When building a website and using SEO to optimize it, many webmasters run into a problem: bad links. When a site has a lot of links from less than legitimate sites pointing to it, this can dramatically reduce that site’s rank. While this is done to weed out sites using nefarious backlinking strategies, it’s not always as unpleasant as that. In fact, many legitimate businesses are punished. Unfortunately, Google doesn’t currently provide examples of the kinds of links they consider “bad” when sending out notices to sites in Webmaster Tools.
Where people run into a lot of SEO trouble is when they submit a reconsideration request to Google asking for clarification about what links in particular are the problem. This will often just result in another denial. You see, the reconsideration request system is only capable of giving out “Yes,” “No,” and “Processed” replies. Asking for clarification isn’t going to help you.
Instead, Google engineer, Matt Cutts, recommends visiting the Webmaster Tools forum to ask your questions there. You’ll get helpful feedback from experienced webmasters who may have a better idea of what the problem is. Plus, the Tools themselves offer up some examples of “bad links” anyone interested in SEO should be aware of.
Cutts completely acknowledges that there’s a lack of transparency right now and this is definitely not good for legitimate businesses. However, the reason the system is the way it is at the moment is due to the high number of spammers. Obviously, they can’t respond to each individual who’s trying to game the system with lazy and illegitimate tactics.
Still, Cutts says that Google is working on creating new tools and features that increase transparency and expand how businesses can get a handle on what specific links are causing the problem and what they can do to fix it. Removing links isn’t always easy, but it’s often necessary to boost a site’s ranking and prevent any false claims of spamming.
In the meantime, webmasters will just have to play it smart and make good assumptions about the types of links that are causing the biggest problems for them. Until the tools become more robust, this is all we have to rely on to expand SEO and improve linking strategies and overall site rankings. Now is the time to make the best of what we have to move forward with search engine optimization.
This article has been posted on behalf of Affordable SEO Florida consulting company offering local SEO, internet marketing, mobile website development to small businesses in Tampa Bay area. Visit Affordable SEO Florida Google place for more information on SEO optimization or call 813.321.0577 to schedule a consultation.