Penguin Recovery Possible Solution (when all fails...)?
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Hi,
INTRO We were hit pretty bad - first with unnatural links warning and then (we assume) by penguin.
We removed a lot of links and disavowed the removed along with all others we couldn't.
The manual penalization was revoked but the site is still down.I understand that Penguin and Unnatural links are not the same.
I assume that while our removal and fixes were enough for the manual penalty to be removed the penguin algorithm still disapproves us.Also, I am not expecting to be where we were but we know our current locations don't make sense (several pages seem to be de-indexed).
AND THE QUESTION... SINCE ALL HAS FAILED, we consider removing the main landing pages (which were the target for link-building) and build new ones with new URLs. In the old ones placing 404 and not 301.
This means that all the spammy links that were built will point to non-existing pages (404)
(besides for those that point to the homepage...)Do you think it will resolve the problem? Or since the spammy links still point to our domain we are still in a problem? (even if to 404 pages).
The way we see it, it is the last resort prior to dropping the domain!
Thanks
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Thank you both for the answers.
We do not have a manual penalty. I filled another reconsideration and within a week I got the response that even though there was a manual penalty, it has already been revoked.
I was also hoping (based on some articles I read) that it might cause them to re crawl my site and see that many changes were made but I see no such effect (also in the GWMT). For example, the titles of our pages that are in the SERPS are still the ones from before the changes we did.
NOT KNOWING is unbearable. I'm at the stage I don't mind a new domain but if it is simply a matter of waiting two more months then obviously we'll wait.
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Did you disavow the remaining spammy links that you were unable to get rid of?
Also if you have another manual penalty (either site-wide or page-specific) could have a "time out" limit on it, which hasn't expired yet - as Tom alluded to above. See the attached video.
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Hey there
The only way to find out is to test, I'm afraid. I've seen Penguin and other algorithmic penalties be page-specific and some that are domain-wide. I've actually used a similar test to find out which it is myself in the past.
But that test will show you whether the algorithmic penalty is page-specific or domain specific. Don't forget, however, that just because the manual penalty was removed, you could still have a residual penalty on your site that will expire and be lifted over time, so that might be in play.
I'd go ahead with your test for sure.
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