If your website received a manual action notice from Google, you now have the chance to request to the almighty Google to reconsider your website. If you’re not sure if your website received a manual action, take a look at our blog post on, “How to Determine If You Were Hit By A Google Penalty Or An Algorithm Update”.

Now that we have that all squared away, we have 5 tips to share with you before submitting your reconsideration request.

1. Take action:

If your penalty is in regards to unnatural links, then you will need to conduct a link removal campaign. This should be extremely thorough and never be rushed. We love data and you can never have too much, so be sure to export backlink reports from Google Webmaster Tools, Moz OSE, Majestic, Raven, Ahefs, and Bing Webmaster Tools. Once you have this information, you will need to manually review each URL to determine if they are affecting your site negatively and reach out to webmasters requesting removal. Once you’ve done all that you can, upload the list of negative links to the disavow tool. Don’t forget to follow best practices when using the disavow tool. Sha Menz, Lead Software Architect of Rmoov and link removal expert, visited our office last August and put together a great video on tips for using the disavow tool.

2. Show off

Now that you’ve spent months working on link removal, countless late nights and weekends – you can show this off to Google! They want to see as many details as possible. Provide Google’s webspam team with a Google doc on the details of your hard work, including:

1. List of negative links
2. Number of attempts you’ve reached out
3. 2-3 contacts per each domain
4. Link to a Google document that shows proof of those emails
5. Notes of webmaster responses
6. Screenshots of contact forms submitted

3. Be Honest

Did an SEO company build these spammy links? Did someone in-house? Google asks for you to include this information in your reconsideration request. While mentioning the SEO company you hired, it’s important that you also take responsibility for their work and provide details on the mistakes.

4. Keep your word

Google wants good faith and assurance that your website will not violate Google’s webmaster guidelines again. Do your best to convince Google that you’ve learned your lesson and have plans in place to ensure this won’t happen ever again. Perhaps you are executing an inbound marketing strategy, hired an ethical SEO company, or that you’ve created a training program within your company on Google’s webmaster guidelines – be sure to let Google know that you’re committed to following their rules!

5. Be Patient

In most cases you should expect to hear a response within a range of two to six weeks. Occasionally, the response time can be quicker than that but it’s important to remember that the reconsideration request is read by a webspam team member – yes, a real human.

If you’ve been hit by a penalty and don’t know where to start, contact Teknicks today! Our link removal experts have experience revoking countless penalties and are happy to help get your website back on the right track.