@Snoopy, Google was very vague in their email. I’ve been trying to read up on this stuff to find out what steps I can take to get back in good standing with Google. Apparently this same email has gone out to millions of other site owners. It’s very frustrating because I really don’t know what’s going on. After reading through a bunch of articles on the subject a few more things that I think may be causing this issue:

1. I’m in a popular blogroll that creates more backlinks then I have combined on the rest of my site. I’m guessing this could be construed as “unnatural linking”
2. I noticed a lot of back links from blogs that are scraping my site. Obviously scraper sites would be considered low quality backlinks, but I have no control over this.
3. I have 2 other pet blogs that I link to and from. I wonder if Google thinks this is a blog network?

The good news is traffic on my site is back up, but I still noticed that my pages do not have Page Rank. I probably keep working on cleanup mainly because my old posts written nearly 5 years ago could use a facelift.

Thanks for your support and congratulations again to you on winning the PetSmart/BlogPaws contest!

@Marc, I have been hearing that it’s a bad idea to do a re-inclusion request. I have seen a small drop in traffic, but I think this was due to the most recent Panda update. The only thing that is really bugging me about this (besides the letter) is the loss of PageRank. Have you heard of Google returning PageRank after a penalty?

I most likely will not do a re-inclusion request unless I see a significant drop in traffic. Thank you for your advice!

I’d probably recommend you do not do a re-inclusion request at this point.

Remember at this point, it is an algorithmic notice.

As soon as you do a re-submission request, it becomes manual, and REGARDLESS of if you built the links or not, you will be expected to get them removed.

Check out this post.

It’s a very good write up on the matter.

Also if you received some drops, it may not be because of that notice at all.

It’s highly possible it was just part of an algorithm update, though you would know your own stats best.

If you have been doing quality posting, and none of the link building yourself or through a hired company, chances are you “should” be safe.

Putting in that re-submission request may prolong the issue for you.

Some circumstances it is better to do a re-submission request. When the penalty is clear (loss of all main term rankings).

Hope that helps

@Jason, thanks for the advice and reassurance. I’m going to keep working on it then resubmit my site along with all the updates I made.

“If you were looking at your Google Analytics around the dates of March 21-23, then there is a good chance you saw some changes to your site…

Like a 10% to 30% drop in traffic.

It could be on sites you were working on…or sites you hadn’t even touched. Some speculated that the long-term search was being affected where keywords were disappearing in the Google Suggestions.

In fact, what happened was Google rolled out a fresh update of Panda in February…and then another in March.

Some significant changes have been made through those updates that can affect your link-building strategy…so let’s explore those changes and others to help you maintain if not increase your rankings.” – Check out the full article 7 Link Building Mistakes You Ought to Avoid

Sounds very similar to what I’m noticing with my site and March 21st to the 23rd are the dates I noticed a decline in traffic. I read through the list and here’s where I think I might be able to make more improvements to my site.

Mistake #1: Too many exact anchor text links – I only do this when I inner link my pages, but in general I don’t have much control from outside links since I do not buy or do any link exchanges.

Mistake #2: Not enough semantic keyword anchor text links – I don’t think this is a problem since most of the linking I have control over is within my blog.

Mistake #3: You don’t have enough junk anchors – I usually do not create junk anchors when I inner link my pages. I’m going to try and increase my number of junk anchors.

Mistake #4: Not enough brand mention within text links – When I look at my link profile I say a large percentage of brand mention in my text links so I don’t think this is a problem.

Mistake #5: Not enough social signals – This is an area that I’ve neglected a bit. Moving forward I’m going to make an effort to get more social signals to my blog.

Mistake #6: Buying links – I never bought links before so this should not be a problem.

Mistake #7: Exchanging links on a mass scale – I’ve never exchanged links so this should not be a problem either.

Some good tips and hopefully working through some of these will not only make the experience better for my readers, but also get me out of the Google dog house.

@Jason, thanks for your response. I know there are a lot of people out there who have received the same message. I wish I had a better idea of what I needed to fix. Right now my thought is that I may be over optimizing my posts and inner links since I have never bought or exchanged links and I’ve never been a part of a blog network.

The good news is it’s given me a chance to look back at and make some updates to some of my older posts.

Here’s to hoping that the weather gets a little bit better 🙂

Google is like the weather. You can’t change the weather you just have to adapt to whatever it’s doing. So keep adding good content designed to attract readers and potential links and thats all you can do.

First BIG Congrats on winning the Petsmart/Blogpaws contest…..

Second, so sorry to hear you’re having these problems 🙁

I wish I knew how to help, but I’m no techy Dog! I’d have thought Google could have told you what you needed to do to fix this problem, but what do I know….? 🙂

Good luck in getting it resolved,

Your pal Snoopy 🙂