Google Adds Reconsideration Request Status Updates

Jun 10, 2009 at 9:23am ET by Barry Schwartz

I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable that Google is now sending email notifications to webmasters after they have reviewed a reconsideration request submitted through Google Webmaster Tools.

This is a major change in how Google previous handled reconsideration requests. In the past, a webmaster would submit a reconsideration requests and a webmaster would have no idea if or when Google reviewed the site. In some cases, the site would simply reappear in the Google index, on other occasions, nothing would happen for months. The webmaster was left not knowing if he/she had to clean up the site more or if Google had yet to review the site for reconsideration.

Now, Google has confirmed they are sending emails to those who submitted a reconsideration requests. The email may be sent days after the request is made and starts with the subject line “We’ve processed your reconsideration request for [mywebsite.com].”

As I reported, Sager from the Google Webmaster Help team said that if you get this notification and your site is not back in the Google index a few days later, your site is likely still in “violation of our [Google] guidelines.”

I am very happy Google has added this step to their reconsideration request workflow.

Postscript: Seven days later, Google has blogged about this new feature.

Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.

See more articles by Barry Schwartz >

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page1pro, June 10th, 2009 at 12:59 pm ET:

This is great news and it’s something we recently experienced with a client site…

We have a client whose site was penalized (-50 penalty) due to another blog inserting a site-wide blogroll link back to this client’s site. We got the blogroll link removed, and we instructed the client to file a reconsideration request, which they did. Five days later, they received ‘the message’ in Webmaster Tools that you refer to above.

However, the client’s site rankings have yet to recover to their previous levels. Do you have any knowledge about what they should do next? Does Google actually send follow-up messages about the status of rankings re-instatement?

nickstamoulis, June 10th, 2009 at 1:29 pm ET:
Premium member since 06/2009

Thanks Barry posting about this…this is very huge news! The mystery that I always had to go through when waiting for new client project sites to get re-instated in the search index was sometime very frustrating…I am so glad to see that Google is making this process much smoother!

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