In recent months I have been working with a client who had a major drop-off in organic search traffic a little over a year ago. Since then they have been trying to reclaim their lost search rankings (and the traffic that it provided).

To accomplish this they have made major renovations of their site code and filed for reconsideration.

Here is what the first few times they recoded looked like:

Notice the three spikes? Those are reconsiderations. Just because your reconsideration goes through doesn’t mean it will stick. So, why don’t they stick and how can you tell if it is going to hold?

Human vs. Robot\Spider

This has to do with the perception of the human editing your site. Even the human beings AT Google don’t know how the machine works. So, the person reviewing your site may feel that you are clearly wonderful, but along comes the spider that puts you back where you were. There are a number of auto-filters that will suppress your site based on off-site issues the Googler doesn’t see, business vertical exceptions (Real Estate, Porn, Poker etc.) or technical issues that (most) humans don’t pick-up.

Now What?

• Reassess your technical issues.
• Catalog your changes.
• Look at your links.
• Catalog any thing that my seem shady or bought.
• Correct any issues you can.
  • Recode
  • Contact linking sites
• Allow enough time for approximately half your indexed pages to be  re-cached.
  • A simple thumbnail for this is checking the cache dates of the top 20 results in a “site:your_site.com” search
• Write a comprehensive explanation of the actions that you have taken to meet guidelines.

After submitting your request for reconsideration here expect 3 – 6 weeks, depending on time of year, before you see a major change in traffic. Following the initial bump there is one critical moment that will forecast your success: traffic at 72-hours. If these numbers are significantly lower than your initial bump you will likely reset to pre-consideration numbers.

Before you start again to find what may have triggered the automated filter look through your Keyword Traffic Report to find where your improvement came from. Make sure your paid search people pay special attention to these phrases while you return to the drawing board.

Don’t give up if you are hitting auto-filters they can be overcome, the client from the graph above has successfully overcome their issue and doubled their organic traffic. Remember that not all sites are created equal. There are no simple rules for what needs to be changed but implementing as many white hat tactics as possible and pursuing legitimate link growth during your work toward high ranking will help you reach your tipping point in holding organic position for an extended period of time. Reconsideration is only one tool; it is not a solution by itself.

Here is another take on requesting reconsideration.