Are Reconsideration Requests A Google Ranking Factor?

Reconsideration requests are related to search rankings in an indirect way, as they are a necessary step in the recovery from a Google manual penalty.

They determine whether a website is re-indexed in search results or remains deindexed.

When Google holds down rankings manually, reconsideration requests play an important role in SEO but calling them a “ranking factor” is inaccurate.

Here’s more on the link between reconsideration requests and search rankings, as well as how they can help your site get out of a bind.

Reconsideration Requests Are A Ranking Factor, According To The Claim

Reconsideration requests should be familiar to all site owners.

Simultaneously, you hope you’ll never have to deal with one.

If you’re dealing with a reconsideration request, it means a manual action has been taken against a site you’re working with (aka a Google penalty).

The site has either been demoted in Google’s search results or has been completely removed from the index.

You may have heard that filing a reconsideration request can help you get rid of a manual penalty and reclaim your Google ranking.

That’s exactly what they’re made for.

In order to recover from a manual action, site owners must submit a reconsideration request.

However, submitting a request requires more effort than it appears, and if the required steps aren’t followed, the request will be denied.

The following section explains what the reconsideration request process entails and how to submit one that Google approves.

Reconsideration Requests As A Ranking Factor: The Evidence

The following is taken from a Google Search Console help document:

“A reconsideration request is a request to have Google review your site after you fix problems identified in a manual action or security issues notification.”

In situations where a site is demoted in Google’s search rankings for reasons unrelated to manual action, such as a broad core algorithm update, a reconsideration request is not applicable.

It’s only used for manual tasks or security concerns.

Site owners will be notified if and when they are required to submit a reconsideration request, according to Google’s document.

The notification will detail the events that led to the penalty and what must be done to avoid it.

It’s time to move on to the next step once all of the issues listed in Google’s message have been resolved.

In Google Search Console, go to the “Manual Actions” report and click the “Request Review” button.

Requests are submitted as.txt files that contain a written explanation of what was done to avoid the penalty.

A good request, according to Google, accomplishes three things:

Explains the specific problem with your site’s quality.
Describes the steps you took to resolve the problem.
It serves as a record of your efforts.

When writing a request, be as detailed as possible, because it’s up to you to prove you’ve done everything necessary to avoid the penalty.

Do not resubmit a request until you have received a response from Google regarding the first one.

All requests are reviewed and responded to by Google, whether they are approved or denied.

The penalty will be lifted if Google approves the request.

If the request is denied, a new one can be submitted after more work has been done to resolve the remaining issues.

It’s possible that there are no ongoing issues and that the request was denied due to a lack of detail.

Another reason to keep track of your work is for this reason.

It won’t count toward your penalty recovery if you fixed an issue but didn’t tell Google about it in your reconsideration request.

Requests for Reconsideration as a Ranking Factor: Our Conclusion

Reconsideration requests are tangentially related to rankings, but calling them a ranking factor is incorrect.

In fact, recovering from a penalty does not guarantee that a site will regain its previous rankings.

Because previous rankings were obtained by violating Google’s guidelines, a site can and will likely rank much lower after a penalty.

While advising site owners to adjust their expectations after recovering from a manual action penalty, Google’s John Mueller stated as much:

“The other thing to keep in mind with manual actions in general is that, if you clean up a manual action, that essentially means in the past your website was ranking in an artificial situation.
The manual action kind of took care of that. And if you clean it up so that the manual action is no longer necessary, then your website is ranking in a different situation.
It can happen that it’s very similar to before, but it can also happen that your previous positions in search were artificially, strongly, inflated due to the things that the manual action was looking at.”

Except for getting a site out of the Google penalty box, a reconsideration request has no inherent benefit to a site’s rankings.