Has your website been hit by Panda? Are you wondering how to get Google to reconsider your site in search? Well, now what? Thankfully, Google allows brands to send reconsideration requests so their sites can be rediscovered in SERPs.
Unfairly hit or wearing a black hat?
Some content marketers believe they’ve been unfairly hit in Google’s attempt to bolster quality content, while others admit that black hat SEO practices may be responsible for Google’s decision to exclude sites from SERPs. Duplicate content, cloaking and other tricks will cut off sites from Google search results.
Fortunately, Matt Cutts recently released a video on Google’s webmaster blog with tips on how to put together a proper reconsideration request so that the search engine will take another look at sites and pages.
Bad practices stopped, never coming back
Matt Cutts says a reconsideration request needs to convince Google of two things: First, Google has to see that the flagged practice, such as the addition of paid links, has been put to a stop. Secondly, content marketers and SEO experts need to convince Google that spamming and ‘old tricks’ will not happen in the future.
Cutts explains that some sites suffered because of unfavorable SEO advice they received from so-called experts. These details are important to include in any reconsideration request. Cutts gives the example of how one company put a training program in place so that quality guidelines for SEO were prioritized, limiting the amount of spammy practice that went on at the company. The company included this information in their reconsideration request to Google. It’s crucial to make sure that Google understands how much effort has been put into the creation of quality, custom content that meets Google’s standards.
“The more we can suss out and try to assess that you’re not of the mindset, that you’re not going to do a fly-by-night trick…the easier it is for Google to say ‘ok, it looks like things are in pretty good shape. Let’s go ahead and grant that reconsideration request.’ – Matt Cutts, Google’s Distinguished Search Engineer
Marketers create content with Google’s algorithms in consideration
Marketing managers and digital experts with questions about SEO best practices might consider turning to a third-party agency to help clean up websites. Brafton recently reported on Panda 22, Google’s most recent algorithm update, which impacted 0.8 percent of search queries. Panda is only one of Google’s algorithms that can prevent websites from making it into search results, but content should be optimized in order to evade hits that will drive down a site’s potential.
