Reconsideration Request

In English, a Reconsideration Request is understood to be a request for reopening or a request for a review of a website that had to forfeit positions due to a penalty or was removed from the search engine index. Generally, the Reconsideration Request can be filled out and submitted via a form in Google Webmaster Tools. However, various aspects need to be considered. Among other things, a Reconsideration Request is only possible if the website is affected by a manual penalty from Google's search engine staff. In the event of a ranking loss due to changes in the search engine algorithm, only the corresponding adjustments to the website can lead to an improvement or re-inclusion in the search results.

Manual penalties have different causes. Search engine staff can manually penalize ranking, among other things, due to unnatural link structures, poor content, spam (including user-generated content), cloaking, or invisible content. These are generally violations of the general webmaster guidelines that Google has developed regarding website optimization. Such violations are detected and enforced by the Webspam Team or the Search Quality Team, but can also be reported by any internet user.

When does a reconsideration request succeed?

In order for the Reconsideration Request to be successful and for the website to recover its ranking losses, there are a few things to keep in mind. The basic requirement is to fix the problem. To do this, you need to know which pages are specifically affected by the penalty and where the alleged violations are. In the Google Webmaster Tools, the errors are listed with the corresponding URL. It is recommended to document the various steps taken to eliminate the errors and send this in the Reconsideration Request to Google. This can be advantageous for the employee's assessment.

Anyone who wants to submit a Reconsideration Request selects the affected site in the Webmaster Tools and provides a brief summary explaining the reason for the request for reconsideration (including the reason for the exclusion). This is followed by an explanation of the error corrections. Ideally, all steps can be demonstrated and verified (for example, a table with all removed links that led to an unnatural link structure). A successful and timely processing of the Reconsideration Request is determined not only by thorough documentation but also by correct and polite wording. Exact processing times are not known, but generally, feedback is received after a few days or weeks. In this feedback, one is informed whether the request has been accepted (penalty lifted), rejected (penalty remains), or returned for further correction.