What it Looks Like to Be Hit By Google's Real Estate Reciprocal Link Penalty

Ever since I saw the penalty instituted against real estate websites for reciprocal and other manipulative link practices, I've been on the lookout for a site I could share (whose owner wouldn't mind). Tonight, I'm lucky enough to have just such a gem.

There can be little doubt that JohnSabia.com, a Fort Lauderdale real estate agent's site, was engaging in some very manipulative linking practices in the past. However, John's a reformed gray hat turned white and knows quite a bit more about the world of SEO than he did prior to Google's shot across the bow for reciprocal linking. Unfortunately for him, the penalty lasts quite a while.

John's given me permission to display his site and some search results related to him in an attempt to illustrate what a harsh penalty at Google really looks like. First, we'll look at the results of 4 different searches that attempt to pull up what should be relatively obvious, navigational searches on John's site.

Google Search - johnsabia.com

This first search tells me that John's not banned - in fact, you can see that 396 pages are in Google's index and the PageRank in the toolbar still shows a 5/10.

Google Search - johnsabia

Obviously, this search should be pulling up John's site. Virtually every page in this list links to his site and there's no other destinations a searcher could likely want using this query. John's actual ranking here is #14.

BTW - I just love the 4th result above - the Google Groups thread on the penalty. I only wish I could say that I've never felt John's pain, but actually, back in 2004, our client's site AvatarFinancial.com was sandboxed so heavily it ranked #350 for the search "avatar financial hard money lenders & bridge loans" - the exact title tag. Maybe the memory of that frustration is, in part, responsible for the inspiration of this post. Now back to the subject at hand...

Google Search - fort lauderdale fl real estate johnsabia

Another very obvious query for John's homepage, including exact text from his homepage's title tag. John's ranking #57 for this query. Incidentally, this should be another good hint at a penalty. By appending additional keywords that are highly relevant to John's site, he should be ranking higher, not lower, than the general query for "johnsabia."

Google Search - bay colony fort lauderdale luxury home john sabia

In this search, I'm looking specifically for John's page on Bay Colony, which Google has in its index, but I won't find it at all in Google's results (though a couple pages from John's site do rank #45th and #46th).

So there you have it folks, a truly penalized site in all its glory. If you're wondering if your site is penalized, you won't find a much better example of what a penalty looks like. Please, do feel free to share examples in the comments if you have them. For some reason, I love looking at how Google penalizes and conducting ridiculously obvious searches that fail to produce the requested site/page.

If you're looking for a process to follow to escape, refer back to my post from a few weeks ago on the topic. John's already submitted his re-inclusion request after removing all his reciprocal links and contacting his real estate friends asking them to remove their links as well. He's been in the penalty zone, allegedly, for over 60 days, and I wouldn't be surprised if the penalty took another 5-10 weeks (or more) to lift.

Full disclosure - I have no relationship, personal nor professional to John or his site, nor do I have any client relationships at the current time in similar fields. John emailed me several weeks back, I gave him a bit of advice, then asked him if I could publicly discuss his site and he agreed.