A Website Penalty…Demystified
Posted on November 16, 2008
The Anatomy of a Website Penalty
Building trust with Google is like starting a relationship with a new found friend. Every new friend you meet has their own factors that allow them enter into a trustworthy friendship with you. Google has over 200 ranking factors they use to determine what websites will rank in what order. These factors are mostly algorithmic (programmed by Google engineers) and some are real people scoring websites (human review)
Before when get into penalties let me suggest a plan that never fails…avoid penalties. Between search engines and websites a friendship must be formed. To gain Google’s trust means you would be wise to learn the friendship factors Google has. You see, if your website was penalized it is simply because you have breached the trust factors that Google’s AI (artificial intelligence) has in place. In this scenario an immediate examination discovery must be conducted for the innocent. The gremlin(s) must be found and terminated. For the guilty (deliberate; blackhat), shame on you; mark it on your list as a deceased failures.
How Does a Website Get Banned?
Google has their own set of rules which they openly disclose to webmasters that want to know guidelines. Quality guidelines, design and content guidelines, or Technical guidelines are there for you. Assuming you read the guidelines (most don’t) then we likely will not have a problem.
What if I Did Not Read the Guidelines and Got a Website Penalty?
It’s late on a Saturday night out-on-the-town. You arrive home feeling really good and login into your shopping cart software to see how many sales you have made. In a nanosecond you are struck by lightening. Only a handful of visitors have been to your site compared to the usual 100’s. One transaction has taken place compared to the norm of dozens!! “The website is down, that must be the problem…nope the website is online”. Over the next couple of days reality sets in and your deepest fear becomes reality, the search gods have targeted you for a website penalty.
The Most Common Website Penalties
- Link Spam- getting involved with dodgy link schemes
- Buying bad domain from previous owners- When you buy a domain name from someone do some checking. There are tools designed for assessing the true value of a site, including penalties.
- Hidden Text- Often keywords are invisibly (e.g. same color text as background) stuffed on pages for bots to read but people cannot see it
- Too Many Links on One Page- The magic number is 100 or less; anymore outbound links and Google may not like your page.
- Keyword Stuffing- Describes the use of the same keyword at an unacceptable frequency (density) of use.
- Duplicate Content- Using other people’s content or the same copy of your own (mirrored content) will likely result in a non favorable response from the all mighty one.
- Paying for thousands of links from a blog network scheme.
- Buying Authority links from a penalized domain- or any domain for the purpose of artificial link popularity.
- Over Optimization- Crossing the threshold that Google secretly has for optimization (yes your site can be too good)
- Poor Architecture- Non synomic structure or scattered framework. Although it won’t get you banned, if your site does not contain the themed structure Google Expects from their friends then…not much love.
A penalty from a search engine is a not personal but it does hurt. Choosing to employ shady seo services is the general cause of most website penalties. When you buy domain names that have history attached to them it is your responsibility to make necessary checks. By installing a simple SEO plugin for Firefox you can find out all you need to know about a domain.
Links, Links…Get Your Links Here!
Did you receive the email to join a magic link exchange? WOW a huge list of URLs that will link to you. This looks mighty tempting, and it’s free. That can’t hurt, right? Wrong! Google has its algorithm fine tuned for spotting link spam patterns (networks). This is definately not worth the risk.
If’s that are…No, No’s
I always like using my list of if’s. It’s only because I hear them frequently mentioned within discussion groups who shall remain nameless. So, if you hear resemblance of the following statements walk away.
- If you have to buy link relationships within your seo services you have opted in on that is a red flag.
- If you use seo software that claims blackhat techniques that work
- If you use automated reciprocal link building
- If social bookmaking submissions are done in bulk (not by hand)
- If your link pro will not disclose link acquisitions
- If duplicate content is an endorsed form of content generation
Sound SEO Advice
In the Google help community you can obtain all the assistance you need when you are starting out. When you become an advanced SEOer you may want to look at other SEO support groups for sound advice. One must be mindful of the fact Google is running a business, they are sure not going to tell you how to game them. Be aware of self proclaimed Google experts posing as seo consultants offering nine tricks to link 101. In the eyes of the search gods a new link has to be seen as an honest vote (citation) to your website. Any vote perceived as spammy may in fact defeat (or harm) your cause.
Help Untangling a Website Penalty
With over 200 ranking factors and quality score filters in place search engines have been able to really clean up result pages. Unfortunately that has the unintended consequence of a very natural act in our world, “the weak die”. The difference here is life can be restored. The death of your website in search engine result pages can be revived to a healthy condition by proper diagnoses of the true cause. Intended or non-deliberate, “black hat” activities may be the cause. Sometimes the infraction you are guilty of does not exist on your pages, it may be off your pages, but you are deemed accountable.
If you are having a hard time figuring out why you remain in the bowels of Google’s index I will figure it out for you. In my day job that’s all I do, analyze websites. I am a GAAC (Google Analytics Authorized Consultant) which 10 years of trench digging experience. Out of pure passion I love figuring out why your website suffered from a website penalty with a full analysis. If you need support I am happy to help demystify your problem.
Tags: buy bad domain, link 101, free link scam, so called seo expert, fake google experts, google ban, bad seo school, nine tricks, fake social bookmarking, site penalty, website penalty
Related Posts | How To Detect Search Engine Spamming | Hit With a Duplicate Content Penalty? | TrustRank Determination |
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