“A Google penalty is a sanction against a website whose content conflicts with the marketing practices enforced by Google. This penalty can come as a result of an update to Google’s ranking algorithm, or a manual review that suggests a website or page used “black hat” SEO tactics.”

Google Penalty Removal

This Post Will Explain Every Type Of Google Penalty And The Steps For Recovery

When your website traffic and rankings have suddenly collapsed, there is a big chance you have been penalized by Google. Below is a quick guide of various Google penalties.

Nobody wants to wake up one day and see that they have been strike out with a penalty from Google. Whether you like it or not, Google will punish you if your website tactics go against their chief goal – delivering the most relevant content that the users search for. Having one penalty will negatively affect your search rankings and it will also cause drop-in traffic.  

Keep in mind there are two types of Google penalties. If you are hit by a manual action, Google will notify you in Search Console or Webmaster Tools. However, if you are getting an algorithmic penalty, you will won’t get a note. These are much more difficult & laborious to identify.  

For each of the penalties, we’ll let you know if your website is at risk of being hit and what steps you can take to lessen your chances of being penalized in the future.

Google Manual Actions Report

Google Manual Penalty occurs when a real person from Google’s spam check team reviews your website and penalizes you.  

If you respect the rules of the game, Google will rank you higher, and if not, your website will be driven away from potential visitors. These penalties are caused by some reports from users, competitors, and sometimes these also can happen randomly if the person in charge spots your links and tactics as malicious.  

In most cases, it’s easy to retrieve your website from manual penalties. Google will notify you about the type of the issue (for example, cloaking, sneaky redirects or hidden text and links) and provides clear instructions on it. And it’s good. When you're aware of the issues, you can fix it faster.

Cloaking And/Or Sneaky Redirects

Cloaking is the act of showing two different versions of a web page to users and Google. If you get detected, it’s a tactic that can get you completely withdrawn from Google’s index.

The Fix

•  To avoid cloaking, you need to always focus on developing productive and valuable content for your audience.  
•  Make sure that search engines will see the exact similar pages that your audience sees.

Hidden Text And/Or Keyword Stuffing

The heading speaks it all. Google has discovered your website is guilty of using hidden text or keyword stuffing and so it’s penalized.

The Fix

• Look for text that is the same or alike in color to the body of the web page.  
• Glance for hidden text using CSS styling or positioning.

The Algorithm Behind Google Penalties

Even if you know you have been penalized, it is essential to identify the exact behavior of the penalty. Take your time before modifying anything.

How To Diagnose For Google Penalty?

When doctors diagnose diseases, they check for symptoms. This is what Google looks for too when they analyze your website, and you should be doing it as well if you want to identify the symptoms before it’s too late for your search rankings. Below are some telltale signs:

• Slight fall in search rankings for certain keywords, which is a minor symptom.
• Completely de-indexed from the Google search engine result pages.
• Slow-loading website or it’s not quite mobile-responsive.  
• Bad link-building practices to boost page authority.  
• You don’t possess a legitimate security certificate (HTTPS).  
• Short-form content, with bad and low-quality grammatical errors.
• Sudden fall in traffic of the website.

Sometimes, the remedy is obvious. At other times, it may not be. Analyze the results, study at the problem logically.

Some Crucial Google Penalties One Needs to Avoid

Google Penguin Penalty: Purchasing Links

The first time Penguin Penalty was released in 2012 and affected over 3% of all queries to fight for spammy links that made their way higher in SERPs of Google. It views the variety of obvious unnatural backlink patterns. Penguin is not a site-wide penalty as it affects only specific pages.

Penguin Targets The Following Practices As Prompts For A Penalty:

•  Link Scheming: A site that has gained all of its links naturally will have links of both low and high quality. Having a ton of just bad-quality links or only high authority links is often a result of Black-hat SEO.
•  Link Quality: Buying links from low-quality and non-relevant websites, intended for developing an artificial depiction of relevance and reputation.
•  Link diversity: Links should have different anchor text. Too many links with the similar anchor text could trigger a Penguin penalty.

Never opt for link purchasing! If you want stellar search rankings, you need to make an effort to gain links organically.

Google Panda Penalty: Duplicate Content

The main goal of Google is to provide the best-furnished content for users. Duplicating or copying content is not what’s excelled for your target users.  

Google Panda is an algorithmic update that strikes low-quality sites that rely on “spun” content. The arrival of Panda rewarded sites with high-quality & authentic content.

You must have unique content or a fresh point of view on a topic that will differentiate your blog from the rest in your business. The best way to avoid this penalty is to stay focused on producing content with caliber.  

•  Content should be clear, readable and relevant to readers.
•  Update your content with respect to current algorithm standards.
•  Eliminate the duplicate content and ensure its uniqueness.

Google Mobilegeddon Penalty: Mobile Friendly

Google announced officially that firstly they’ll index websites based on their mobile version. The time has arrived when mobile searches have overcome desktop internet searches. It applied a simple yes or no question to web pages. Either they were mobile-friendly, or they were not.

Having A Mobile-Friendly Website Means That Your Site:

• Doesn’t use software that is not traditional of phones (Flash Player).
• Uses text that can be read without zooming.
• Auto-adjusting elements and content for different screen sizes.
• Links and buttons are on measurable distance so it can be easier to click them.

Google Pirate Penalty: Be Warned For Piracy

The “Pirate” algorithm was Google’s acknowledgment to those websites which are pirated, stealing copyrighted content and considered unethical and illegal by many forms.  

If you want to avoid the Google Pirate penalty, it’s just simple: don’t steal the content.

Other Google Penalties Are As Follows:

• Spam structured markup
• Thin content with low or no added value.  
• Unnatural links from your site
• Pure spam
• Unnatural links to your website
• Hacked site
• Cloaked Images
• Spammy free hosts
• Broken links website

Even The Major Victims Of Google Penalties Can Recover From It

Life always gives you second chances and we should learn from our past mistakes. SMSIdea always helps you to regain that second chance for your website in case its hit by a Google penalty. We provide you with the experts, that will help you recover your website from Google Penalty removal, you can trust on. We are a white hat SEO company who knows how these penalties can be removed and most important, avoid them in the future. Feel free to contact us today for more information on our Google penalty removal service.

Concerned about your website’s future? Do not hesitate to Enquire.