TRAFFIC
NAME: FILI WIESE WHEN: 18 OCTOBER @ 14:30 WHERE: ROOM 1
Figure 4. A website can suffer from several manual penalties but you need to submit an individual reconsideration request rationale for each issue
individually. That requires singleminded focus on one problem in the reconsideration request rationale. Four different penalties as highlighted in GSC( see Figure 4) require an equal number of reconsideration requests, individually outlining which steps have been taken in order to ensure future compliance with Google Webmaster Guidelines.
Even with just a single penalty to be solved, it is not uncommon to see rationales that veer from one issue to another, bringing unrelated technical issues, service improvements or user popularity to the table. Instead a reconsideration request rationale needs to concisely outline:
• The steps that have been taken
• The numbers of content or links changed, removed or disavowed
• A pledge to abide to Google Webmaster Guidelines going forward The last point, frequently lost on site owners, may be the linchpin for borderline cases that could go either way. That is, of course, if the commitment to follow Google Guidelines is taken seriously. It is important to remember that any penalty lifted can be reapplied.
Lastly, be realistic regarding the prospects of a recovery once a penalty is lifted. Yes, regaining previously enjoyed visibility or even new highs in rankings is not unheard of. It is, however, not the rule. Chances are that Google has investigated the website because of its suspicious, likely not merited, visibility in search. Which is why many sites plateau after a successful penalty removal or even decline in comparison to pre-penalty rankings.
While there is no way of predicting the trajectory prior to a successful reconsideration, there are tested and proven ways to deal with the situation. Every successful website should be audited to confirm Webmaster Guidelines compliance but more so to analyse and improve technical signals. Getting ahead of competition tends to be easier on a technical level, rather than applying risky black-hat methods that Google will inevitably discover. A technical SEO audit can become a springboard for neverbefore-experienced SERP prominence. And if conducted regularly, it has a crucial additional advantage: it can help prevent a penalty before Google decides to apply one.
FILI WIESE is a renowned technical SEO expert, ex-Google engineer and was a senior technical lead in the Google Search Quality team. At SearchBrothers. com he offers SEO consulting services with SEO audits, SEO workshops and successfully recovers websites from Google penalties. searchbrothers. com
12 iGB Affiliate Issue 71 OCT / NOV 2018