Google’s Disavow and reconsideration tools have been around long enough now that the recent news from Google’s official Webmaster blog this week seems almost overdue. But, atlas this week Google announced they are going to segment first time offenders from repeat offenders. Their exact words in the post are:
“A webmaster who received a Manual Action notification based on an unnatural link to another site may nofollow the link, submit a reconsideration request, then, after successfully being reconsidered, delete the nofollow for the link. Such repeated violations may make a successful reconsideration process more difficult to achieve. Especially when the repeated violation is done with a clear intention to spam, further action may be taken on the site.”
Inevitably, the “oops, I’m sorry Google” you submit has to come with some sincerity and can’t be just the sorry to be caught variety.
Technical Hypothosis
My guess is Google came out with a way to slowly release the penalty over a set amount of time vs. a simple on/off switch and can keep violations locked up on certain keywords vs site wide.
For example, +JCpenny bust from 2011 puts them at higher risk if they get caught doing the same thing again. If they get caught going for “little black dress” keywords again then the penalty might stick even if they disavow.