I would like to have feedback from anyone that has submitted a Google reconsideration request. Did you get good results, worst results or nothing at all? Do you actually get a response from a support team? I am considering submitting a request because I have one of my pages (a sub-page but an important one) which has always ranked number 1 in Google for a keyword, but it dropped considerably about 2 months ago. It is now positioned between 300-350. Even worst is that all my other pages have also dropped a bit in Google at about the same time. The page is still #1 in MSN and #2 in Yahoo, so this seems to be a Google issue. I am worried that I got this penalty after running a "contest" to get some social bookmarking links. I have stopped running such contests about a month ago, but no changes. Should I submit a reconsideration request? I don't do anything I consider to be black-hat SEO, but I'm still afraid to submit a request to Google after all the paid link fuss. Thanks for any help.
This would not require a reinclusion request, that is used for websites\web pages that have been removed or banned from the index, your issue is related to on-page\off-page optimization, due to changes in algorithm it's not uncommon for a web page to drop from top search results.
I understand a page can drop due to some algorithm changes, but going from a steady #1 spot to over 300 seems more like a penalty. Google has also changed the request name from reinclusion to reconsideration since not every penalty leads to removal from the index: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/reinclusion-request-howto/
I explained my own reason for considering a reconsideration request, but I am looking more for general feedback from anyone who has submitted a request. I was hoping to start a thread about reconsideration requests in general. We all know how to submit a request, but does anyone know what happens after?
I chose not to submit a reconsideration request after all. It seems that was the right thing to do since my rankings returned to normal or better after a few weeks. I still don't know what happened exactly. Maybe just a problem with the algorithm. I have had good Google rankings ever since.
Hi, not sure if this helps but i had a domain name with my website on it and then i had another spare domain which i simply pointed to the same site... woops double content penalty and my primary site got slapped in the face HARD! So i sent a request to google explaining what had happened (innocent error) and told them what changes i had made to rectify the problem... boom 1 week later i was re-indexed in google, so on that note i had a good expereince with them. Just make sure you tell them why you think you have been penalised and what you have done to rectify the problem.