Everything You Need to Know to Avoid (and Fix) a Google Penalty for Product or Service Reviews

Google product or service review penalty

By now, you’ve probably heard that Google sent out a batch of manual penalty notices for what they called “unnatural outbound links” directly related to a warning they issued a few weeks ago for bloggers to disclose reviews published in exchange for free products.

Google warned bloggers to use a nofollow link if you decide to link to the company’s site, the company’s social media accounts, an online merchant’s page that sells the product, a review service’s page featuring reviews of the product or the company’s mobile app in an app store, because the links wouldn’t exist if the company hadn’t provided a free good or service.

As expected, lots of bloggers logged into their Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools) after ignoring that warning, only to find they had received a manual penalty. This particular penalty is too new for anyone to have recovered yet, but if it’s anything like we’ve seen with Penguin-related penalties, the recovery process is probably not going to be quick or easy.

Google rage

If you’ve already been penalized, you’ve got a tough road ahead of you. If you know you’ve violated Google’s guidelines on product reviews but haven’t received a penalty yet, you need to clean things up immediately. (Instructions below.) And if you don’t know whether you’ve violated Google’s guidelines or just want to make sure that you don’t, read on below to learn how to avoid a Google penalty for compensated product reviews.

Product or service review best practices

Use the nofollow attribute where appropriate

Links that pass PageRank in exchange for something (tangible or intangible; money, products or services, exposure, etc.) are a violation of Google’s guidelines and can get your website penalized. It doesn’t matter where you’re linking; any website, social profile, product page, reviews, apps, etc.

Here is an example of link code for a normal link without the nofollow attribute:

<a href="https://spartanmedia1.wpengine.com">Spartan Media</a>

And here is an example of link code with the nofollow attribute:

<a href="https://spartanmedia1.wpengine.com" rel="nofollow">Spartan Media</a>

To be safe, you should include the nofollow attribute on any

  • link (including links to website, social profiles, and apps) in a review for which you received anything in exchange
  • affiliate link
  • linked banner ad
  • text link ad
  • theme or web site design credits in footer
  • links embedded in plugins
  • links in guest post bios

Note: If you’ve purchased the product or service on your own, you don’t need to use a nofollow tag. An example of this is our review of the social media software, Edgar, which we currently have several paid accounts under. (We had one account with them prior to publishing the review.)

Disclose the relationship

You should already be doing this, according the the FTC, but now you have one more reason. Many ethical brands will encourage, perhaps even require disclosure, because it strengthens trust. An outstanding example of this done right is Pat Flynn’s resource page. The link to his disclosure notice is prominent, near the top of the page, and is clearly worded.

Pat Flynn's disclosure

He also thoroughly discloses any relationships in both of his podcasts. (Smart Passive Income and Ask PatI highly recommend subscribing to both because they are filled with actionable information.)

Create compelling, unique content

Visitors come to your blog for something you provide that no one else can—your perspective and opinions, right? So give them what they’re looking for when writing a product review instead of just following what someone else said. Find a way to present your review in a way no one else has and make it completely your own. Both visitors and search engines will reward you for this.

How to fix a product or service review penalty

The first step is to find out if you’re affected. Log into your Google Search Console and navigate to Search Traffic > Manual Actions. If it looks like this, you’re good. (For now.)

Google manual actions

On the other hand, if you see a message stating “Unnatural outbound links from [http://yourdomain.com/] violate Google Webmaster Guidelines.” then you’ve received a manual penalty from Google.

It’s okay to be upset, but there’s no use in panicking. This penalty is 100% caused by activities taking place on your site, so fixing it is completely within your control. (Unlike Penguin-related penalties.)

All you need to do at this point is:

  1. Fix the problems
  2. Submit a reconsideration request to Google

Make sure everything is fixed before submitting a reconsideration request, otherwise, the process will take longer because Google will tell you to pound sand until everything is 100% fixed.

I’ll give you a perfect real-world analogy…for those who don’t know, I served in the Marine Corps, and if you’ve ever watched a movie about the military, you might get the impression that we were a bit OCD about the condition of the barracks. Every Thursday evening, we would conduct the kind of cleaning that most people might do once a year. Literally every surface would be scrubbed, carpets would be removed, hell, air conditioning vents would even be removed to clean inside the ducts!

Now, most of my Marines were squared away and got everything pretty damn close to perfect, even by Marine Corps standards, but we can find something wrong in every room. If I found something wrong and instructed them to fix it and make sure there were no more discrepancies, I damn sure had better not find one when I come back.

Unfortunately, every platoon had at least one shit bag who failed to meet standards, and when I returned to their room and things were still not in order, I would find as many reasons as I wanted to come back until they got the point. Even if it meant unscrewing the threshold of the door to find dirt!

Here are a few things to avoid in your reconsideration request:

  • Denial or blame. It’s your site and it doesn’t comply with the guidelines they require to be listed in their results. That’s all that matters.
  • Whining about the guidelines being “unfair” or “difficult.”
  • Whining about the penalty’s impact on your traffic, income, reputation, etc.
  • Anger or sarcasm.

Don’t repeat them in the future

Google will keep a closer eye on your website going forward, so don’t give them anything negative to find.

Wait for the penalty to be lifted

If you’re the type who prefers to pay someone to do this kind of work—just remember, there is nothing they can do in this situation that you can’t. They may be faster and more efficient at the tasks, but there is no secret trick here. It’s a simple matter of fixing the problems, notifying Google, and waiting.

What do our clients say about Spartan Media?

We could talk all day about how awesome we are, but we know you’d rather hear what our clients think, so here’s what they have to say about what we’ve done for them and the impact it’s had on their businesses.

Kim Kiyosaki

Kim Kiyosaki

Co-founder, Rich Dad Company

Jeremy’s strength is matching your message with the most effective media outlets and spot on audience demographics. He is very strategic, extremely diligent, does all the heavy lifting, and he makes you look good. If you want PR results that go above and beyond, then I’d definitely go with Spartan Media.

Matt Andrews

Matt Andrews

Entrepreneur, Investor, Venture Capitalist

I own multiple businesses in the real estate and marketing spaces and the only PR team that I’ll use is Spartan Media. It’s really important that I get exposure in the right media outlets and that’s exactly what Jeremy and the team at Spartan Media help me do. They are the best in the industry and I highly recommend working with them.

Christina Krause

Christina Krause

Founder, Postal Impact

I can’t tell you how many times someone has said, “I saw an article about your company and it reminded me to circle back to you.” That has been a really interesting component of our relationship. We certainly have increased our presence, but it’s really interesting how many people we already know that have reached out to do business with us directly as a result of seeing us featured in the media.

Dr. David Phelps

Dr. David Phelps

CEO, Freedom Founders

Working with Spartan Media has been a real pleasure. They make the connections, craft talking points, and always make sure I’m prepared—and they do all the heavy lifting to make it easy for me. So we get it together, it’s efficient, it’s dialed in, and it makes me show up as an expert. Credibility and authority is everything in today’s space and Spartan Media does it better than anybody else. 

Tatiana Zagorovski

Tatiana Zagorovski

Founder, Trio Realty Partners

Working with Spartan Media has completely transformed the way people see me and my business. They’ve helped me get in front of the right audiences and share my ideas and expertise across the nation—and the results have been incredible. I’m now being recognized as a trusted authority in my industry, and people are reaching out to me because of the exposure and status they’ve created for me.

Jason Keyz

Jason Keyz

CEO & Principal Broker, KEYZ Group

I don’t have the time to reach out to the media, and it’s one of those things where if you actually tried to reach out yourself, you’d be met upon deaf ears anyway. So working with the team at Spartan Media, that specializes in exactly this and does it on a daily basis, is the best way to go. Plus, their white glove treatment is exactly what you need because it let’s you focus on running your business.

Nicole Espinosa

Nicole Espinosa

CEO, The Short Sale Queen

My experience with Spartan Media has been amazing! I’ve been featured in Inman, Entrepreneur, Benzinga, Fox Business, and so many more because of them, and that’s opened a lot of doors for me. They do a great job of positioning you and helping you craft the perfect message. I totally appreciate that because I think as entrepreneurs, we often feel like we know everything.

Trey Taylor

Trey Taylor

Founder, Trinity Blue Consulting

I love that while I’m focusing on what I do best, Spartan Media is consistently getting me featured in the media. This helps give me more exposure, but more importantly, helps me to be seen as more authoritative in my industry, so more deals come my way and I close them faster and more easily. I feel that Spartan’s PR services are one of the best investments you can make as an entrepreneur.

Ready to get featured in the media?

If you’re already an expert, we think you deserve to be recognized as one—and to be blunt, your prospects deserve to find and work with you instead of your less qualified competitors who just happen to be better at promoting themselves. So get in touch to see if you qualify.

Authority Declassified