HELP! Google Webmaster Tools Notice of Detected Unnatural links to said site

[TheAnswerMachine]

Hey Guys,
So I'm in a bit of pickle here. I have a NB2 store, and it's loaded with products. I was ranking number 1 for like 5 of my high competition keywords, pulling in like 250 hits per day, a sale twice per week, things were good.

And then all my rankings dropped! All my number 1s went down to number 10s and 11s. My page 1s went down to like page 5s.

I'm so heated, and I have no clue what happened. And then I got a letter from Googy in webmaster central that goes something like this:

Dear site owner or webmaster of http://www.site.com/,
We've detected that some of your site's pages may be using techniques that are outside Google's Webmaster Guidelines.
Specifically, look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could be intended to manipulate PageRank. Examples of unnatural linking could include buying links to pass PageRank or participating in link schemes.
We encourage you to make changes to your site so that it meets our quality guidelines. Once you've made these changes, please submit your site for reconsideration in Google's search results.
If you find unnatural links to your site that you are unable to control or remove, please provide the details in your reconsideration request.
If you have any questions about how to resolve this issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum for support.
Sincerely,
Google Search Quality Team

My question is, HOW ON EARTH CAN THEY MAKE THIS DETERMINATION?!?!?!!

I have been building lots of Build My Rank Contextual blog posts (it's just like Blog Blueprint). Like a lot (in fact I have only been using BMR for the past 2 months at a rate of 10 posts per day to the homepage and some backlinks are like PR 5), so I am assuming it's because they were just too powerful, too many, too strong, and now I got penalized. I am also using LinkPushing.net which again, may seem unnatural. But how does Google make this assumption that it's me, does this mean that in order for someone to debunk their competitors they simply build Build My Rank posts to their site? I thought sites didn't get penalized via Off-Page SEO processes or else everyone could do it to anyone? WTH???

On top of that, I KNOW my competitors are doing something fishy and they have had a hand in this...they are slimy @ssholes, they have sent malicious traffic to my site on 3 different occasions, and recently my Analytics stopped working as well. Every time I rank for a manufacturer keyword, my rankings drop and my site is maliciously attacked. What am I supposed to do here? Should I submit a reconsideration request? I think my Analytics played a big part here, and I think the malicious traffic was a botnet that somehow screwed things up.


Will my other sites and future sites now always be stigmatized in the eyes of Googy?


This is not good at all, not good at all.....


Please Help!

[Dwayne]

I totally believe that a competitor can totally tank another's site. Had it done to sites that I had ranking highly which I was not in the process of building links to and then there were tons built and I disappeared for months. With the new updates I am starting to think this is going to be something that can be done much easier then it was in the past too.

IMO
Dwayne

[panthary]

Agree with Dwayne!

If you have used a blog network, any blog network out there, then you've got unnatural links. BMR = unnatural. I think they're getting substantially better at detecting blog network links.

It's so frustrating to see the #1 & #2 sites that are outright spam, out rank you with same type of links

I thought sites didn't get penalized via Off-Page SEO processes or else everyone could do it to anyone? WTH???

You've been able to do it for at least a year now. I doubt it was your competitors that caused it though, because most people have not realised you can destroy your competition yet It was probably caused by the BMR links, every time they ban a BMR website, they flag it, so when you have a few links from BMR websites that have been banned/flagged, you get flagged for unnatural links.

And yes, I would try a reconsideration request. There is some debate on other forums whether this message is actually a warning or a penalty (if it's a warning, then your ranking drop was caused by something else). I think it's a penalty, so I'm going to try a reconsideration request on the sites that dropped.

I think it may be an algorithmic penalty as well, so although they ask for a reconsideration request, it'll be pointless.

[TheAnswerMachine]

Hey Guys thanks for your responses. Dwayne, what you say is scary, and it makes me not want to do eCommerce anymore....

Thanks for the input Panthary. I think you are right, and I am not going to submit a reconsideration request...it almost seems like a trap...

I still think it's my competitors because it's no coincidence that whenever my site ranked well, and then slapped, that coincidentally I see like 300 direct hits on my site coming from one single location and stays on my site for like 0 secs, raising my bounce rate to a ridiculous 90%. I think they told Googy that I had BMR links and then Googy followed up and penalized me. I've been in this niche for a year, and trust me, these guys are sleazeballs and I could go on about the things they have done in the past.

So should I keep building links now? What kind of links should I build? I'm sure I need to build links to the inner pages now, and go for like article submissions and press release syndication and what not.

Will my other sites be stigmatized now?

Also, what do I do about these black hat competitors? They are such a PAIN!

Any input from anyone would be grand :-)

Thanks!

[brink2012]

I don't see how it could be BMR causing the problem. Content syndication is not against Webmaster guidelines, which is all BMR does.

I know of people ranking #1 in high comp. markets with almost nothing more than LJM links to the homepage.

Once for a client I bought 15 PR5 blogroll links, this SEO guy I bought from not only put them all up on the same day, but used ALL the same anchor text (which I was quite sketchy about), and it only ended up helping my client's rankings.

If you didn't get deindexed then just keep building links. Maybe you should also think about closing your GWT account as well.

On my Ecommerce stores we use GWT and GA, but if I ever saw an email like both accounts would be shut down asap.

[Troy]

@brink2012 - Why would you want to close the GWT and GA accounts? This may sound naive, but doesn't that give you a chance to fix whatever G says is wrong? By having the accounts, you can at least get some sort of feedback from G. And if you close the accounts, what are you accomplishing? The only data you would be removing from view is the visitor engagement data. They still see everything else...ie incoming links, etc.

Thanks,
Troy

[brink2012]

Google can only get limited data without GWT/GA installed.

My point was... If Google is now considering BMR links to be spam, when it's nothing more than article distribution, then I don't want them having any more data than required about my site(s).

I'm in a lot of markets & have a lot of PR links and have never received an email like this. But only my 2 ecommerce stores use GWT/GA.

@TheAnswerMachine - If you want to get revenge, you can simply use scrapebox to DL all your competitors backlinks, check their PR and then report their entire network.

Generally people do a pretty crappy job of covering up their tracks.

@brink2012 - Why would you want to close the GWT and GA accounts? This may sound naive, but doesn't that give you a chance to fix whatever G says is wrong? By having the accounts, you can at least get some sort of feedback from G. And if you close the accounts, what are you accomplishing? The only data you would be removing from view is the visitor engagement data. They still see everything else...ie incoming links, etc.

Thanks,
Troy

[panthary]

I don't see how it could be BMR causing the problem. Content syndication is not against Webmaster guidelines, which is all BMR does.

It's a link scheme designed to manipulate pagerank, those are against the guidelines.

[Matt Lake]

Steve, what are your thoughts on all this?

Considering you guys operate MANY ecommerce stores, have you ever received this message?

I seem to remember you saying that you haven't, but surely it's only a matter of time if that's the case.

Thanks,

Matt

[admin]

We received that message one time...lost rankings...just kept doing our thing...they came back 3 months later or so...#1 in fact.

I do NOT believe that anyone can tank your site maliciously. Here's what happens.

1. You do something to manipulate the rankings (maybe buy links or whatever...not saying anything "wrong" SEO is ALL about manipulating rankings of course)

2. What you did works! And...you rise up and get to position 3

3. A few months later...Google doesn't like what you've done...they "discount" the links...making them worthless.

4. Your site drops because you lose that link "juice"

5. Everyone then thinks that someone is doing something to them.

Let's replace #1 with your competitor doing it rather than you...have they done damage to you ? Not really...as you wouldn't have had a jump in rankings without them...right?

You really have to just use common sense. If Google's algorithm REALLY punished people for certain links...blacklisted them...etc...HOW in the world could they ever discern people doing it themselves vs. people's competitors doing it TO them? They can't.

And...if this were the case...ALL of SEO would be about destroying your competition. It would completely change the way people SEO...and that is just not happening.