Sorry for the confusion....I'm no expert but here goes.....
Google are updating the way they work and tidying up the web! This means that many of the old methods of SEO (search engine optimisation) no longer work.
Up until recently, links were seen as a good thing for your website - ie. links from other websites to your own. A link could be an endorsement from a customer on a blog, or a recommendation on a forum...they all made your website more attractive to google. SEO businesses jumped on the bandwagon and bought cheap links in bulk...pretty much a link to your website on a blank page.
Effectively these bulk links tricked google into thinking that your website was a high-quality, popular website with good content.
Google no longer want to be tricked like this so they are being extra fastidious about link quality.
If the links to your website are numerous, unfavourable, questionable, dead or obsolete (very likely on an older website) google can take a manual action against you. You do not necessarily have to have been involved in any dodgy link building activities! far from it!
A manual action means that your website no longer appears in the google search engine and your website cannot be found through google! Bad news for online shops!
The process to get back on google is lengthy.
Firstly - all your links must be 'cleaned' and if you have 16,000 of them that is going to take some time.
If your link is not of supreme quality (ie. it is not 100% relevant to your site) it has to go. To get rid of a link, you have to contact the webmaster for the website that hosts the link...and ask them to remove it. In the likely event there is no reply you have to request removal of the link 3 times - before google can see that you have done your best and will automatically disavow the link.
Once you're ready, you can submit a reconsideration request to google. They may take up to 4 weeks to answer you. And the answer may be no, it may be yes.
And so the process continues....it's a gamble because no one is 100% sure what links are acceptable any more....as even healthy links have been rejected.
So get checking the links to your website, get them checked out...and if you get penalised - good luck!