What To Do When Hit With A Google Penalty

Achieving top rankings in search engine results is a primary goal for marketers and website owners. In the quest to climb these digital heights, some may stretch the bounds of Google’s guidelines too far, resulting in their site being penalized.

“Authenticity, honesty, and personal voice underlie much of what’s successful on the web.”

Rick Levine

A Google penalty can have a significant impact on your site’s visibility and traffic, often leading to a downturn in business. Identifying whether your site has been penalized can be challenging, and navigating the road to recovery is even more so.

Echoing Benjamin Franklin’s wisdom, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” it’s always better to avoid penalties in the first place. However, if you find yourself grappling with a Google penalty, all is not lost. There are steps you can take to address and rectify the situation. Here’s how to begin the recovery process if you suspect your site has been penalized by Google:

1. Understand Google’s Algorithms.

Being penalised by Google algorithm updates is a significant risk for any website. It’s crucial to keep abreast of these algorithms and their updates, as Google frequently modifies them to improve search results.

Here are some key Google algorithms to be aware of:

• Panda: Launched in February 2011, Panda aims to lower the rank of “low-quality” or “thin” sites and return higher-quality sites near the top of the search results.
• Penguin: Introduced in April 2012, Penguin targets sites that violate Google’s Webmaster Guidelines by using black-hat SEO techniques, such as manipulating links to boost a site’s ranking.
• Hummingbird: Rolled out in September 2013, Hummingbird is focused on parsing the searcher’s intent and the meaning of the query rather than just matching keywords, aiming to provide more accurate search results.
• Pigeon: Released in July 2014, Pigeon provides high-quality, relevant local search results by improving the ranking parameters based on location and distance.
• Mobile-Friendly Update: Nicknamed “Mobilegeddon,” this update was launched in April 2015 to favor websites that are optimized for mobile viewing, ensuring better rankings in mobile search results.

Source: WordPress Integration

Staying informed about these algorithms and their updates is essential for maintaining your site’s visibility and performance in search results. Remember, as Peter Drucker famously said,

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”

Keeping a pulse on these algorithm changes allows you to adapt and ensure your site meets Google’s standards for quality and relevance.

2. Find out what happened to your site.

When you’re familiar with the algorithm updates, finding out what happened to your website is much easier. You need to know why you’ve been penalised so you’ll know what to do.

Conduct a thorough site audit. You can use tools like SEMRush to do this. Check your rankings on search engine results. Don’t forget to check the quality of backlinks and do an analysis on your site’s content.

“Links are really important for us to find content initially. So it’s like if nobody links to your website ever then we’re going to have a hard time recognizing that it even exists. But once we found it and started crawling it and started indexing its content and seeing that it’s pretty good stuff then those links are generally not that critical anymore.”

John Mueller

3. Learn how to recover.

If the results of your audit indicate that your site has indeed been penalised, make sure to understand what kind of penalty your site received. When you’ve identified the type of penalty, you will be able to take steps to recover.

• Manual Penalty – A manual penalty will show a notification on Google Webmaster Tools that you’ve been penalised. The good thing about this is that you will be provided with a reason for the penalty, and be able to figure out what needs to be done.
• Algorithm Penalty – If you got penalised because of an algorithm update, it can be difficult to correct. Check if Google has released an update to any of its algorithms and carefully analyze your site for changes. Gather plenty of information about the algorithm update and begin resolving the issue.

4. Avoid penalties.

There are several reasons sites get penalised. One of the most common reasons is the use of black hat techniques to rank high on search results. When you’re using black hat techniques, you violate search engine and SEO guidelines.

Do site audits on a regular basis and check what’s wrong with your website and your SEO strategies. Make improvements before you receive a penalty.

• Check your link profile – Make sure that the anchor texts you are using are diversified. If there are spammy or unnatural links, remove or disavow them.
• Check the quality of your content. Make sure that there is no duplicate content on your site. Ensure the content in your site is not stuffed with keywords, making it unnatural to read.
• Look into user experience. Your website should be easy to navigate and mobile friendly. Make it easy for site visitors to find what they are looking for.

Constantly monitor your site and any changes that may occur with the various search engines. Avoid getting hit with a penalty by analyzing your SEO efforts. See if you’re on the right path. If your site has been penalised and it seems too complicated to resolve on your own, contact Local SEO Search. Our team will guide you throughout the process.