Reconsideration requests are indirectly related to search rankings, as it is an essential step in the process of recovering from a manual penalty from Google.
They make the difference between returning a site in search results or remaining unindexed.
Reconsideration requests play an important role in SEO when rankings are manually penned by Google, but it is not accurate to call them a ‘ranking factor’.
Here’s more about the relationship between reconsideration requests and search rankings, and how they can get your site out of a sticky situation.
Claim: Reconsideration requests ranking factor
All site owners should be aware of reconsideration requests.
At the same time, you hope you never have to deal with one person directly.
If you’re dealing with a reconsideration request, it means that the site you’re working with has been subjected to a manual action (also known as a Google penalty).
The site is now being demoted in search results or removed entirely from the Google index.
You may have heard that submitting a reconsideration request can help remove a manual penalty and get your site back in Google.
Yes, that’s what they are designed for.
Site owners must submit an appeal in order to recover from a manual action.
There is more work involved in submitting an application than it appears, however, if the necessary steps are not completed, the application will be rejected.
The next section outlines what the reconsideration request process involves and how to submit a request that meets Google’s approval.
Evidence: Reconsideration requests as a ranking factor
According to Google Search Console Help documents:
A reconsideration request is a request that Google review your site after we’ve fixed issues identified in a manual action or security issue notice.
The request for reconsideration does not apply to situations where a site is demoted in the Google search rankings for reasons unrelated to a manual procedure, such as an extensive core algorithm update.
It is only reserved for manual actions or security issues.
As stated in the Google document, site owners will be notified if and when they are asked to submit a request for reconsideration.
The notification will explain what specifically led to the penalty and what needs to be done to recover from it.
When all the issues listed in the Google message have been fixed, it’s time to move on to the next step.
Open the Manual Actions report in Google Search Console and click the Request Review button.
Applications are submitted in the form of .txt files containing a written explanation of what was done to recover from the sentence.
According to GoogleA good request does three things:
- Explain exactly what the quality problem is on your site.
- Describes the steps you took to fix the problem.
- Document the results of your efforts.
Be as accurate as possible when writing a request, because it is your responsibility to prove that you did what was required to recover from the penalty.
After submitting an application, do not resubmit a new application until you receive a response from Google regarding the first application.
Google reviews and responds to all requests whether approved or denied.
If Google approves the request, the penalty will be lifted.
If the application is rejected, another application can be submitted after further effort has been made to address the outstanding issues.
It is possible that there are no ongoing issues and the application was rejected because it did not contain enough detail.
This is another reason why it is important to document your work.
If you fix an issue and don’t tell Google about it in your reconsideration request, it won’t count toward your penalty refund.
Reconsideration requests as a ranking factor: our judgment
Reconsideration requests are loosely related to ratings but it is imprecise to describe them as a ranking factor.
In fact, there is no guarantee that the site will regain the same ranking it had before after recovering from the penalty.
A site can, and likely will, rank significantly lower after a penalty because the previous ranking was achieved by violating Google’s guidelines.
Google’s John Mueller stated as much while advising site owners to adjust their expectations after recovering from the manual action penalty:
The other thing to keep in mind with manual actions in general is that if you clean a manual action, it basically means that in the past your website ranked artificially.
The manual action type took care of that. And if you clean it up so that manual action is no longer necessary, your website will be arranged in a different situation.
It can happen that it’s very similar to what it was before, but it can also happen that your previous positions in the search were artificially inflated, by force, because of the things the manual action was looking for.”
A reconsideration request has no inherent benefit to a site’s rankings, other than taking it out of Google’s penalty box.
Featured Image: Paolo Bobetta/Search Engine Magazine
