Google Reconsideration Request

Google Reconsideration Request: How and When?

 Though losing PR is not a big disaster, it can have certain impacts on your blogging life. For example, you might have noticed two empty ad slots on the sidebar. Since small time ad networks and advertisers there in are paranoid about the PR factor, I ended up losing some ad income – though very trivial. During the initial stages of this low PR state, there was also a bit of reduction in search traffic as well though not significant.

Well, the good thing is that Google has actually ‘reconsidered’ my blog’s search rankings and they have come up with some ‘help’ based on my Google reconsideration request. Thetoolbar PR is back now at 3 and more interestingly I have an increased number of indexed pages on Google.

What is Google reconsideration request?

Google reconsideration request is a mechanism to contact Google via your verified Webmaster Tools account if you encounter one of the following issues:

1. You noticed that your website is not at all appearing in Google search, but in the past it used to
2. Your site’s search ranking on Google has degraded as compared to the past
3. A ‘site:http://www.yoursite.com‘ query on Google lists none of your pages
4. You purchased a domain that you think may have violated Google webmaster guidelines before you owned it and you want to get it corrected by Google

The above are the ‘official’ reasons to contact Google for reconsideration. However, as it looks, even (5) for ‘visible’ toolbar PR drop or even (6) to get your site listed on Google you may contact Google. i.e after having submitted to Google search long back and after uploading sitemap etc.

How to contact Google for reconsideration?

It is very easy. First of all you need to have an account with Google Webmaster Toolsand you must have the website under consideration verified there in by one of the site verification mechanisms available.

Once you have a verified site, you can click the ‘Site reconsideration’ link on the Webmaster Tools to submit your request to Google. Please note that it takes three or four weeks for Google to respond but that’s how life is. While contacting Google, please do the following.

• Describe the problem in a crisp and short manner
• If you have committed a mistake that probably violated the Google webmaster guidelines, please admit it. In my case, I had written about a traffic generation tool and I mentioned that. I also admitted changing the blog to a DoFollow blog
• Explain what corrective actions you have taken after you noticed poor search rankings e.g. Removed a controversial post, reverted some blackhat SEO stuff you did etc.
• Provide data points as to why you feel the ranking is poorer now
• Highlight the importance of visibility of your business on Google
• Once again make sure that you are adhering to the webmaster guidelines before submitting the site reconsideration request

You have to make one and only one request till you hear. In about 20 or 30 days you will receive a mail from Google that your site has been reconsidered. If you hear so, if you do a recheck of indexed pages, you would have had more of them now. In my case, it increased significantly and so is the search traffic for the past two weeks or so.

The toolbar PR, though a trivial thing, may also be back in a few days.