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.

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.

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.

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.