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Google Reconsideration Request

August 8, 2012 By 11 Comments

Reconsideration RequestGoogle has recently made some changes in its ‘Reconsideration Request‘ process. If your website has been already penalized by the search engine or you want to make sure it doesn’t get penalized in the near future, understanding the reasons of penalty as well as knowing the right steps to send a reconsideration request is extremely important.

What Is A Reconsideration Request?

A ‘Reconsideration Request’ (also known as a re-inclusion request) is an official process of Google in which it reviews websites that have been punished for not following its guidelines. It’s basically a request letter to Google. You confess how did you mess up the things, how you will fix the issue and promise you won’t violate the policies again in the future. If your message and loyalty reach the search engine perfectly, they revoke the penalty on your website.

When you will Request for Reconsideration?

Your keyword ranking has suddenly stopped turning up in the Google search result. Don’t know the reason? Google has posted a video in the webmaster tools help section explaining some possible cases that can cause penalty. The video also shares some tips to consider while sending reconsideration request.

After watching this video, if you found out that your website has violated Google’s quality guidelines:

  • Confess your all mistakes
  • Explain the attempts done in order to fix the mistakes
  • Try to be as elaborative as possible. Add each and every point with maximum details.

If your website is associated with another website, say it’s your partner’s website, and the partner has by mistakenly violated the Google’s quality guidelines, it will impact negatively on your website as well. You have fixed all the mistakes on your site but finding it a bit difficult to fix issues of the site you don’t manage. You can document this scenario while requesting reconsideration. For example, if links were bought as a part of joint PPC campaign, show them how you are making sincere attempts to clear out everything and how you have already stepped out to break your partnership in the paid links campaign.

Even after watching the video, if you couldn’t trace the reasons why your website receive a penalty:

  • Go through Google’s Quality Guidelines
  • Learn what things need to be avoided and share queries of the people working on your website
  • It’s wise to take benefit of third-party analysis; you may hire an expert SEO professional to perform this task for you.

There are cases when the site owner is at no fault and still they receive penalty due to certain consequences. For example, you purchased an expired domain name which was earlier penalized by Google for the case of spamming. In such case, you can clearly explain the things in reconsideration document and make them lift the ban.

Before filing a reconsideration request, make sure that your website doesn’t boasts of any technical issues such as server down time. Read the terms and policies of Google and validate your website in its webmaster forum. After going through all these steps, if you find that your website has been penalized by Google, you can start documenting the request. You may also hire SEO Consultant to work on your website.

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Thank you to my Guest Post Author: Kristinakathy Green 

Kristinakathy is an SEO consultant and an owner of an SEO service provider firm. She along with her team of SEO professionals have delivered smashing success to plenty of clients hailing from different industries and different regions of the world.
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  • Andi the Minion

    Very interesting, you have made me think, do Google ban you or just stop you climbing up the rankings? Say for instance, you had a unique domain name not similar to any word in the English language, and has no keywords associated to it. As an example think of the two websites beginning with Z one is about houses for sale the other is for dating, (women for sale?) :-) .

    If they were penalized by Google, would their unique domain name still result in top rankings due to less competition and people searching for that exact brand name?

    Hope that makes sense.
    Cheers
    Andi

    • http://onlineincometeacher.com/ Matt Smith

      You know what, I’m not sure. That’s a very good question! I suppose it depends on what you have been banned for.

      Many people get banned from Google AdSense for dodgy behavior, but if they fix what they were doing (they may not have known that they were doing something wrong in the first place) then they can file a reconsideration request to get accepted again.

      As for being shown on the search engine, I think a unique domain would still show up, but Google would probably stop that site appearing for any keywords. Keywords & phrases are after all the best way to rank a site highly and get traffic, so this would harm the site.

      I think the best way is to just follow the rules in the first place. The search engines control the internet, so it’s best to work WITH them, rather than trying to get around them.

      Great question Andi!

  • http://www.mobileapptycoon.com/ Thomas @ Mobile App Tycoon

    I was wondering something similar to Andi as well – does this work for sites that haven’t been deindexed but have lost their ranking on a particular search term?

    Thomas

    • http://onlineincometeacher.com/ Matt Smith

      I would imagine that if you can show that you have made the effort to fix what got you banned in the first place, then Google will review whether to up ban them.

      A good example would be if someone bought a website from someone, but then found that such site had been penalized for something. If they fix what was wrong, then you should be OK.

  • http://twitter.com/JohnBanksBlog John Banks

    Google really is tightening the goalposts these days. I am yet to have any penalties on any of my sites, but I say yet because I am sure one day it will come. Most probably with me not knowing anything about it – and being genuinely in the dark about the whole thing. I have had the odd Adwords campaign removed but fortunately that is about it so far……
    I have also heard stories of peoples Adsense accounts being shutdown for no ‘clear’ reason, people who use Adsense as their main income……
    Its quite scary for people who use IM as a full time income knowing that actually in some cases they still actually work for someone – and that someone is the big G.
    Nice post.
    John

    • http://onlineincometeacher.com/ Matt Smith

      Hi John! Yes, it can be quite scary when you think how reliant internet marketers are on Google. I suppose that’s one reason why they should try to branch out and create other revenue/traffic streams away from Google.

      I’ve had a few people email me asking why they got banned by Google AdSense as they don’t seem to know. I’ve found that when I start to ask them some questions about it though, they have been doing something that goes against Google’s rules (usually publishing duplicate content).

      That’s why it’s SO important to read Google’s terms & conditions (rules) so that you don’t do anything to get banned in the first place. Hopefully this post shows that even if you do get banned, if you can show that you can make the necessary changes, you can get re-accepted by them.

      • http://twitter.com/JohnBanksBlog John Banks

        Yes – I have been very careful so far to abide by their rules. I am experimenting with a few micro niche sites at the moment with Adsense running on them so I have to go by the rules. Rather interestingly I was approached by a “company” the other week asking would I like to go into partnership with them on an Adsense venture. They “could not” get an account so was I willing to use mine on their site and then I take 20% of any royalties?
        Run for the hills!…….

        • http://onlineincometeacher.com/ Matt Smith

          Sounds pretty fishy to me!

          Common sense says that these types of companies are doing something wrong, otherwise they would be using their own AdSense account. You do right to stay as far away from these people as possible.

          Google wants people to make money with their AdSense program because ultimately that makes them money! However, they need people to do it legitimately because it’s their reputation on the line, that’s why they have their rules that people must follow.

          That’s why I’m always surprised when people try to get round them by doing something dodgy. In the end, they will just get banned and all that work trying to get round the rules will be a waste of time. Instead they could have spent that time working legitimately and creating something that makes them money.

  • http://futurescheduler.appsicum.com/ Appsicum

    Please share the negative and positive aspect of site reconsideration.

    • http://onlineincometeacher.com/ Matt Smith

      Well I think a lot depends on whether you can demonstrate to Google that you have fixed (or at least attempted) all the issues that caused you to be banned in the first place.

      Everyone can make mistakes, so if you can show that you have made steps to improving your site so that you won’t get banned again, then you should be accepted again.

      If however, you don’t show any progress to fixing the issues that caused you to get banned, then you won’t be reinstated. You could be seen as someone that only wants to abuse the system.

      Google aren’t bad! They just want to provide their services to those who are willing to use it right.

      • http://futurescheduler.appsicum.com/ Appsicum

        Thank you so much.