There are two common sayings you've all heard in this field. The first is, "no one is perfect" and the second is, "never tell Google they are wrong."
As you can imagine, they don't go well together. No one, including, no algorithm or person, is perfect. Google knows that. But telling Google they are wrong, rarely helps. In fact, it can end up hurting you.
If you are slapped by a Panda or Penguin algorithm and you tell Google their algorithm is completely wrong - it likely won't get you anywhere. The best step is to assume Google is perfect and do what you can to appease the beastly algorithms.
But one webmaster simply had enough and he made his case in the Google Webmaster Help forums. He said, yes, he had lots of unnatural links but the link example given by a Googler about an unnatural link is in fact, one hundred percent natural.
Let me quote this webmaster:
Now after our last reconsideration request was declined we get the message that there are still bad links out there. This is what we were told was one of the bad links:http://sustainablog.org/2013/07/furniture-recycling-endangered-animals/
This is a completely legitimate post and it was not influenced by us in any way. They are writing about a campaign we are running.
When questioned by other SEOs and webmasters, this guy answered:
Well the so called "money keyword link" was chosen by sustainablog itself, probably because they thought it would best describe what we do. We have no influence on this, and we certainly have no interest in ranking for "Guide To Recycling"
Makes you wonder - will Google look at this example and say, hmm, you are right, we are wrong?
Honestly, this webmaster is better off disavowing the link and also finding links like it, even if they are natural, and removing those as well.
Like I said before, Google has caused a fear of linking, which both Google and SEOs are to blame for. But it is what it is now and we have to live in this world.
Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.
Image credit to BigStockPhoto for wrong guy image
