Google penalties have been torn in the flesh for webmasters and developers, This could be the reason behind your site slowing down and why your content on search engines result page doesn’t rank well.
You might wonder why your site is not discoverable to people. A site owner may be guilty of adding bad links or broken links making Google spam your entire page and being blacklisted for Penguin penalty.
However, it’s not the end if you find yourself in this situation. Getting a Google penalty recovery is possible when the right procedures are taken. There are so many factors that can cause these algorithmic penalties which we would explain in this article, so please stay tuned.
As a website author, you need to understand the types of algorithmic penalties issued by Google and how to address them. You’ll need specific Google Analytics tools to identify these penalties.
So, what are the different types of Google penalties, and how can you recover from them? If you’ve been wondering about this, you’re in the right place
What is Google Penalty?
Google penalty is a punishment reward given to websites that defy Google marketing guidelines. This can be automatically given by Google algorithm or by manual action. Most penalties are incurred after a Google algorithm update has been made, Google’s webmaster guidelines are given to keep websites in check.
Although, SEO strategies are basic reasons for these updates, to enable users get relevant answers to their questions. Some unethical tactics in the digital marketing space know as Black Hat SEO aggravate this Google penalties on websites.
Google search engine penalties were created to discourage web pages from engaging in unethical activities that violate rules and guidelines. Google is smart and recognizes these unethical features such as keyword stuffing, unnatural links, duplicate content, and spam links which would lead to website penalties.
Implementing effective Google penalty recovery methods can help you quickly restore your site’s rankings and trustworthiness.
Types Of Google Penalties?
There are different types of Google penalties in content marketing, however let us look at the common penalty incurred by website owners or developers. It is necessary to know what kind of penalty hit you before you start a Google penalty recovery.
Manual Penalty
This type of penalty is given by humans who are in charge of Google search results or quality. They review content on a website and take manual actions on any business site that flaunts these guidelines.
Google’s manual site reviewers consistently adhere to the Search Quality Rater Guidelines, which are fundamental to their analysis. Reviewers are selected from three different continents to ensure a diverse perspective. For instance, if your site is based in Europe, the reviewers may be from the USA, India, and Australia
An important point to remember is that reviewers will always check the mobile version of your website first.
Manual penalties result from some unethical activities such as:
- Cloaked images and redirects
- Unnatural links from your web page
- Manipulative data structure markup
- Spam links and spammy content
How do I know when I am Manually Penalized?
Google employees notify authorized web managers of this infringement through the Google search console.
- Simply log in
- Check if there are messages sent
- If there are no warning messages like in the screenshot below, it’s likely that there is no manual penalty.
Algorithmic Penalty
Generally, Google is programmed in an algorithmic manner, meaning a set of mathematical rules used to determine search intent with target keywords for user experience.
These algorithmic penalties are triggered by Google search algorithm rather than human as me is subdivided into:
- Google Panda Penalty: This was introduced in 2011, and is the core algorithmic penalty targeting content issues or misuse. The quality of a content page is determined by this panda penalty. keyword stuffing, irrelevant content inventory tools, etc.
Many low quality websites fall into this category as no value is communicated through the content of their website pages making your search rankings and organic traffic affected by this penalty.
- Google Penguin Penalty: This type of penalty is solely based on backlink application. It can affect only specific pages where this Google error is identified, so if you are stuck with this penalty, you only need to concentrate on Google penalty recovery for that particular page.
Other pages and pages are not affected however, there are some factors relating to the cause of this penalty for backlinks. They are link diversity, link quality, and link velocity.
It is important to use link building services for a reputable, high quality link for your website. They are a team of professionals that focus on quality control to aid you through backlink management.
How Do I Know If I Have Been Penalized by Google Algorithm?
There is no specific measure to know when you have been penalized by Google. There are website penalty indicators used to uncover any type of penalties affecting your website page such as Fruition Penalty checker, SEMRush, Moz, etc.
Google Penalty Recovery – How to Recover a Penalized Website?
There are basic strategies to bear in mind before you can recover from Google penalties:
Look at Ranking
You need to know what’s happening to your search engine rankings before you can implement this recovery method.
First, you need to use analytic tools and ensure your tracking code is installed properly, also use an extension to organize your page. In case of a manual penalty use Google Search Console to detect any penalty then select the security manual actions and manual actions.
Use Google webmaster tools to also check for errors in mobile usability and page experience. Some site changes can cause this problem, you need to ensure your website architect did not tamper with the site structure.
Check Recent Algorithm Updates
In other to avoid user generated spam, Google’s algorithm deems it fit to update content for an efficient user experience. Changes in the algorithm can result in a drop in performance on ranking pages which may lead to a penalty.
It is necessary to follow up with Google algorithm updates and take the necessary steps to boost your performance. There are so many penalty checkers and plugins you can use to help narrow down our updates.
Make Sure to Run the Audit
There are major audits you need to run to recover your flagged website. This will help you identify content issues on your website. The audits that is recommended to run are:
SEO Audit
This should be done at 6 monthly intervals by a technical SEO auditor who has vast knowledge of SEO. However, if you think you can handle this audit yourself.
There are steps to follow in order to achieve this.
- Interact with your visitors that way you have feedback data.
- Investigate the cause of the problem manually through your site to improve user experience.
- Do a technical spot check to see errors to fix.
- Use a good SEO tool to scan the site (SEMrush, Ahrefs, PageSpeed)
- Implement this strategy to make changes.
Content Audit
Every ecommerce business has written at least one or more content on their web pages. High-quality content impacts customers and prompts them to engage through your website page for more.
Content audit emphasis on quality and relevance. It is important to have valuable contents that are relevant to your target audience the way they can easily connect to your intent. Some SEO tools such as Surfer SEO are used to make suggestions for improvement, audit content and analyze URLs.
Clear Backlink Profile
Google penalty recovery requires clearing link profiles by backlinking audit and removing bad backlinks from your website. You can use Moz to help you remove this backlinks that are unnatural. With this tool, you can see the domain linked to your page and then evaluate these links to sort out the bad ones.
You can also request the removal of bad links from your profile, by simply reaching out to website authors and request for a removal. You can easily reach out to these website owners using tools like BuzzStream or Hunter.io to track emails and follow-up emails.
In cases where the website owner doesn’t respond disavow the remaining backlinks to clear up the existing log. Disavowing links means requesting Google to ignore inks that are not utilized. Then follow up by creating a disavow report to submit to Google.
Check Your Spyware and Adware
Make sure that both spyware and adware are updated, this will help you create boundaries against hackers to enable you to secure the sensitive data of your customer. Also, make sure not to overuse adware to avoid spamming.
How Long Does It Take For Google Penalty Recovery/?
Depending on the type of penalty issued on a website page, and also how long it takes for Google employees to notice these changes on your website. For manual penalties, it can take about 10-30 days
Algorithm penalty recovery takes a different dimension, usually takes up to 6 months or more to recover from this type of penalty.
Conclusion
The best way to recover from these penalties is to start now by implementing the above step-by-step guide in Google penalty recovery. It can be a painful experience for website owners who have genuinely worked hard for the top ranking page position, only to be flawed by Google update
Taking up these strategies will help you recover your loss to get back on the search engine result page. It is also necessary to use link building agency as a way to produce quality links when building your website and other marketing strategies.
