Getting nailed and penalized by Google just sucks. It is a webmasters worse nightmare.
Getting hit with a Google penalty is hands down one of the greatest threats to a website’s existence online. Most of the time they are given when a site breaks Google’s Terms of Use, but sometimes they happen for no reason at all … and innocent webmasters are sent reeling.
Why does Google give out penalties? Simple. They want to protect their customers. Did you know that Google makes an average of 8 cents in revenue for every single search conducted on their search engine and partner sites? That’s real money … and factors into billions and billions of dollars. Google doesn’t want to see that revenue stream end anytime soon so they are aggressive at protecting it.
Here are some methods that have been proven to cause Google penalties in the past:
– Hidden Text: using targeted keywords in the same color as the background of the page so they can’t be seen by the visitor but the search engine indexes the text.
– Paid Links: Using a broker or going direct to the webmaster to purchase links with targeted anchor text to manipulate the rankings in Google. It has been said for years by Google that if you buy links you will be punished hard.
– Cloaking: Showing the search engines a highly optimized page with no graphics, just text while showing the visitor the beautifully designed page. Google has stated that if you show them one page and the visitor another you will be penalized.
– Malware / Code Injection: If you cause code to be installed on the visitor’s machine to allow you to change their user experience across the Internet, and not just your site, your site will be flagged as malicious by Google.
… we’ll discuss more in a moment …
Google has stated time and time again that if you build a site with nothing but good, unique content then people will link to it naturally and your rankings will go up. That is one of the biggest lies on the internet. It isn’t going to happen. You have to build a site with good MARKETABLE content and then get off your butt and actually work to market your site and your offer. You can’t just build the site and sit on your hands expecting something to happen. You have to MAKE it happen!
What else do you need to be wary of?
• Your website is linking to a site that has been banned by Google
• Your website is Linking to “bad” neighborhoods (Google makes the determination of what is “bad” and it seems to change from month to month)
• Over optimization your website (keyword density for on-page factors or incoming anchor text)
• Duplicate Content
• Keyword Stuffing (spamming)
• Automated page redirects
You can check more guidelines and rules at: Google Webmaster Guidelines center
Recovering your website from a Google penalty may take around 2-3 months after you rectify everything, which includes going into the “Google Confessional”. If your website has been removed from Google’s index, then apply again for re-listing by submitting a re-inclusion request at http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/request.py?, or better yet, through your Google Webmaster Tools account.
Mikael Rieck says
Hi Jerry,
A very relevant topic indeed but after reading your headline I had hoped to find a brief description of your own plan. Sure following the guidelines that Google gives is the way to go, but as you say, bad luck can strike anyway. Even if you ask and get granted a re-inclusion, you’re still looking at a possible 20-25% loss on your yearly income. Most webmaster will have a hard time dealing with such a loss.
Do you have a backup plan for that?
Regards,
Mikael
OPEN Sundays says
Google seems to be a crucial moment in time with the sites of criminals who have paid links, and almost constant changes to the algorithm that allows SERPs a guessing game almost every day.