Google penalties can be frustrating and damaging for websites. But with the right strategies, these penalties can often be reversed. This comprehensive guide will provide website owners and SEOs the information needed to identify different types of Google penalties, understand why they happen, and take the necessary steps to recover your site’s rankings and traffic.
Overview of Google Penalties
Google regularly updates its algorithms and guidelines to ensure searchers have the best possible experience. When sites violate Google’s webmaster guidelines through manipulative techniques like spammy backlinks or thin content, they risk getting hit with a penalty.
There are three main types of Google penalties:
Manual Actions
These penalties are applied after a human reviewer at Google manually reviews and takes action against a page or site. Manual actions target specific violations like spammy backlinks, scraped content, or harmful content.
Algorithmic Penalties
These are automated penalties applied by Google’s algorithms. They typically target large-scale spam and quality issues. Examples include the Penguin update for spammy links and Panda for low-quality content.
Ranking Fluctuations
Major Google updates like core updates can cause rankings to shift, sometimes dramatically. These are not direct penalties, but sites may be impacted negatively if they have quality issues.
Understanding the type of penalty is the first step to recovery.
How to Identify Different Google Penalties
Identifying the specific Google penalty impacting your site is crucial. Here are the top signs of different penalties:
Manual Actions
- You will receive notification in Google Search Console about the manual action detailing the violation.
Algorithmic Penalties
- Sudden, unexplainable drop in organic traffic and rankings, especially across important pages and keywords.
- Downward trend in rankings and traffic over a longer period of time.
- Loss of rankings for terms you used to rank well for.
Google Updates
- Gradual decline in traffic and rankings, especially for competitive keywords.
- Loss of rankings for “head” keywords but maintain rankings for “long-tail” keywords.
Tools like Search Console, analytics, and rank trackers will help identify drops in performance. But it takes a trained eye to analyze the patterns and determine the likely cause.
Why Sites Get Hit by Google Penalties
Understanding what causes penalties in the first place is important – so you can fix issues and avoid future penalties. Some top reasons sites get penalized include:
- Buying or building spammy backlinks. This is one of the biggest causes of penalties.
- Scraping content or copying it excessively from other sites. Unoriginal content is a red flag.
- Creating thin, low-quality content just to target keywords. Google values informative, useful content.
- Using black hat techniques like cloaking, sneaky redirects, or hidden text/links.
- Having a high number of 404 pages or broken inbound links. Sites should be well-maintained.
- Violating Google’s webmaster guidelines in other ways, such as excessive ads.
Having a penalty does not mean your site will be permanently banned from Google. But you need to put in the work to resolve issues and recover.
How to Recover from a Manual Action Penalty
Manual actions are one of the most damaging penalties, but also the most straightforward to resolve since Google gives you clear instructions. Here are the steps to recover from a manual action:
1. Identify The Violations
Review Google Search Console for details about the manual action. Make sure you understand which pages are impacted and what guidelines are violated.
2. Remove Any Violating Content
If specific pages or content are called out, remove them immediately. Delete backlinks, eliminate scraped content, or take down harmful material causing the violation.
3. Request A Review
Once you have fixed the issues, submit a request for a review in Search Console. Explain the actions you have taken to address violations.
4. Improve Overall Site Quality
Work on improving your overall site’s value while waiting for a review. Fix technical problems, create high-quality content, and build reputable backlinks.
5. Follow Up If Needed
If your review gets rejected, figure why and fix any outstanding issues. Then submit another review request. Persistence pays off.
With effort and persistence, many sites fully recover from manual actions. But prevention is always better – build a quality site that follows Google’s guidelines from the start.
Best Practices for Recovering from Algorithmic Penalties
Algorithmic penalties applied automatically by Google’s systems can be more complex. But using these best practices can help you get back on track:
Diagnose Issues First
Take time to deeply analyze and diagnose what factors – low-quality content, shady links, technical problems – are likely triggering the algorithmic penalty.
Disavow Toxic Links
Use Google Search Console and other tools to identify spammy backlinks. Disavow these toxic links using Google’s disavow tool.
Remove Thin Content
Eliminate thin, low-value pages targeting keywords. Produce new content offering real value for users instead.
Improve Technical Factors
Fix crawl errors, broken links, duplicate content issues, page speed, and other technical problems.
Build More Quality Links
Earn links from reputable websites related to your industry to counterbalance unhealthy backlinks. But build them slowly and naturally.
Refresh Existing Content
Make existing content better by expanding it, adding images/video, and updating facts, statistics, and resources.
With algorithmic penalties, recovery takes time. But systematically cleaning up issues and improving quality will get your site back in Google’s good graces.
Recovering from Google Ranking Fluctuations
Ranking drops from broad Google updates like core updates are not direct penalties. But sites may be impacted for quality issues or reliance on tactics that no longer work. Here are tips for getting your rankings back on track:
Stay Calm
Don’t panic and make rash changes. Algorithm updates roll out over weeks. Give Google time to fully crawl and index your quality content.
Review Top Content
Check whether your best content with expert information got hit. If so, look for ways to improve it.
Evaluate Competitors
See what competitors with similar content are doing better than you. Their success can guide your own improvement efforts.
Check Page Experience
Ensure your pages offer excellent user experience – fast load speed, compelling content, good mobile optimization.
Build More Expertise
Create content that highlights your expertise and thought leadership in your niche. Help Google understand your authority.
Get More High-Quality Links
Earn more links from reputable industry sources to emphasize your relevance and prominence.
Major Google updates reward websites doing something innovative and worthwhile for users. Focus on creating the best content possible, not gaming algorithms.
New Ways to Recover from Link and Content Penalties
Both link penalties and content penalties stem from a lack of website quality and authority in Google’s assessment. Here are some emerging strategies to recover your standing:
Emphasize Your Expertise
Getting press mentions and profiling experts on your team gives Google signals about your real-world authority and expertise.
Leverage User Engagement
Comments, shares, time on site, and other user engagement signals can highlight your content’s interest and usefulness to Google.
Promote Your Brand Across the Web
Pursue brand mentions on authoritative sites and build your online brand assets like social media and Wikipedia entries.
Reward Loyal Site Visitors
Identify and reward your site’s biggest fans and evangelists, then showcase their loyalty and community to Google.
Produce Truly Linkworthy Assets
Don’t build links just for SEO. Create resources so useful that influencers naturally want to link to them.
Monitor Your Site’s Overall Reputation
Keep tabs on all brand mentions, reviews, citations, and other reputation signals Google uses to gauge trust and authority.
With the right mix of these reputation-building strategies, your domain and content will seem much more valuable in Google’s assessment, helping reverse penalties.
FAQs About Reversing Google Penalties
Recovering from Google penalties comes with many questions. Here are answers to some frequently asked ones:
Do backlinks still matter for lifting penalties?
For smaller sites especially, backlinks remain important. But focus on getting more links slowly and naturally from reputable sites, not spammy ones.
How long does it take to recover from a penalty?
It varies based on the violation and how thoroughly you resolved the root issues. For manual actions, it can take 1-2 weeks after fixing problems. Algorithmic penalties can take 1-6 months to reverse.
Should I disavow all toxic backlinks?
Disavowing individual toxic links usually works better than mass disavowing all links. Use moderation and only disavow clear spam links.
What if I still have a manual action after resubmitting?
If your request gets repeatedly rejected, you likely still have some violations to fix. Keep working to resolve issues until your site fully complies.
How do I know if my drop in rankings is a penalty or Google update?
Look at whether you lost rankings across the board or just for competitive keywords. Penalties usually impact all keywords. Updates only hit competitive keywords relying on tactics that no longer work.
Should I remove thin content or create more high-quality content?
The best approach is to do both – eliminate your lowest-quality content and replace it with new, useful, engaging content built for users, not just search engines.
What if I have limited time and resources to fix issues?
Focus on the highest-impact areas first. Disavow truly toxic links, refresh your most important content, and optimize for page experience. Moving the needle in key areas will have an outsized impact.
How can I determine whether my content offers enough expertise?
Do a competitive analysis. Compare your content to competitors ranking above you and see where they demonstrate greater authority, deeper information, and unique insights you lack.
What are examples of truly linkworthy assets?
Things like comprehensive industry studies, product reviews incorporating original testing, insightful data visualizations, and innovative calculators or interactive tools.
The Takeaway
Recovering from Google penalties comes down to understanding the root causes, being honest about where your website has issues, and doing the work to systematically improve its value in Google’s eyes. While penalties can be discouraging, they are surmountable obstacles with the right persistence and SEO knowledge. Use this guide to get your site back on the road to Google success.
