Website Penalized By Google? Here’s What To Do

If SEO is a big part of your strategy in traffic generation, being penalized by Google can be one of your biggest nightmares. Sadly, for many businesses with an online presence, Google penalization becomes a rude awakening for not adhering to the search engine giant’s policies.

Although it seems like a permanent consequence, there are some things you can do to save your website and prevent future Google penalties. Below is a comprehensive definition of terms, reasons for penalization, and strategies to avoid this blunder in your SEO marketing.

Definition of Terms

Google penalty

A Google penalty is defined as either a lowered search engine ranking or total blockage of a website in search results if it violates terms and conditions. Google does not necessarily alert websites of their penalties, but it can be evident when you have previously ranked for a keyword and drastically moved to further pages in the results. It is also possible to experience not finding your website for terms you have landed on the first page as well.

Website owners who employ Black-Hat SEO techniques are highly likely to get penalized, and White-Hat SEO strategists are mostly on the safe side. People who want to avoid blocked websites and lowered rankings should always stay updated with the ever-changing Google policies as well.

White Hat SEO

Put simply, White Hat SEO are strategies that are aligned with Google and most search engine’s policies. Some examples of White Hat SEO techniques are:

• Using keywords in content and keyword research: Keyword research is one of the long-standing policy-safe SEO strategies available. People can use keyword research tools and find valuable terms that their audience is looking for. For example, using one of the most popular keyword research tools, Ubersuggest, alcohol recovery centers can find related keyword ideas to place in their blogs and other content:
• Backlinking: Backlinking is also one of the most popular White Hat SEO strategies, and it is a costly process that pays dividends. Websites can create backlinks by asking other businesses to refer to their domains through guest posting, directories, and references.
• Content marketing: Content marketing is tied up with keyword research and backlinking as it serves as the platform where these two earlier-mentioned techniques will take place. Content marketing is mostly done through blogs and articles within the website. Google now prefers long-form high-quality content with relevant keywords, along with a good amount of inbound and outbound links.

Black Hat SEO

Black Hat SEO is essentially the opposite of White Hat strategies. Many people will try to swear by it, saying that these Black Hat SEO strategies are what made them rank for search engine terms overnight.

However, treading on the path to being visible using Black Hat SEO proves to be very costly. There are many websites that used to rank well in search engines but are now suffering low traffic or just completely blocked out in Google search. Below are some of the common Black Hat SEO strategies that individuals employ:

• Placing links on low-quality or spammy websites: Some people try to ‘game’ the backlinking system by paying others to put their links on spammy websites. At first, this strategy may work as search engines consider websites with a lot of backlinks as an authoritative domain. However, there’s a risk to be penalized.
• Cranking out low-quality content: One of the most infamous Google algorithm updates was the Panda in 2011. During this crackdown, 12% of search query results were affected, placing content farms on a much lower ranking as they previously were. To adhere in Google policies, websites must now emphasize creating long-form high-quality content.
• Duplicate content: An article that has been published elsewhere while placing it in your blog sends a red flag to Google that you’re just creating posts for the sake of it. Again, the search engine’s focus is quality–plagiarized articles means that there is no new relevant information that your website has to share.

Reasons for Penalization

Taking a look at the terms above, specifically White Hat and Black Hat strategies, you may well be aware by now of actions that could penalize your website. However, there are still plentiful reasons why your domain received low rankings or has become unsearchable as well:

Purchasing backlinks

People who sell backlinks are often Black Hat SEO marketers hoping to make a quick buck on unaware website owners. Some of these sellers may not be fully transparent of which websites they will place your links, but most of the time, these are low-quality domains that you may not want to be associated with.

Purchasing backlinks or drastically increasing the amount of websites linking back to your business artificially may alert Google that you are using a Black Hat strategy.

Content not checked in plagiarism checker

Even if you are keen in creating original content, you may be taken by surprise that some statements in your article are found to be plagiarized. As unintentional as it may seem, this mistake can also send Google the wrong signals.

To be sure, you also need to check all the content you publish using plagiarism checker tools such as Copyscape and other alternatives. If you have a writer who produces content for you, ensure that they also adhere to anti-plagiarism rules to avoid websites penalization.

Excessive use of header tags

Using H1 and other header tags are essential in creating a structure for your website content. Additionally, the keywords you place in these header tags also gives Google an idea of how relevant your website is in the term you want to rank for.

Nevertheless, there’s still a fine line between someone who wants to use header tags strategically, over someone who wants to put the focus keyword on every header. Google has a very refined algorithm that detects these differences.

Keyword stuffing

Keywords are essential in any businesses’ SEO strategy. When this is overdone, you can also be penalized. Keyword stuffing is putting too much of your focus terms on a single paragraph. Take a look at the example below:

The term “digital marketing service in India” is a valuable keyword, but Google will penalize you for stuffing a single paragraph with too much of the same keyword. Not to mention, it just sounds silly and difficult to read! Search engines won’t just penalize you, but potential visitors will be turned off as well.

404s and bugs

Investing in a developer can be crucial in making sure that you don’t have 404 pages or bugs that cause server errors. When Google crawls through your pages, it wants to know if all your pages are functioning properly. It doesn’t want to disappoint web searchers about dysfunctional websites, thus, having a lot of 404 and website bugs can bring your rankings down as well.

Not mobile optimized

Mobile optimization has become a gold standard ever since the advent of smartphones. People now use their phones to browse the internet more than desktops. With this in mind, your website should have a theme that is mobile optimized and adjusted to improve the user interface in a smartphone or any handheld device.

A crazy example is the Norweigan website called Arngren. The links are pretty difficult to tap especially when trying to use mobile.

If Google notices that you haven’t been updating your website theme or format to fit mobile viewing needs, this situation can definitely take a hit on your rankings.

These common reasons, along with other strategies that try to manipulate the algorithms or make undesirable user experiences will bring you the risk of a Google penalization.

How To Recover from a Google Penalty: Tips and Prevention

Don’t throw in the towel just yet when your traffic dips during a Google penalty. Below are some of the things you can do to recover, while also preventing future violations.

Check Google’s Search Console

Google’s Search Console will alert you if there are manual penalties you have committed in your website. For example, if there are unnatural links in your website, especially in your long-form content, it can be flagged as a manual penalty. This way, you can quickly identify penalty causes and modify them as needed.

Stay updated with Google algorithm updates

This is easier said than done, and sometimes should be left for experts to analyze. With hundreds of updates within a year, Google changes its search algorithms with the purpose of improving the user experience.

The best way to prevent penalties is to always be in the loop for updates. You can look up the history of algorithm changes in the Moz website and check which ones your website hasn’t adjusted for.

Focus on mobile optimization

Mobile optimization is like hitting multiple birds in one stone. By converting your website into a mobile-friendly format, you can check and modify your domain using Google’s mobile testing program.

The service helps identify potential errors and areas of improvement in mobile user experience. For some reason, it also aids in rankings as Google highly approves of mobile-friendly websites.

Avoid shady “SEO” services

When it comes to SEO, it is never a good idea to settle with super cheap services promising to bring in organic traffic. More times than not, these unrealistically affordable offers are derived from Black Hat SEO techniques. It may appear that you’re getting results right away, but Google will be sneaky enough to detect these strategies being used on your website.

It is not worth the risk if you are wanting to have long-term growth in terms of SEO. It is better to stick to White Hat SEO even with slower results rather than ranking speedily and ending up getting blasted with new algorithm rules.

Take examples from high-ranking websites under similar niches

SEO and link building can also be done in the perspective of ‘learning by example’. Also called reverse engineering, you can observe the notable features of a similar website under your niche and see which elements you can apply on your own to rank better.

For example, if they are making blog posts with over 2,000 words, you will need to probably do the same or even outdo them. Infographics, long-form content, multimedia content, mobile optimization, and high-quality backlinks are some of the characteristics of a website with great rankings.

Secure your website

As your website increases in value, so does its risk from hacker invasion. Sadly, being compromised also gives you a double hit–Google takes note of previously hacked websites and lowers its rankings. This is done to protect website visitors. Thus, even before this problem happens, you can secure your domain from the get-go. Some ways to secure your website include:

• Updating to the latest software
• Encrypting information placed by visitors
• Validating servers
• Creating strong passwords
• Updating to https

In the silliest of cases, hackers may just have the intent to deface your website, such as in the bitcoin forums:

However, it can also be as serious as stealing private information, bank accounts, or any other sensitive content by you or your website users.

Call an expert

If things do get complicated as in many situations turn out to be, you can always consult experts who can prevent or reverse Google penalties. Done through proper content marketing and best practices in SEO, you are more than likely to recover from Google violations even when it takes time.

Web developers, both front-end and back-end, content marketers, and SEO managers who are well-versed in their field will assist you in repairing penalties or rebuilding your website from the ground up if that is what’s needed.

Be Penalty-Free, Once and For All

Truly, those who rise to the top of Google’s rankings are the same ones who do not cheat their way there. Keeping these tips in mind while staying updated with Google’s algorithm can help you stay safe in the long-term.