Reconsideration request processed: Search Engine Land’s ultimate guide to Google penalties and messages

The majority of all reconsideration requests submitted to Google are processed and either approved or rejected. There are, however, rare exceptions in a small number of edge cases where a clear-cut decision does not seem to be possible.

These cases are met with a Reconsideration request processed notification — which, judging by the wording, seems to indicate that, while a worthwhile effort was recognized, there’s more than just one type of violation present. This may explain why it implies that one penalty may have been lifted while another one was refined.

A rare Reconsideration request processed notification, which almost always seems to come with a friendly reviewer hint

Without a doubt, this message does not mean good news for the site’s owner — or the site’s visibility. Consequently, more investigative work is required.

There’s a silver lining on the horizon, however. Most reconsideration request processed notifications come with a specific “note from your reviewer.” This is a manually edited message from a sympathetic Googler trying to help — an encouraging signal for the site’s future prospects.

About the author

Kaspar Szymanski

Kaspar Szymanski is a founding member of SearchBrothers.com and a well-known Google Search expert specializing in recovering websites from Google penalties and helping websites improve their rankings with SEO Consulting. Before founding SearchBrothers.com, Kaspar was part of the Google Search Quality team, where he was the driving force behind global web spam tackling initiatives and the public face spearheading Google webmaster outreach and communication efforts.