Just like your parents used to punish you for making a crappy showing on the dishes, or your English instructor gave you a zero in the wake of evaluating your research paper and acknowledging you replicated it off the Internet, Google also gives penalties to websites.
On the off chance that you have seen a decline in your organic search engine traffic you may have gotten a Google penalty.
What is a Google Penalty?
A Google penalty in essence is a punishment given to a website containing content that does not line up with Google’s marketing practices.
Types of Google Penalties
Routine algorithm updates expected to remunerate great websites that have great content and authentic SEO practices are normally confused as Google penalties.
Despite the fact that algorithm penalties do happen, a routine algorithm update can easily be mistaken for a Google penalty because algorithms depend vigorously on calculations and rules to convey the desired result — not allowing for much ill-defined situation.
Manual penalties — regularly easier to recognize because they as often as possible come joined by messages from Google to your webmaster account happened normally after Google has flagged something, usually content or a backlink, and Google decides to manually apply a penalty to your website’s rankings.
Regular Issues Websites Receive Penalties For
Suspicious links — because Google uses backlinks as a method of following quality control for websites that will punish you in the event that they accept the connection on your site was paid for or is accepted to be a piece of a connection scheme.
One illustration of this would be low-quality, covered up, or keyword-rich links implanted in a site’s widgets.
Because backlinks are so specific, penalties for these are frequently restricted to specific pages as opposed to a whole website.
Low-quality content — obviously Google wants to furnish their users with the best data and experience possible. In the event that your content does not add esteem, is common, or accepted to be a copy from another site you can anticipate a penalty.
To help evade the snare of crappy content being on your website, invest time in contemplating what makes you special and sets you separated from your competitors.
Ask yourself: what is my interesting selling proposition?
Attempt to stay away from content that is easily or consequently created, and if your site allows for guest posts, cautiously survey their content because on the off chance that it doesn’t add esteem you presumably needn’t bother with it.
This kind of penalty is severely negative to your website traffic. This is usually a manual activity joined by a message from Google specifying “meager content.”
Recovering from a Google Penalty
Just as with numerous different issues in life you can’t resolve an issue until you totally recognize and understand what the issue is. This same rationale applies to Google penalties. Before you can start to recover from a Google penalty you need to understand what kind of penalty you’re managing.
As referenced before, you need to distinguish whether you’re managing a manual penalty one set off by an algorithm, or is there even a penalty activity present?
For instance, on the off chance that you saw a new decline in your website traffic, you need to do some uncovering to calculate the cause of your traffic decline. Because for each cause of a penalty there are diverse resolution processes.
Distinguishing Manual Penalties
To check on the off chance that you have been hit by manual activity, you need to go to Google Webmaster Tools and check your notifications. In the event that Google has made a manual move against your site, you’ll be informed about it unmistakably in your notifications and oftentimes they will give you the reasoning behind the activity.
Distinguishing Algorithmic Penalties
While recognizing manual penalties is a beautifully easy and straightforward process the same can’t be said for penalties caused by algorithms.
Because algorithm-related penalties don’t accompany a notification from Google you should do a ton of research to isolate the issue on the off chance that you suspect you have been hit with a penalty.
Investigate the whole span of time for which your website has declined in traffic. Make a note of it and see if Google declared any algorithm updates that correspond with the timeframe you’ve isolated.
Be careful that each update comes with its own set of changes so you should realize how each update is extraordinary so that you don’t waste time searching for things that could conceivably have been influenced.
Is your Website Optimized Properly?
A few out of every odd decline in website traffic can or should be credited to a Google penalty.
On the off chance that you notice a decline in your website traffic and have done some uncovering yet can’t calculate what’s happening, it very well maybe because your digital marketing strategies are not, at this point compelling and need an upgrade.
Regardless of whether you have been hit by a manual penalty from Google or one set off by a routine algorithm update all expectation is not lost.