Marie Haynes, who does a lot of Google SEO penalty recovery work, said on Twitter just yesterday she received two reconsideration request approvals from ones submitted back in February and March. In January, we asked if there were longer wait times for these reconsideration requests, I guess maybe there were and now maybe is getting through them all?
Marie wrote "Good news for those who have been waiting forever for reconsideration request responses. After several months of having no replies for any of our clients, we got two nice emails today. One filed Feb 4, the second on Mar 10. Looks like Google is working through the queue again."
Good news for those who have been waiting forever for reconsideration request responses. After several months of having no replies for any of our clients, we got two nice emails today. One filed Feb 4, the second on Mar 10.
— Marie Haynes (@Marie_Haynes) May 20, 2020
Looks like Google is working through the queue again. pic.twitter.com/8pogQaRc97
It seems to have been an issue prior to COVID-19 but I suspect COVID-19 didn't help the situation. When he was asked by in January, John Mueller said there is nothing out of the oridnary:
If it's still pending, there's no need to resubmit it. Sometimes these things just take a while to be processed & reviewed - sorry about the delay!
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) January 6, 2020
This guy who asked said he filled one back in November. He then followed up to say it was responded to in mid January, so about two months.
Marie Haynes was two to three months also.
So maybe now the new wait time can be a few months?
Forum discussion at Twitter.