Google Re-evaluation Request

A re-evaluation request can see your site pop back into the index. If you think that you may have infringed the terms and conditions laid down by Google then this is your chance to own up and get things moving again. The best thing, as advised by Matt Cutts, is to be honest; they already know what you’ve done wrong.

Below is an example of a request sent for a site that had knowingly participated in some border-line acceptable practises but had since been completely cleaned. Obviously, not all points will be relevant but this open and honest approach worked and the site re-appeared in the SERPS within about 8 weeks.

“My site [sitename.com] in the past has participated in automated link networks which is why I believe the site is being penalised. This happened as a result of bad judgement on my part being a new webmaster at the time.

The site has moved on and a great deal of work has been done over the last 12 months to both eradicate elements that violate Google’s terms and to build an ethical and reliable information resource for the UK. Work has been done for both ‘on’ and ‘off’ page elements of the site including:

On page

• Complete rework of titles and descriptive elements removing any that could be considered spam, making them more relevant to the user
• Source code has been ‘cleaned’ to remove any javascript elements that may be causing problems – this included a javascript banner rotator on each page
• Pages that contained unrelated links – both one way and reciprocal have been removed from the site
• During the last year over 100 unique articles covering current & relevant topics have been crafted and added to the site
• Content is updated regularly – once a week to keep the site fresh and informative
• The blog has be moved and incorporated into the rest of the main site giving visitors the opportunity to leave comments
• Server headers have been improved to include additional information

Off page

• The site & blog have been moved to a new server on a new IP address hosted in a secure datacentre
• Bad links / redirects have been removed from other sites
• Genuine ethical link building has been carried out using a combination of article submissions, press releases and site & directory submissions.

A huge amount of time and energy has been made over the last 12 months to build the site in an ethical manner. All elements that I’m aware of that could have infringed guidelines have been removed / rectified. We’ve learned from our experience and mistakes and will only continue to build the site in a fashion that will ultimately benefit the end user.”