Google Penalty - notice of detected unnatural links

[ddzc]

Hi everyone,

I'll keep this brief...I handed my site over to an SEO guy and within 3 weeks, I started ranking well for everything. Within a month, I lost all ranks and I got these messages in my inbox "Google Webmaster Tools notice of detected unnatural links". I'm not no where in Google land for anything, but my pages are still indexed so I'm not totally banned. This happened in March-April...I'm assuming panda/penguin hit it.

I made the SEO undo most of his work on it and removed a bunch of garbage duplicate articles which he posted on 50+ article directories, bookmarks, etc. I unfortunately can't all of the links removed.

I would like to do a revamp of my entire site and SEO it properly on my own.

My big question is, do I move everything over and start fresh on a new domain or should I continue it on this one? This is a huge decision, and I don't know what to do. I would really hate to do all of this hard work on a domain which is penalized for the rest of it's existence...but I'm not sure how Google handles these types of situations. After a message like that, I'm assuming they have no trust in my domain whatsoever. I also don't know whether they look at whois information and red flag all of my domains under my name?

I have a domain in the same niche which has no linkbuilding to it, so it's obviously got no PR...it's been around since 2008 though...if that even matters (lots of controversy about domain age benefits).

The domain in question which got the penalty is a PR4, 10 years old, about 1200 links (20-25% are "good and high quality").

Pros, what are your thoughts and suggestions for my situation?

Thanks

[DarrenHaye]

This happened in March-April...I'm assuming panda/penguin hit it.

There is a difference between penguin and panda, penguin is about links, panda is about your sites content.

Do you know the exact date of your drop?

I didn't think people hit by penguin received a unnatural links warning, as I understand it a unnatural links warning is apparently a manual thing, penguin is an algorithm.

The domain in question which got the penalty is a PR4, 10 years old, about 1200 links (20-25% are "good and high quality").

what are your thoughts and suggestions for my situation?

How many of the links are spammy? how many use keyword anchor text? how long would it take you to get them removed? could you even get them removed?

It's tough to help you without looking into your site.

ps.There is no debate about domain age mattering, if you bought a plot of land but never built a house on it, why would it have any value in terms of being a house?.

[KernelPanic]

Cutts himself has said it may be better to start over with a new domain after a penguin attack

[ddzc]

I thought I may have been hit by both...but I just read that the Penguin was released on April 24. I was hit on Apr 7.

After the update, I added a lot more content so it wasn't as "thin". After I received the SEO report, I noticed all of the links built were exact keyword searches, no diversity. Each page had about 4-5 keywords targeted and all 5 keywords were used in the link building, no others.

I'm trying to get them all removed but some I do not have control over and contacting the webmaster of those properties was of no help. I'm still in the process of removing some articles which were created. Many other links are from blogs, some related and some not..those are harder to get removed. I just ran a backlink report and I would be safe to assume that the majority of links are of low quality.

I tend to agree with you on the age debate. I just have a backup domain in case I need to start all over again..it will be tough converting my present site to the new domain and quite time consuming.

[DarrenHaye]

Cutts himself has said it may be better to start over with a new domain after a penguin attack

I'm not convinced it was penguin if he got an unnatural links warning, also being negatively hit on the 7th of April doesn't fit in.

I'm trying to get them all removed but some I do not have control over and contacting the webmaster of those properties was of no help. I'm still in the process of removing some articles which were created. Many other links are from blogs, some related and some not..those are harder to get removed. I just ran a backlink report and I would be safe to assume that the majority of links are of low quality.

How much time do you think it will take you to clean up? would you rank anyway without the bad links? is it worth hiring a professional to look at your site to give you a better idea of if/how you can recover? I could continue with a lot more questions lol.

I guess really there is a million different aspects you're going to have to look at to decide if starting again is the best option.

[Darrin Ward]

Thou shall not have all eggs in one basket!

This, my friends, is the biggest lesson I have ever learned. And I had to learn it about 5 times before it finally hit home.

Anyway... My advice is that if you are successful at monetizing the traffic in your industry set up at least one new site and preferably more like 3-5 other sites, all with completely separate content, designs, material, hosting, strategies, etc.

For the site that got hit... Clean it up as much as possible and then submit a reinclusion request (although I think you're only supposed to submit those when you are completely deindexed.) But I wouldn't just move it elsewhere and redirect because the problem may just follow you... Expect that everything you have right now has a contagious virus... the domain, the content, links, EVERYTHING. Isolate it and work on it to try make it better, but don't completely shut it down, redirect it, or use it anywhere else.

[DarrenHaye]

This, my friends, is the biggest lesson I have ever learned. And I had to learn it about 5 times before it finally hit home.

Anyway... My advice is that if you are successful at monetizing the traffic in your industry set up at least one new site and preferably more like 3-5 other sites, all with completely separate content, designs, material, hosting, strategies, etc.

I guess this depends on your time, resources and niche.

For the site that got hit... Clean it up as much as possible and then submit a reinclusion request (although I think you're only supposed to submit those when you are completely deindexed.)

The message itself says

"We encourage you to make changes to your site so that it meets our quality guidelines. Once you've made these changes, please submit your site for reconsideration in Google's search results."

[fathom]

Thou shall not have all eggs in one basket!

IMHO the flaw is in your logic not the execution... as the cliche isn't what you think it is.

You suggest you need a backup crime just in case your original crime fails.

Your rational implies you don't have a viable & successful business to start with which is why you invest in webspam which (I suppose) is a perfectly valid reason to have more eggs.

I would argue... if you didn't waste thought, time, assets, and revenue on more eggs BUT instead risk all that investment on the original egg... your investment will pay off.

If it does not... maybe your business wasn't a very good venture to start with.

[ddzc]

Thanks for the help and responses guys. I'm still not sure what to do though...I guess it's a guessing game b/c no one really knows what Google is really doing on the backend when they unleash that warning.

[fathom]

My big question is, do I move everything over and start fresh on a new domain or should I continue it on this one?

Assuming the SEO "UNDID" all that he started... you should send a reconsideration request.

It generally takes Google 30 days to response.

If they revoke the manual review you may need to wait for the next PENGUIN re-RUN (which may be Labor Day by then).