The Ultimate Guide to Avoiding Google Penalties

Frankly, this is an easy question that lacks a conclusive answer—similar to asking "Does Sasquatch exist?" or "How did the Patriots lose Super Bowl XLII?" The reality is that only the people who work at the Googleplex truly know the secret combination of various ingredients that make up Google's penalty soup.

The rest of us only know what we gather from anecdotal observation, professional testing, and synthesized conclusions based on reports from fellow practitioners who have experienced firsthand certain Google-imposed spankings. Alas, we are forced to work with a patchwork image of Google's penalty mind set. Regardless, our patchwork image is getting pretty darn good!

Here's the simplest and most direct way to put it...

...if Google doesn't like what you are doing on your site, who your site is affiliated with, or how you are attracting traffic to your site, you should expect that they will mess with you!

Or, as Matt Cutts, the head of Google's Spam team, succinctly put it in a recent post on the Official Google Webmaster's Blog:

In essence, if you want to play ball with Google you're going to have to abide by their (ever changing) rules and play their (constantly evolving) game.

Much to their credit, Google has provided a continually updated set of Webmasters Guidelines to help you avoid becoming an ranking casualty. Of course, Google can always add "infractions" to the list (and some might argue there are others that could be included here). Regardless, this list is an excellent overview of the most common SEO practices that Google is known to assess penalties for.

• Dubious linking — Clearly a big no-no at Google. Linking to sites that are banned or penalized is known as linking to bad neighborhoods, and can seriously undermine your site's online credibility. Same goes for those sketchy reciprocal link programs and link networks. Be smart. Know who you are linking to and pay attention to who is linking to you.

• Automated queries — Google has publicly stated their dislike for automated queries. And, they can trigger a penalty. Running tools like SEO Elite or WebPosition Gold too often can cause Google to ban your IP address. Bear in mind that it isn't usually necessary to check rankings on a daily basis. But, if you do frequent searches with such computer-based tools (as opposed to web based) on sites that can be personally connected to you (like your own domains or your personal name) don't be surprised if your activity causes Google to focus it's wrath on your website.

  Two rules:

  1.) Don't run these tools on keywords that can be used to identify you.

  2.) If you're running reports about your site, run a few on your competitors as well.

  That way Google probably won't know exactly who is making the queries to their database.

• Rookie optimization mistakes — Here's another big pothole in the road to top rankings — aggressive link building coupled with over-optimized keyword placement. Yeah, we know, you are impatient and want to rank at the top right NOW! (damit!) ...but being in a rush all-too-often leads to long term setbacks.

  Professionals know that it's far better, long term, to keep their SEO looking natural. And, by doing so you tend to fly beneath Google's radar. Google knows that, typically, links build over time. They tend to be spread throughout a site's internal pages (i.e., deeplinks). That inbound anchor text varies from link to link. The professional knows that a site must be built for visitors first and then optimized for search engines, second.

  Naturally you should be efficient about placing keywords in the best places but also know that most keywords have synonyms that Google recognizes as related. Use them. And, don't be obsessive about using EVERY keyword "trick" in the proverbial SEO book. It isn't natural and Google may penalize you for it.

• Mininets. If you're running more than one site off a single (shared) IP address, and those sites are heavily crosslinked, this looks mighty suspicious to Google. Excessive website cross-linking between shared C-Class IP domains falls under the banner of link schemes and violates the Google webmaster guidelines.

  Google especially dislikes the use of sitewide, or run-of-site, links among sites belonging to the same owner.

• Keyword stuffing. Another classic trigger of Google penalties. Google (or rather their army of human reviewers) can sniff out hidden keywords faster than you can clear your temp folder. Beware of stuffing keywords into your site. Always remember to write for your site audience first, think about the spiders later—if at all. Once you've got your keywords in your title tag and perhaps a header or two, you really don't need to pack a lot of keywords into the page.

• Automated redirects. Meta and JavaScript redirects look fishy to Google mainly because they can cause your site to be perceived as containing doorway pages. If you're going to be redirecting pages, do it the right way.

As we're often fond of saying — if Google can know something about your site, you should assume they do know it. Plan accordingly. All things that are hidden will one day be revealed and your hidden text and sitewide links are no exception.

This type of SEO manipulation to gain higher search rankings went out in the nineties. Nothing says I'm an SEO newbie louder than hidden keywords in the background of your site in this modern age of SEO optimization.

Google penalties come in a variety of flavors. Each one differs in severity but all of them tend to stop your traffic dead! Learning the differences between them will arm with you the intelligence you need to avert disaster.

The storm of speculation surrounding all of these penalties is astounding. Every forum, blog and industry site on the web today has their own personal theories about how these things work. Taking an aggregate view of them all is the most prudent action. Below are some of Google's more recent penalties webmasters should be aware:

• -6 Ranking Penalty — This newest Google penalty reared its ugly head in January 2008 and brought with it some big surprises for top ranking sites. Long established sites with #1 rankings found themselves suddenly moved to number six in the listings with no warnings whatsoever.

  Primarily a result of stagnant linking, over-optimization, and a healthy dose of conspiracy theories, coupled with algorithmic housecleaning by Google, it ended up getting rolled back and not really amounting to much in the end. However, we include it because Google may not be viewing it as a "mistake" and we wouldn't be surprised to see it rolled out again soon.

• –50 Paid Links Penalty: Those who attempt to buy their way into the upper rankings are finding their pages hit with the -50 penalties. These penalties were handed out in droves during the last quarter of 2007 to sites both buying and selling text links for the sole purpose of influencing Google PageRank.

  This type of penalty can also be triggered by suspicious link exchanges and participation in various link schemes as defined in the Google Webmasters Guidelines. If you're going to be buying links, Google wants to see a rel=nofollow tag on that link so that it doesn't pass PageRank, or else!

• PageRank Penalty: If you have ever seen your Google PR score cut in half or taken down more then two levels in a span of a few days, you probably know all about this penalty. Rolled out by Google in October 2007, this penalty targeted sites selling links and sponsored blog posts which passed link juice on to advertisers.

  Big sites from Forbes.com and the Washington Post as well as industry sites like Copy Blogger and Blog Herald all saw their PageRank scores reduced. Most of these sites have since seen a return to full PageRank following their use of the rel=nofollow tag and the elimination of these paid sponsored reviews on their sites.

• -30 Suppression Penalty: This penalty seems to be tripped by sites that are heavy on AdWords and light on content. Sites that participate in guestbook spamming, use JavaScript redirects without the benefit of a .htaccess file, or employ doorway pages also have experienced this penalty. Finally, links with redundant anchor text keywords also seem to cause the plummet to a below#29 ranking position.

• Google -950 Penalty: The most harsh of known Google penalties is the dreaded –950 penalty, which will drop your page to the last page of the search queries. This one is the most heinous because not much is known about it. What is interesting is that it is usually applied to specific pages on a site, not to the entire site itself.

  At this point we can only speculate that it has to do with either affiliate linking, content and search relevance, or just plain excessive site optimization or aggressive link building to a specific page. Unfortunately, this penalty can take months to unwind and may even cause irreversible damage to your website.

Although, arguably, this list does not include every penalty, these are by far the most prevalent penalties that webmasters need to be aware of and plan away from. As always, the best bet is to follow the guidelines Google sets forth (and keep reading SearchEngineNews.com for the rest of the stuff Google won't tell you) to ensure that your site is not affected by these penalties.

If you notice a sudden, significant drop in your overall Google traffic that persists for a period of several days...

and / or

...you notice your previous keyword rankings have been substantially reduced...

and

...these changes do not coincide with Google changing their algorithm recently...

then

...you may have a penalty weighting you down. (What? ...you think Google's going to make this simple?) Fortunately, there are 2 quick tests to run that will reveal if you've been banned vs. penalized.

1. Enter site:yourdomain.com into Google (replace yourdomain.com with your actual domain, of course). If any pages on your site appear in the listings, then the good news is that you have NOT been completely banned (although you may still be partially penalized).

2. Next, run a search in Google for your domain name, i.e. yoursite.com. If your site isn't ranking number one for your own domain name, than a penalty is a very likely possibility.

To make things a little easier, take a look at the following flowchart (click on the image to see a larger version):

When it's all said and done, you want to get back in the Google index as quickly as possible. After all, Google is a trusted brand, a household word and practically an institution. How are you going to get back into their good graces?

Start by fixing the problems on your site (duh!). Put together a laundry list of everything that you think might be objectionable. As stated previously, Google is notoriously tight-lipped about communicating penalties to site owners. Don't expect much help on their part in helping you unwind their penalty.

After you've assembled your laundry list, it's a good idea to share it with a a qualified professional while having them review your site for violations. Fix your links, remove your hidden text, clean-up your keywords and on-page content and review the Google webmasters guidelines in detail.

Once your site is sufficiently clean, you must physically petition Google to reconsider your site. The tool to do this with is called a site reconsideration request. In writing this request to Google you will disclose all possible webmasters guidelines violations you think may have triggered the penalty and list all actions you have taken to correct the problem.

Make it a point to emphasize in the request that your site is now in compliance with Google Webmasters Guidelines and that you promise never, ever, to repeat the offending action again in the future (and don't!)

The most important element in recovering from a Google penalty is a history of good behavior. If you've been subject to a Google penalty in the past, then repeat as an offender, you can expect this will effect how Google prioritizes your reconsideration request.

It's possible that Google make force you to wait a month or two after you've corrected the problem. They are looking to see a history of good behavior before they even consider your reconsideration request. If you've been banned in the past, your chances of getting a third or fourth chance at reconsideration are slim.

However, normally, most reconsideration requests are reviewed within a matter of days—but Google has been known to take months to address certain penalties. You may need to submit multiple reconsideration requests to get the penalty lifted. Google doesn't hold this against you, nor should they, considering they never tell you if you missed something in previous requests.

In light of this, we recommend that you simply fix everything that could possibly be causing the problem prior to submitting your reconsideration requests.

Other than a quick reply through your webmasters account that Google has acknowledged receipt of your submitted reconsideration request, no other communication should be expected. Again, most requests are reviewed within days, not weeks, so if beneficial action is taken, you'll see it pretty quickly.