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• CodeAspire
• Mar 05, 2021

Google Penalties How To Check and resolve?

Every marketer has a story about being punished by Google.

While many websites have been explicitly penalized (not just by large algorithm updates, but one of the 400,000 small manual actions Google performs), the average marketer or webmaster does not notice when they have them. According to KISSmetrics, only 5% of penalized websites are submitting a reconsideration request every month to fix their rankings.

What Is a Google Penalty?

A Google penalty is a punishment against a website whose content conflicts with the marketing practices implemented by Google. This penalty may come as a result of an update to Google's ranking algorithm, or a manual review that uses a web page "black hat".

Since we all depend on search engines for traffic, we have to stay informed about the latest algorithm updates - and make changes when subject to the Google penalty. It is not only good practice to keep abreast of the latest patches, but it gives you a competitive advantage if you can optimize your content faster than other web domains.

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Thankfully, there are plenty of tools and insights to help these busy traffic killers see the busiest marketer. Keep reading to find out the latest Google search criteria, an easy Google penalty checker, and whether your website has a Google penalty.

Step 1: Review these recent Google algorithm updates

Google has a 15-year history of updating its algorithms, not only to reward the best content on the Internet, but to deliver the most appropriate content for a given search query. For a glimpse of this complex timeline, see this infographic that breaks the history of algorithm updates. Below are some of the latest and important updates to keep in mind if you feel that your content is being affected by the Google Penalty:

Panda (2011)- 

There were updates before Panda, but this was the first heavy pain in the neck for websites. Its purpose: to crack down on websites with bad / erroneous content, excessive advertising, and possibly primitive design. It rolled in stages, and released its final patch in July 2015.

Secure Update: (2014)-

As website hacking becomes more sophisticated and people are more aware of the risks, it is important to motivate those skeptics to invest in SSL security, the domain of "HTTPS" at the beginning of the URL (as in "As opposed to HTTP) confirms the domain."). This is important if you need a personal and financial statement from your online visitors. If not, Google will ask a user "Are you sure?" Page if it clicks on an unsafe search result.

Mobilegeddon (2015)
 

Priority is given to websites that are "responsive" in design - or scalable to mobile devices. Surprisingly, a website that is readable and navigable on a handheld device is well liked by desktop visitors. This update seems more aggressive than Pengyun and Panda, but it is super helpful for publishers who put mobile first.

Penguin 4.0 (2016)

Penguin first launched in 2012 as a way to deal with genuine spam that were legitimate but poorly constructed. Penalties focused on keyword stuffing, cloaking, link building… basically, what you have heard of any method is called a "common cap". As of 2016, its fourth edition penalizes bad links rather than entire sites - helping to rehabilitate web domains that may still have good intentions behind them.

Intrusive Interstitial Penalty (2017)

Google opened 2017 by doubling its commitment to mobile. This update decorates websites with interstitial advertisements and other pop-out content that may hinder the functionality of a page on a mobile device. Not every ad-heavy website will suffer damage, but those that severely affect the user experience may be the next to lose their rank. These updates are not one-sided. They are reinforced each year to keep up with copyright infringement, unwanted content campaigns, and similar black-hat techniques - and to ensure that their searchers are satisfied with their results.

Step 2: Audit your website for these black hat SEO failures

I know that you do not have time to check every manual action taken by Google so far. I also know that if you are reading this, you probably want to give your users a good user experience. With this in mind, here is a brief list of things that can cause low website traffic due to manual action that Google took to push its search criteria. Any of these can help you determine if Google has a fine against your website: Most of your content consists of pop-out advertisements. Your content is keyword-filled. You have short form content, often united for quality and errors. You have not created local site content that caters to global visitors. You are engaged in poor link-building practices to increase page authorization: The "cloaking" keyword on your page is why users can't see them. Buying excessive backlinks on your website. Your content is inherited from adult, gambling, or otherwise low-quality pages. Your website does not have a valid Security Certificate (HTTPS). You have republished content from other websites without permission. Your website has a high load time or poor presence on mobile devices.

Step 3: Find Out If You Have a Ranking Problem

First, it is important to diagnose the problem. Without knowing the Google penalty you have committed, you cannot optimize against it. For example, back in October 2014, most people felt they were dealing with the Penguin update, but it was actually an extended Panda update.

Here are a few tips to help you properly diagnose the issue:

Use a penal indicator tool to find out what has happened on your website in the past, and if you have yet to overcome it. A quick and simple tool to drop this knowledge bomb on you, it is completely titled Website Penalty Indicator.

FEInternational's Google Penalty Checker can show you which of Google's major penalties hit you and at which point they reach your website. (Of course, to be cheeky, I tried to see "www.google.com" to see what would happen.) However, you will notice that this tool focuses on the most important algorithm changes, and not all small manuals in between. To check for those updates, you have to follow the next step.

Step 4: Identify the Google Penalties to Optimize Against

This section was contributed by Elena Taranteva, Content Strategist of Semrush. The best thing you can do for your website is avoid penalties. Website owners who break SEO rules are either manually penalized or severely harmed by the algorithm updates that are being made. When a website hits a penalty, it is more than one of the following reasons: Lack of knowledge from SEO expert A Purposeful Violation of Basic SEO Principles Use of various black-hat techniques But if you have been hit by a penalty, how do you know what kind of penalty will depend on the root cause. If a website receives a manual penalty, the owner will be notified via Google Webmaster Tools and will receive a letter stating the reasons for its failure. This means that the website owner will at least have an idea of ??how to recover and can start working on suggested changes. If your website encounters an algorithm change, the situation becomes a bit more difficult. You need to find a connection between Google's last actions and the disadvantages of your website. Do not forget that website status and traffic losses can be caused by common problems and nothing to do with algorithmic changes. If you find that you were harmed by a specific algorithm change, get all the information about that update so that you can begin to solve the problem. Certainly, we all want to avoid getting hit by a punishment in the first place. If you want to be prepared, I recommend running SEO audits continuously. Here are some things you can do:

1. Remove or remove unnatural or unwanted links manually.

2. Make sure your anchor text is varied.

3 Get rid of all duplicate content.

4. Create non-keyword-stuffed, quality content. Keep an eye on 

5. Keep an eye on UX.