Following Google's new manual action against MyBlogGuest and their members, a lot of people have been asking for help with removing manual actions for unnatural links – particularly for abnormal outbound links.
It can be quite worrying when you see a notification of a manual action from Google in your Google Webmaster Tools account, but by taking quick action and working hard to resolve the issue that may be causing the penalty you will soon find transfer will return quite rapidly.
Which Links are the Problem?
Unfortunately Google doesn't provide any insight as to which particular links or pages they consider to be causing the problem. This is the same if you have to clean up unnatural links to your site too.
The clearest place to start is by looking at any links that you have sold. If anyone has paid you for a sponsored article, advertorial or a bought link from your site in the past you should make those links no follow. It is not necessary to no follow internal links.
Have you been using a lot of mutual links as part of your link building campaign? Have you set up a links page on your website and allowed it to become a hoard of cluttered random links rather than a curated list of useful resources?
Google has also become very strict on websites that contain large numbers of guest posts. If you have allowed unwanted guest posters in the past it is worth reviewing those articles to look for links mainly with keyword rich anchor text to commercial pages or the home page of other websites.
If you have a blog and allow comments, check to see if you have allowed commenters to leave followed links with keyword rich anchor text. If you have a comment spam problem, then look at implementing a different commenting platform with better spam exposure.
Keep a clear record in a shared Google Doc of the links that you have misused to no follow or deleted. Google have stated many times in the past that they don't trust external file types as Microsoft Excel as they can contain malware.
File a review Request
After you've checked your website for any links that might be breaking Google's link schemes and made the essential changes, it's now time to submit your review request.
Sign in to Google Webmaster Tools and ensure that you have added and confirmed the website that you want to be reconsidered. Now go to the reconsideration page and select the penalized site from the drop down menu.
Keep your reconsideration message to the point and include a link to the shared Google Doc you formed with the links you have cleaned up.
Dear Google Webspam Team Member
On [date] we received a notification of a manual action for unnatural links from our website. We have reviewed all the links on our site where we believe they are violating your guidance on link schemes and either deleted the link or made the link nofollow.
Here is a Google Doc highlighting the work carried out:
[Google Doc Url]
We are committed to following your guidelines on link schemes in the future
Thank you for your consideration
[Your Name]
Google Says No
Sometimes it can take a few attempts to pass the review request phase. Don't be disheartened. It just means that Google feels you haven't spent enough time fixing the problems.
Infrequently you will receive some examples of links back in your reply, which Google believe are still violating their rules. This can make it much easier to appreciate the types of links you have on your site which Google is unhappy about.
Once you have spent some more time fixing the problem you should submit another review request.
When Will Your Traffic Return?
Once the manual action has been lifted you will notice improvements in your traffic and rankings fairly quickly for your less spirited keywords and brand terms. It can take a few weeks in some instances for your traffic to go back to normal but you will notice significant improvements quite quickly.
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