GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 29 - July 2014

Are therekeyelements inwritinga successful reconsideration request? Use statistical and contextual evidence (time-stampedwherepossible) to support your claim in a readableway.A clear and concise summarymay help. I like to use Google Drive products because you can track historic changes to administration. Ifwe’reworking as a team Imight link to tutorial videopresentations (via a private YouTubeURL) to showGooglewe’re tak- ing our approach seriously, that it’s been overseen by more than one person and that the removal strategy is universally appliedwithinour business. Go above and beyondwhat you think is required. No amount of effort should be spared; this isyouropportunity topresent your case in the fullestwaypossible. What should youdo if Google is turningdown your reconsideration request on thebasisof links you can’t findusingavailable tools? Google often turns down reconsideration requests and provides examples of poor- quality links that justify itsdecision. It can beavery confusing time if you can’t iden- tify these linksusingyour existing tools. If this is the case, in our experience you should communicate to Google the fact that your can’t identify these links. It is unreasonable to expect that you remove/ disavow links you can’t find. Doesa siteever truly recover fromapenalty? I have worked on sites that not only re- covered rankings, but actually exceeded their previous rankingperformance. Will Googlemaintain records of previous penalties?Most likely. It’sworth thinking of your stock with Google as being like a credit rating. On the road to recovery, think about how you can improve your credit score by stickingwithin the search engine’s guidelines. Should you link-buildwhile trying to removeapenalty? What is the nature of your penalty? If you have no idea, you’ve done nothing wrong and it’s literally come out of no- where, then you need to lock everything downquickly. This iswhere you’re going to have to develop a deep understanding of the nature of your link profile, m oni- tor links and their incoming velocity and come togripswithwhat’s goingon. Negative SEO is rife and there’s no point confusing the removal process or je opar- dizing any future hard work with your current circumstances. Understand the root of the problem anddowhat yo u can to fix it before continuing your o nline marketing strategy. If you have the facil- ity to do so, I’d recommend settin g up some kind of server-side alert to d etect incoming links. If you know you’ve been manipul ating the algorithm, then accept the fact t hat it worked for a while and that it’s tim e to stepup and change tack. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ed Yates is head of o rganic performance at Bluecla w. 18 Google penalties: Some key questions tohelp youon the path to recovery