If your site has been hit by a manual web action by Google, you have the chance to ask them nicely for a site reconsideration. In order to do this, you must have Webmasters Tools installed on your site. Reconsideration requests take some effort to do correctly. You aren’t simply telling Google to remove a penalty. You must prove to Google that the penalty should no longer apply to your site. Follow these steps to file a reconsideration request.
- Make sure there is a manual webspam action taken against your site in Webmasters tools. If your site was hit by an algorithmic penalty you cannot file a request.
- If you have bad backlinks, contact the administrators of the sites linking to you and request that the links be removed. Continue to disavow the backlinks that are not removed. Keep a record of this.
- Replace any duplicate content with original content. Also make a record of this.
- In the reconsideration request, outline everything you have done to fix the cause of the penalty. If the black-hat methods were used by an SEO firm that you hired, notify Google the name of that company. However, don’t give them all of the blame. Be sure to take responsibility for allowing the poor practices to continue unchecked.
- Be nice in the letter. Have a pleasant demeanor and be forthcoming with everything that you did wrong in your SEO endeavors. Be sure to tell them how you are going to recommit yourself to good SEO practices.
- You should hear back from them within a couple of weeks. If the request is not accepted, do not do another one right away. You will have to wait at least a month before you send one again. That is why you want to do it right the first time.