real quick. We didn’t get smacked down because we acted early. Since, we don’t sell links the problem was eliminated.
This is another good example of why I blog, almost daily. We consider it part of our continuing education. We are not a big fan of finding things out too late. In this industry things happen daily… If your not blogging or reading daily the advantage goes to your competition.
Thanks, I really enjoyed this conversation… I would like to write about the reconsideration process. Could you provide a link? Thanks again!
I differ from Matt Cutts here.
Check out contentsutra.com. They dont have rel=nofollow and also accept advertising links , yet they continue to rank higher because they break news first, atleast few times a week.
Google as an Engine has higher weightage for BREAKING NEWS rather than stupid SEO stuff which you guys are taking too serious rather than being fair journalists.
[quote]chantal and Easton Ellsworth, my advice is to take your questions over to Googles Webmaster Help group.[/quote]
Been there, done that… no answer 🙁
i just dont get it, i have no more links on my site (followed).
Google doesn’t answer, webmasterhelp same …
i don’t know it anymore 🙁
Is it my backlinks? Strange, if i look to my backlinks, many are not made by me. People try to copy my site, steal my content and are now higher in google then the orriginal site (my site).
Al my content is unique written by myself. 240 articles with 1000words each.
And websites copiers are now making money with it.
Sorry for my English, i’m Dutch.
I give up
Google is the best place for stealers.
Sorry, no more respect from me 🙁
Michael, I’m not kidding. Maybe we see a different sample of spammers? Because we still see a lot of activity directed at ways to exploit search engines. You only need to remember the .cn spam from last quarter to realize that there are a whole host of folks who are trying very hard to corrupt the search experience for everyone. Anyway, I just wanted to explain why we haven’t given decisions back for reconsideration requests.
I will have to agree with Matt, Google shouldn’t play that type of game with the spammers.
Matt,
I know this is a bit off topic, but Matt if you could you need to contact me directly at 765-274-6877 or shot me an e-mail using our contact form on our website and I’ll reply. I’m having some issues and very displeased on something that happen like i said I don’t have an issue with you or anything, but I would like to have a moment to talk with you (So yes its urgent).
Thanks Matt
Yes when I said Matt I was referring to Matt Cutts my apology
Matt, thanks for personally responding here – I appreciate your diligence and patience. I’ll take my questions to your webmaster help group.
And thanks again to Donna for providing this space to chat.
I’ll probably moderate comments a bit heavily from here on out, in that I think we know all we need to know at this point. Matt’s made it pretty clear what the issues are, and what the steps to be taken are. We know what to be looking for if we don’t hear back from a reconsideration requet. We know that if all else fails, that we should be seeking help at the webmaster help group.
So, I think we can wrap this up now. Thanks to everyone for the participation. It was very productive all round.
Wow I wish I could get some kind of answer for my blog. It’s almost 4 months old, has plenty of traffic and legit links and comments and was missed in the PR about two weeks after it was brought online. This latest PR put my slightly older blog from a 2 to a 3 which has less traffic than my Gizmo blog. My Gizmo blog (two weeks younger than the other blog) is still a zero despite a few requests for reconsideration. There are no paid links of any type on the site. NO Google violations of any kind. What do I have to do to get a rank? No one at Google will respond and this is very frustrating. It’s a good blog. Way more traffic than the blog with a 3. The other day I came across a blog with obvious PPP and paid post banners, many paid posts and generally a spam blog but it had a PR of FIVE!!!!!!
First, Google needs to indicate the area causing the site to be penalized if a site owner requests it. They dont have to share specifics, but they should give an overview, ESPECIALLY when Google has changed its policy and something that was okay yesterday is not ok today. There should be a generic report of some kind available through webmaster tools.
Second, no one with a clear-cut issue should be left guessing. Did they simply overlook something? Google should make that information available. If its a case of borderline violations, or borderline detection methods, Google can be more obscure so that spammers dont abuse the feedback.
Third, there are Google AdWords certified professionals, why not Google SERPs reinclusion certified professionals? Google can provide them more advanced tools or have the relevant Google employees interact with them. Part of ongoing certification could be to help an assigned case a few times per year pro bono.
And when Google changes their policy, they need to provide a single, clear document on the policy, and tools assist in compliance, in ADVANCE. No one should be left interpreting an interpretation of something Matt Cutts said in a video in order to determine details of Googles policies.
And last, Google should not provide methods or tools that CAUSE sites to be penalized. Explanation:
My least read blog (on blogspot) recently lost all Google traffic when I changed the blogspot template. Almost certainly a duplicate content penalty, as I didnt have any posts sorted by topic before, and now do (and not using any suspicious page elements, etc.) Google traffic dropped to zero within a couple hours of changing the template, and it has remained at zero for weeks since. So Google (probably) killed my Google results by oferring the blogspot template. And pages are still indexed, but sending zero traffic (and no, there was never a zero traffic day before.)
It is interesting to see that just one or two paid posts can get you a smackdown… Many people might have assumed you would need to be doing this on a grand scale, and now we all know that is not correct.
chantal, you know your own site as well as anyone. When you do a reconsideration request, I would include as much detail as possible. For example, mentioning that as recently as December there were links on pages such as http://www.phpld.nl/submit_sponsor.php , but that now those links are nofollow’ed or gone, would help when assessing the reconsideration request.
And with that I’ll wind down commenting in this thread. Donna, thanks for starting this thread and keeping the comments productive.
Matt Cutts,
I don’t even know how you manged to read that language LOL 🙂 , but seriously don’t forget to give me a call 🙂
thanks Matt
Wow, my PageRank is back to 6! – It isn’t my original rank (7) but it is tons better than nothing. 🙂
Let me say a couple of things now that I have cooled off and thought about this experience a bit more.
Matt: thanks for your help. People like me can get very pissed but I understand perfectly you are trying just to help. Thanks for that and for not loosing your cool. That is valuable.
I gather that if I have now been returned to a 6 (and not my original 7) there must be still something bothering you guys.
Is this correct thinking?
Given the new confidence gained by this round of exchanges should I try to find something I may have missed that is small and hidden somewhere? 🙂
Donna: thanks for the opportunity. This is certainly memorable for me. You have really done a great job and you are a great host. Keep it up.
Morale: Matt’s recommendations are to the point and they do produce tangible results. I will write a post in a few hours on Master New Media to summarize all that was learned here.
Robin, very happy for you. My guess is the PR6 is not a function of there still being something wrong, but merely the fallout of lots of other sites getting lower PR over the last few months, thereby causing a domino effect all round. Of course, I could be *wrong* but that’s my two cents worth nevertheless. 🙂
Robin, I’ll second Donna there. Even sites like Apple lost a point of PR in that round of updates and you can bet they don’t care about PR or link selling. But I have to ask why you’d get bothered by a PR drop if you are NOT selling links with search engine benefits in mind? As far as I see it, it’s really not worth the time and frustration getting upset over a px of green that SEO have already agreed for years is worthless for ranking purposes. Spend some time on Google Groups and see how annoying it is to answer all the PR questions – plus we can always use more people helping out over there 🙂
Robin, happy to try to help. I don’t have the cycles to be scalable for everyone’s questions, but the ones that point out where Google could improve or that can help a broad class of people are the ones most likely to pull me in.
By the way, I liked your summary and the points you pulled out and posted at http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2008/01/28/google_penalization_matt_cutts_updated.htm