Restore / Manual Actions / Reconsideration Formal Appeal Reconsideration Request. Three elements, per-URL evidence, the structure the review team needs.
The reconsideration request is the formal appeal Google requires after a manual action. The review team accepts requests that name the exact quality issue, describe the specific steps taken across every affected URL, and document the outcome with per-URL evidence. Partial remediation is the most common rejection cause. We author the request to the structure the review team needs to approve.
Four facts about the reconsideration request that govern the submission shape.
The request documents the remediation. The remediation has to be complete across the full affected surface before the request is written. The diagnostic in front of any reconsideration filing runs at <a class="prose-link" href="/">SEO Penalty Removal</a>; the per-category remediation engagement is <a class="prose-link" href="/manual-action-removal/">manual-action removal work</a>.
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Three elements, in this order.
Google's review team accepts requests that name the exact quality issue per the flagged category, describe the specific steps taken across every affected page, and document the outcome with per-URL evidence. The structure is not optional. Vague rebuilding language earns rejection before the team reads past the first paragraph.
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Partial remediation is the most common rejection cause.
The category has to be fixed across the full affected surface. Fixing the obvious URLs and leaving the long-tail in place reads to the review team as evading the work. The audit catalogs every affected URL before the remediation starts, and the request documents the fix per-URL.
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Googlebot accessibility during review.
Pages affected by the manual action have to be fully accessible to Googlebot during the review window. No noindex meta, no paywall, no robots.txt block, no canonical pointing the remediated page at a different URL. Blocking the crawler prevents verification and stalls the review.
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Per-category variations the request has to acknowledge.
Unnatural-links cases require dated outreach evidence and the disavow file Google's spec accepts (UTF-8 .txt, max 100,000 lines, 2MB, 2,048 chars per URL, the domain: prefix). Cloaking and sneaky-redirects cases require DOM-parity restoration screenshots. Scaled-content-abuse cases require deletion or rewrite logs. The shape of the evidence package is the category's evidence package rather than a generic one.
Three phases. Evidence, author, submit.
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Catalog the affected surface. Document the per-URL fix.
We pull the Manual Actions report, the affected-URL inventory, and the per-category remediation log. Before-and-after evidence captured per URL. For unnatural-links cases, the documented removal-outreach round runs with dated outreach attempts and recorded responses.
- Affected-URL inventory across the full surface
- Per-URL before / after evidence
- Documented removal-outreach log (unnatural-links cases)
- Disavow file authored to Google's spec (when applicable)
- Googlebot accessibility verified per URL
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Write the request to the three-element structure.
The request opens with the exact quality issue per the flagged category line, then names the specific steps taken across every affected URL, then documents the outcome with the per-URL evidence package attached. No marketing language. No throat-clearing. The review team is reading for specifics.
- Element 1: exact quality issue per category line
- Element 2: specific steps per affected URL
- Element 3: outcome documentation with evidence
- Per-category evidence shape (outreach log, disavow, DOM parity)
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File through Search Console. Track the review response.
Submission goes through the Search Console Manual Actions surface. Reviews take days to weeks; link-related cases run longer because outreach evidence is manually verified. If rejected, the rejection cause is named and we refile against the gap.
- Submit through Search Console
- Track Manual Actions report for response
- If approved: monitor recrawl and ranking movement
- If rejected: read the cause, fix the gap, resubmit
What operators ask before authoring the request.
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What does the three-element structure look like in practice?
Element 1 names the exact category line Google flagged (unnatural-links-to-site, thin-content-with-little-added-value, scaled-content-abuse, etc.) and the underlying behavior that produced it. Element 2 lists the specific remediation per affected URL instead of a generalized rebuilding statement. Element 3 attaches the per-URL evidence package: outreach logs for link cases, before / after captures for content cases, DOM-parity captures for cloaking cases, deletion logs for scaled-content cases.
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Why do most reconsideration requests get rejected?
Partial remediation is the most common cause. The review team checks samples across the full affected surface; if URLs the original audit flagged are still in the manipulated state, the request is rejected. The second-most-common cause is missing or thin outreach evidence on unnatural-links cases. The third is vague rebuilding language that fails to map to the three-element structure.
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How long does the review take?
Days to weeks. The review team does not commit to a timeline. Link-related requests historically take longer because the outreach evidence package requires manual verification per documented contact attempt. Plan engagement scope against weeks, not days.
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Can I file the request myself?
You can. The three-element structure and the per-URL evidence requirement are documented. Most rejected requests we audit fail on partial remediation or thin evidence rather than on writing quality. The work is the remediation; the request documents it. If the underlying fix is incomplete, no amount of authoring saves the submission.
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Does the disavow file count as remediation evidence by itself?
No. Google rejects requests where the disavow ran without documented removal outreach. The expected order is outreach first (dated attempts, recorded responses), then disavow against the residual that could not be removed, then the request. Link disavow authoring builds the file; disavow file format covers the spec.
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What if a prior agency already filed and the request was rejected?
We audit the rejection cause first. Common causes: partial remediation across the affected surface, missing outreach documentation, vague rebuilding language, accessibility blocks during review. We fix the gap and refile against the original category line. The manual-action removal work runs the remediation; the request documents it.
If you have a manual action in Search Console and you need the reconsideration request authored to the structure the review team needs to approve, book the diagnostic.
We audit the affected surface, document the per-URL remediation, compile the disavow file or DOM-parity evidence the category requires, and author the request to the three-element structure: exact quality issue, specific steps taken, outcome documentation.