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

If the efforts made to get back into Google’s good graces are deemed insufficient, a reconsideration request rejected message is forthcoming. That message seems to be uniform and merely states the active status of the penalty.

There are occasionally variations of the message which go beyond notifying the site owner and offer a little guidance regarding the persistent violation. Those messages, which seem to be most common in the case of unnatural inbound link penalties, are customized and include specific violation examples.  Any spam backlink samples that are explicitly mentioned in such a message must inevitably be disavowed. Merely disavowing the links Google highlighted in its notification is insufficient, and a complete backlink audit is in order.

Regardless of the type of penalty applied, repeated reconsideration request attempts are possible. Currently, Google seems to have no cap on the total number of requests that are allowed. However, every new request must reflect an increased effort to align the website with Google Webmaster Guidelines, or there’s little chance of eventual success.

Reconsideration Request Rejected notification

A standard reconsideration request rejected message is most common for sites which have not been sufficiently aligned with Google Webmaster Guidelines. It includes no additional clues.

Unnatural Links Persist notification

At times, a custom reconsideration request rejected notification does include some clues. Sites identified as backlink spammers may receive messages with up to five individual unnatural link URLs to aid their anticipated, increased efforts to apply for reconsideration.

 

This page is part of Search Engine Land’s ultimate guide to Google penalties and messages.

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