Good News: Google Reconsideration Requests More Helpful

It's the beginning of your day, you open your computer, tap in your web address and find it displays in Google with a 'warning' under it. You click on your site to find an ominous message: Google has penalized your site because it goes against Google guidelines. If you've never had that happen before, it's kind of like being called to the principal's office as an adult-and you know your day is about to get a whole lot more interesting.

Now what?

You know you need to figure out how to get your site back online, and what steps to take, but you don't know where to start. Google has been historically difficult to work with when it comes to removing site penalties. But there's good news. It's not nearly that dramatic anymore.

In fact, Google has budged, just enough to ensure that if your site is penalized, they offer more information and helpful actions to restore it. Google reconsideration requests aren't as difficult to navigate anymore.

Here's what you need to know, if you find yourself in this situation:

1. The Majority of Penalties Result from Quality Issues in Bad Backlinks

In the last few years, it's been found that about 95% of Google quality penalties are due to some backlinks. These are links from:

• Spamming sites are sites that crawl your site and or comment many times.
• Sites with 'dofollow' links. These sites create a connection to your site and act as added weight. They bring your site’s ranking and performance down because of their low quality.
• Sites that have no relevance to yours, provide no value with limited content and are set-up with automated comments.

There are other reasons, too. There may be a technical glitch, like broken links, or a content management system that won't allow Google bot to properly crawl and index your site. And Google will provide this information.

2. Become Friends with the Manual Action Viewer in Google Webmaster Tools.

Restoring your site to its former status can take some work. You're going to either have to review all of the links Google shows to your site, or hire someone to do so. You will need to review all links and create 'nofollow' code, ensuring spammy sites can no longer track back to yours.

But, Google offers its 'Manual Action Viewer' page to support users with any problems. This is a list of site problems and actions to take to correct them. Again, depending on the amount of issues, this can be a work-intensive process. But ticking off all the actions on this lists helps users troubleshoot more efficiently. Once you're finished, Google provides a link to request a review.

3. Be Patient with Google Review

It can take a while to get your site restored, but not as long as it used to. It can take less than a day to receive a response and Google will provide explicit information if there's anything more you need to do. Getting your site restored can take as little as twenty-four hours. But, if you're still having trouble, there are other options. Consider using the Webmaster Products Forum, where moderators can also help identify the problem and speed-up the process.

To ensure you never find yourself in this situation, the best idea is to download a sitemap, in case your site is hacked and closed completely. Also, make it a part of your IT best practices to sweep your site of bad back links, using Google's manual action viewer. Finally, consider a reputable monitoring company, so you can concentrate on your business.

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