Backlinks and reconsideration requests

When talking to site owners on Google Webmaster Forums we come across questions on reconsideration requests and how to handle backlink-related issues. Here are some common questions, along with our recommendations.

When should I file a reconsideration request?

If your site violates our Google Quality Guidelines or did in the past, a manual spam action may be applied to your site to prevent spam in our search results. You may learn about this violation from a notification in Google Webmaster Tools, or perhaps from someone else such as a previous owner or SEO of the site. To get this manual action revoked, first make sure that your site no longer violates the quality guidelines. After you've done that, it's time to file a reconsideration request.

Should I file a reconsideration request if I think my site is affected by an algorithmic change?

Reconsideration requests are intended for sites with manual spam actions. If your site’s visibility has been solely affected by an algorithmic change, there's no manual action to be revoked, and therefore no need to file a reconsideration request. If you're unsure if it's an algorithmic change or a manual action, and have found issues that you have resolved, then submitting a reconsideration request is fine.

How can I assess the quality of a site’s backlinks?

The links to your site section of Google Webmaster Tools is a great starting point for an investigation as it shows a significant amount of your site’s inbound links. If you know that you ran an SEO campaign during a particular period of time, downloading the latest links can come handy in slicing links created at that time. Using the links found in Google Webmaster Tools, we recommend looking for patterns that point to general issues that are worth resolving. For example, spammy blog comments, auto generated forum posts or text advertisements with links that pass PageRank are likely to be seen as unnatural links and would violate Google’s quality guidelines. For individual examples and hands-on advice we recommend getting help of peers and expert webmasters on the Google Webmaster Forum.

How do I clean a bad backlink profile?

Make sure to identify poor links first, then make a strong effort to get them either removed or nofollowed. Then use the Disavow Links Tool to deal with remaining unnatural backlinks. We recommend using domain-wide operator for sites with a complicated URL structure, very obvious spam sites, such as gibberish content sites or low quality sites with content that shows no editorial value. See our video on common mistakes when using the disavow tool for more information.

How much information do I need to provide?

Detailed documentation submitted along with a reconsideration request can contribute to its success, as it demonstrates the efforts made by the webmaster and helps Googlers with their investigation. If you are including a link to a shared document, make sure that it’s accessible to anyone with the link.

How long does it take to process reconsideration requests?

Reconsideration requests for sites affected by a manual spam action are investigated by a Googler. We strive to respond in a timely manner, normally within just a few days. However, the volume of incoming reconsideration requests can vary considerably, hence we don't provide a guaranteed turnaround time.

What are the possible outcomes of a reconsideration request?

Upon submitting a reconsideration request, you will first receive an automated confirmation in Google Webmaster Tools. After your request is processed, we'll send you another message to let you know the outcome of the request. In most cases, this message will either inform you that the manual action has been revoked or that your site still violates our quality guidelines.

Where can I get more guidance?

For more information on reconsideration requests, please visit our Help Center. And as always, the Google Webmaster Forum is a great place for further discussions as well as seeking more advice from experienced webmasters and Google guides.

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Google's Matt Cutts On Using ccTLDs

Matt Cutts, Google's head of search spam, in another video answer, responds to the question about using ccTLDs (country code top level domain names). The question was "Should I use ccTLDs for sites not targeted to those countries?"

 The answer is pretty straight forward. If it is part of the list of generic ccTLDs that Google has specifically said there is enough use to warrant them to be generic, then go ahead and use them. If they are not on that list, then be warned, the site on that ccTLD may be localized to the country of the ccTLD.

In the Google+ post, one person brings up the domain youtu.be, which I used above to link to the video. In that case, it would be a ccTLD that is NOT generic, according to Google's own list. But since it redirects (well, a 302 redirect), it doesn't matter much. But if the main site was youtu.be and not youtube.com that would be an issue.

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Why do reconsideration requests fail?

Here are the most common reasons for a site to fail a reconsideration request:

• Not properly identifying which links need to be removed.  It is really hard to identify what is a natural link and what is not.  Remove too many links and you’ll harm your site’s rankings even more.  But if you don’t address enough of your links then Google will not reconsider your site.
• Not making a big enough effort to get links removed. It is not enough to just disavow your bad links.  Google wants to see that you have gone to great efforts to get links involved.  This means contacting webmasters via available email addresses, whois addresses and contact forms, documenting those attempts at contact and then communicating this to Google.
• Improper use of the disavow tool. Once you’ve gotten all the bad links that you can removed, then it is very helpful to use the disavow tool to ask Google to disavow the rest of the bad links.  If you don’t format your disavow.txt file correctly then it won’t work. Google doesn’t tell you whether or not your file is correctly formatted. They simply ignore it if it is not created properly.

No automated tools are used in the process of deciding whether links should be removed. Each domain is visited and each link is manually evaluated. This is the best way to ensure that all of your GOOD links are kept which gives you the best chance at regaining rankings once the penalty is removed.

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Google AdSense: Responsive Design for Ad Units

Everyone is asking? What took so long?! Google has finally announced a beta of a new ad unit designed for responsive designed web pages.

In the past, Google said you can modify your ad code to make it work for responsive design web pages, but now, you have the option of using a native AdSense ad unit specifically for responsive design web pages.

To access this, go to your AdSense console, login and create a new ad unit. Then from the drop down of ad sizes, select "Responsive ad unit (BETA)." Yes, Google warns this is a beta.

Google AdSense Responsive Design Ad Units

For most serious publishers, they have already come up with a hacked solution to make their AdSense ad units work on responsive designed web sites or avoided it. But now, many will begin exploring this new beta option.

Google does warn:

Be sure to specify fixed pixel values when setting the width and height of the ad to be served.
Make sure that the specified width and height match one of our supported ad sizes. Please note that link unit sizes aren’t supported at the moment.
The new ad code is responsive on initial page load only. Subsequent changes to the ad size, such as a screen orientation change, will not cause a new ad to be displayed. We know that this is an important feature for many of you and we’re currently working to address this.
Always set a default ad size in case some media queries aren’t supported.

Forum discussion at Google+ & WebmasterWorld.

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Access Your Gmail: More Easy Conversation & Massages with Tabs in Gmail A/C

Wow Great I was surfing online my Gmail Account few days ago. And I found there a new updates in my Gmail account. When I was checking my colleagues email. He had sent me an email for my information. Actually he uses the Microsoft Outlook for the email communication. 

 

Google has updated his Gmail account option. Where we can manage our emails easily and can categories by label.

Yes when I logged in my Gmail Account to access my emails. I was socked with happiness & joy. Because, I have seen my email that has been set by labels like all social networks emails and notification are in the Social Tab, Primary Tab and Promotion Tab.

Although It is all updated by Google. I got already set it in my Gmail account. And we can add more tabs according to our needs. Now I manage and categories my all massages in the Tab label.

Bellow I am giving the snapshot of updated Tabs.

Really it will save the time that we can utilize in other work production. Just only login to email account and get all massages automatically categories in the Tabs.

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Ignore That Last Google Webmaster Tools Notification: Googlebot CAN Access Your Site

In the past twenty-four hours, it seems as if Google sent out a message to thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of site owners, that there is a problem with their site.

Typically, you never ever want to ignore a webmaster tools notification but in this case, the messages were sent in error.

Google told these webmasters that "Googlebot can't access your site", that the site had connection failures and Google was unable to access your site.

Here is a sample message one of my clients received (although I received several):





Google's Matt Cutts wrote in the thread that this seems like an error on Google's side. He said:

Hey everyone, please don't worry about this message at this point. Enough people are getting this message that I suspect it's an issue on our end.

I've got an email out to our webmaster tools team, and we'll figure out what's going on. Thanks.

John Mueller of Google is asking webmasters to post example URLs so they can fix the issue.

The thing is, I checked this morning and webmaster tool's console does not show the error on these sites still, so maybe it was a Google error.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

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Google is celebrating the first Indian passenger Train Journey

Google is on Tuesday celebrating the 160th anniversary of the first passenger train journey in India with a doodle on its homepage.

Do you know: When our first Indian Passenger Train Ran?

On April 16, 1853, the first commercial passenger train chugged out of Bori Bunder, in Bombay to Thane, covering a distance of 34 kilometres. The train was hauled by three locomotives, Sahib, Sindh, and Sultan.

The search engine giant takes its visitors on a short journey into the history of Indian Railways, with a train pulled by a steam engine along the palm-lined railway track. The first 'O' of Google depicts the front part of the steam engine of the passenger train.

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