Google Manual Penalty

[MegaFreeChips]

Hi There,
My site got a manual penalty 3 weeks ago, called:
'Thin content with little or no added value'
I took the next actions:
- Removed & de-indexed over 200+ pages that were actually thin (The single bonus pages).
- Added 40+ handwritten reviews of 500+ words each, with unique pictures ,summing up to more than 20K quality free text
(yeah that took plenty of hours...)

A week after requesting a review, I got rejected with no specific reason, just the same penalty.
What should I do next?
it doesn't make any sense - as dozens of competing sites have much less unique content and much more "cookie-cutter" pages.

Any help is kindly appreciated.
Thanks.

 

[Casino-Matt]

How did you discover you had a manual penalty?

 

[Bonus Paradise]

How did you discover you had a manual penalty?

You can see this in your google webmaster tools - your site - search traffic - manual actions

 

[Casino-Matt]

Thanks mate!

 

[frankcolt]

Time, you have to wait it out or set up another website with new content. It's happened to me a couple of times - then all of a sudden 6 moths later you are back - or you might never be back - I learned something a long time ago - google does not care about you (or me)

It was probably the algo that flagged you - put on a penalty and MAYBE someone viewed your site - Oh it's about gambling and not the whales and unicorn tabernacle choir - google says FU

 

[superme]

just make some minor changes and try again, also if your site is not in English you should submit the reconsideration request in the original language of the site. On 2nd-4th time the penalty should be lifted, I would clear the main pages from most of the adds so they are nice and readable. Just keep trying and should work.

 

[RyanWeb]

This is why I hold multiple sites.. Yes a lot more time consuming, but a small insurance policy for when something like this happens. Its rare, and unlikely if you have high quality content, but mistakes happen and Google sometimes does things we don't understand.

FYI, I dont recommend everyone have more then one site.. Im just saying I do.. I like to build, but I can say I am also envious of those larger, more well known sites as well


Here is a tip that might or might not work.. Just thinking outside the box.. If you can't get your site to recover.. "sell" your site to yourself, and as the "new owner" request the penalty to be lifted. You may have to change up the whois data a little, transfer the site in WMTs to the "new owner" and maybe even change nameservers.. But depending on how much work you have put into the site, it could be worth a try.

 

[falseadoom]

Time, you have to wait it out or set up another website with new content. It's happened to me a couple of times - then all of a sudden 6 moths later you are back - or you might never be back - I learned something a long time ago - google does not care about you (or me)

It was probably the algo that flagged you - put on a penalty and MAYBE someone viewed your site - Oh it's about gambling and not the whales and unicorn tabernacle choir - google says FU

Best advice from my experience it can take 2 years. I have had penalties and I just let them sit doing nothing 2 years then back. Others I changed added fresh contents, took down all affiliate links, still 2 years.
Penalty could also be combination of things thin contents, dup contents, affiliate links and your backlink profile.

 

[deancow]

What is your backlink profile like? often they issue a thin content penalty when you have a load of dodgy backlinks for some reason

 

[Robban]

Sorry to hear about that but Google works in mysterious ways. My advice is to try to clean up your backlink profile like the previous poster said. Hopefully the penalty will disappear if you know you didnt do anything wrong regarding the Google guidelines.

 

[AussieDave]

it doesn't make any sense

Yep that's G for ya

 

[ARZ]

I had a penalty when I bought older domain with existing backlincks (7000). After I built brand new website on it, I was hit by google for unaturally spammy links pointing to my site. I was the new owner, so I sent the request to remove the penalty. It was removed, but when I saw the indexing rate and site rankings, I moved my site to brand new domain, did a bit of SEO and everything was fine, even without a ton of backlinks, just lot of daily updated content