First and foremost, let’s establish some ground rules. What exactly is a Google penalty, and should you be concerned? When a website (or parts of it) violates Google’s webmaster guidelines, a set of marketing rules created by the search giant to ensure a pleasant user experience (UX) in Search, fines are imposed. If you’re working on SEO, a Google penalty will derail your long-term efforts. One of the most important steps is to recognize when you’ve received a penalty. If your traffic drops dramatically after a Google algorithm update, you’ve most likely been hit by an algorithmic penalty. A manual penalty, on the other hand, is triggered when a Google human reviewer discovers non-compliant, black-hat search ranking strategies on your site or sites. Submitting a recovery request is another important move. Regrettably, some webmasters overlook this step. Just 5% of the 400,000 manual fines issued per month request a refund.
If you’ve been hit with an algorithmic or manual penalty by Google, the search engine just needs you to find out about it and fix it. We’ll walk you through the Google penalties list and show you how to fix each one in this post. We also offer webmasters, advertisers, and business owners the tools and know-how they need to remove Google manual penalties successfully. . Google manual penalty recovery is no longer an option!
Let’s get started with a full list of Google SEO penalties. We’ll start with manual penalties and work our way up to algorithmic penalties.
10 Penalties imposed by Google in the form of a manual
- Misalignment of AMP Content
The canonical edition, which acts as the master copy of a web page, differs from the Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) version. If they don’t fit, Google won’t serve users the quicker, smoother AMP content, which will negatively impact their experience.
- Images that have been hidden
Cloaking is the practice of serving different content to search engines than what consumers see. Images that are obscured by another image or document, as well as thumbnails that are out of order, are examples.
- Cloaking and/or Sneaky Redirects are three options.
When search engines see one form of content but users see something else, this penalty is applied. They can also be diverted to material that isn’t what they were expecting.
- Keyword Stuffing or Hidden Text
Computers and search engines can see hidden text, but visitors can’t. Two examples are off-screen text placed through CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and white text on a white background. The use of so many keywords is known as keyword stuffing. Both can be used to deceive search engines, resulting in Google penalties for SEO.
- It’s just junk mail
Automated content creation, cloaking, and scraping are all aggressive spamming techniques. This manual penalty that Google imposes is very serious since it affects the entire website.
- Mobile Redirects That Aren’t Quite What They Seem
Users are redirected to different content than was made available to search engine crawlers by using mobile-only sly redirects. Another example would be sending search engine visitors to a spammy domain rather than the URL promised in the Search results.
- No-Spam Host
Your free hosting service may be hosting a large number of spammy websites that break Google’s webmaster guidelines. In this scenario, the search engine giant takes action against all of the internet provider’s websites.
- The Problem with Structured Data
This refers to unstructured data that is used to control user actions, such as marking up secret, irrelevant, or misleading information. Look over Google’s list of structured data problems to prevent or correct.
- Content that is sparse and adds little or no value
You can probably guess what comes under this manual penalty just by looking at the mark. Consider affiliate pages with cookie-cutter text, doorway pages, or large amounts of thin, syndicated material that you didn’t publish. When users land on pages with this sort of cohesion, as Cutts put it, “there’s nothing to excite them.”
- NEW: Policy Violations on Google News and Discover
Google released a new series of manual actions based on Google News and Google Discover in February, according to Search Engine Land. This broadens the scope of the SEO Google penalties list, which was previously limited to Search.
Each Google News and Discover manual penalty is listed below:
- Contaminated Material
- Material That Is Harassing
- Containing Hate
- Media Manipulation
- Content that is medical
- Containment That Is Sexually Explicit
- Content of Terrorists
- Profanity and obscene language
Google Penalties Due to Algorithms
- Panda Penalty Checker
Panda has been a member of the ranking algorithm for search results since 2016. This update entails a site-by-site assessment of content quality. A quality score is allocated to your site, and minor content problems will contribute to that figure falling. In the Penguin age, what are the requirements for Google penalty resolution? It’s seeing a sudden but steady drop in site traffic, as well as trouble ranking certain pages and not being ranked at all.
In this case, how can you get rid of Google’s penalty?
Take a look at the following points to see if there are any problems:
- Content that isn’t very good
- Content that isn’t unique (get clarification on Google penalties for duplicate content)
- Material that is badly published
Always keep in mind that the user experience is the most important factor to consider. As a result, rewrite or replace any content that does not provide value to your guests. It’s one of the most natural ways to stop having to figure out how to get rid of Google penalty hits on your website. Also, keep in mind that content writing is difficult, so don’t make the mistake of causing your own demise. While duplicate content is not penalized by Google, having multiple pages that say the same thing can irritate your readers. Google will be confused by the duplicate and will serve the original copy, which may or may not be the one you want to rate for that subject or keyword.
- How to Find Out Whether You’ve Been Penalized by Google: Penguin
Unnatural connections are penalized by Panda algorithm updates, but only on the pages that are affected. If any of the following pages on your site have backlinks, you might be making the following costly errors:
- You have a lot of backlinks in the comments section, for example.
- There are a lot of low-quality links on your website. If you have a lot of high-quality connections, Google may become suspicious. The trick is to maintain a sense of balance.
- You’ve quickly amassed a large number of backlinks.
In the Penguin age, what are the requirements for Google penalty resolution? Be on the lookout for a drop in organic traffic and search rankings.
How to Get Out of a Google Penalty
Depending on the Google SEO penalties incurred, the path to recovery could take anything from three hours to three months. This does not take into account the time spent prior to and during the identification of problems. You won’t have to worry about late discovery or long recovery times if you hire the right SEO firm. So, you know what to expect from your Google penalty recovery service provider, here’s a summary of the process for each penalty type:
Penalty Removal by Hand on Google
Send a reconsideration request from the Manual Actions report in Search Console after you’ve found and resolved all problems. Include the following information in your request:
- A rationale for the issue
- Describe how you resolved the issue.
- Documentation of the outcome of the patch (Convince Google that you did everything you could to eliminate the violation and prevent it from happening again.)
Wait for confirmation that you were successful. If your appeal for reconsideration is denied, you must resubmit it before the problem is resolved.
Removing the Google Panda Penalty
Since a Panda penalty affects the whole platform, concentrate on identifying and resolving all current problems in order to raise the quality score. Thin material, redundant content, and incomplete pages with critical details, such as the Contact page, are some examples. It’s possible that a few or a hundred pages would need to be updated. Changes to the header, footer, or navigation are often required by Google. The difficulty lies in determining what should be updated and withdrawn, as well as what should be kept.
Waiting time: After you’ve made all appropriate adjustments, give Google some time to update your quality ranking. You’ll note a rise in traffic within 48 hours after the quality score is restored.
Getting Rid of the Google Penguin Penalty
Special pages and keywords with poor or abnormal connections are subject to an algorithmic penalty. Remove these ties as quickly as possible. If this isn’t feasible, you should instead disavow the URLs. The method of disavowal is explained in detail by Google. You’ll need to file a reconsideration request if the problem is not included in a manual actions report. Wait for Google to re-crawl the affected websites, which can take anywhere from three hours to three months until you’ve resolved the issue.
Don’t be discouraged by Google’s penalties.
What effect would the elimination of Google penalties have on your income, sales, and other financial indicators? Your site’s visibility suffers as it is penalized by Google. And it’s a recipe for failure when it comes to lead generation. You will further delay your Google manual penalty recovery if you take a long time to discover the issues. That’s why, even though we’ve answered the question “What is a Google penalty?” and shown you how to search for a Google penalty on your blog, you can factor in your learning curve. Using a Google penalty recovery tool, on the other hand, should cut down on the time it takes to figure out what happened and how to fix it.
It all comes down to finding someone who knows their way around Google Analytics and can perform a thorough site audit and review to see if you’re at risk of receiving a penalty. Give Thrive a shot if you need someone to help you avoid a penalty or fix one without wasting time and resources. Our web marketing, SEO, and search engine marketing strategies provide Google penalty recovery services.
First and foremost, let’s establish some ground rules. What exactly is a Google penalty, and should you be concerned? When a website (or parts of it) violates Google’s webmaster guidelines, a set of marketing rules created by the search giant to ensure a pleasant user experience (UX) in Search, fines are imposed. If you’re working on SEO, a Google penalty will derail your long-term efforts. One of the most important steps is to recognize when you’ve received a penalty. If your traffic drops dramatically after a Google algorithm update, you’ve most likely been hit by an algorithmic penalty. A manual penalty, on the other hand, is triggered when a Google human reviewer discovers non-compliant, black-hat search ranking strategies on your site or sites. Submitting a recovery request is another important move. Regrettably, some webmasters overlook this step. Just 5% of the 400,000 manual fines issued per month request a refund.
If you’ve been hit with an algorithmic or manual penalty by Google, the search engine just needs you to find out about it and fix it. We’ll walk you through the Google penalties list and show you how to fix each one in this post. We also offer webmasters, advertisers, and business owners the tools and know-how they need to remove Google manual penalties successfully. . Google manual penalty recovery is no longer an option!
Let’s get started with a full list of Google SEO penalties. We’ll start with manual penalties and work our way up to algorithmic penalties.
10 Penalties imposed by Google in the form of a manual
- Misalignment of AMP Content
The canonical edition, which acts as the master copy of a web page, differs from the Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) version. If they don’t fit, Google won’t serve users the quicker, smoother AMP content, which will negatively impact their experience.
- Images that have been hidden
Cloaking is the practice of serving different content to search engines than what consumers see. Images that are obscured by another image or document, as well as thumbnails that are out of order, are examples.
- Cloaking and/or Sneaky Redirects are three options.
When search engines see one form of content but users see something else, this penalty is applied. They can also be diverted to material that isn’t what they were expecting.
- Keyword Stuffing or Hidden Text
Computers and search engines can see hidden text, but visitors can’t. Two examples are off-screen text placed through CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and white text on a white background. The use of so many keywords is known as keyword stuffing. Both can be used to deceive search engines, resulting in Google penalties for SEO.
- It’s just junk mail
Automated content creation, cloaking, and scraping are all aggressive spamming techniques. This manual penalty that Google imposes is very serious since it affects the entire website.
- Mobile Redirects That Aren’t Quite What They Seem
Users are redirected to different content than was made available to search engine crawlers by using mobile-only sly redirects. Another example would be sending search engine visitors to a spammy domain rather than the URL promised in the Search results.
- No-Spam Host
Your free hosting service may be hosting a large number of spammy websites that break Google’s webmaster guidelines. In this scenario, the search engine giant takes action against all of the internet provider’s websites.
- The Problem with Structured Data
This refers to unstructured data that is used to control user actions, such as marking up secret, irrelevant, or misleading information. Look over Google’s list of structured data problems to prevent or correct.
- Content that is sparse and adds little or no value
You can probably guess what comes under this manual penalty just by looking at the mark. Consider affiliate pages with cookie-cutter text, doorway pages, or large amounts of thin, syndicated material that you didn’t publish. When users land on pages with this sort of cohesion, as Cutts put it, “there’s nothing to excite them.”
- NEW: Policy Violations on Google News and Discover
Google released a new series of manual actions based on Google News and Google Discover in February, according to Search Engine Land. This broadens the scope of the SEO Google penalties list, which was previously limited to Search.
Each Google News and Discover manual penalty is listed below:
- Contaminated Material
- Material That Is Harassing
- Containing Hate
- Media Manipulation
- Content that is medical
- Containment That Is Sexually Explicit
- Content of Terrorists
- Profanity and obscene language
Google Penalties Due to Algorithms
- Panda Penalty Checker
Panda has been a member of the ranking algorithm for search results since 2016. This update entails a site-by-site assessment of content quality. A quality score is allocated to your site, and minor content problems will contribute to that figure falling. In the Penguin age, what are the requirements for Google penalty resolution? It’s seeing a sudden but steady drop in site traffic, as well as trouble ranking certain pages and not being ranked at all.
In this case, how can you get rid of Google’s penalty?
Take a look at the following points to see if there are any problems:
- Content that isn’t very good
- Content that isn’t unique (get clarification on Google penalties for duplicate content)
- Material that is badly published
Always keep in mind that the user experience is the most important factor to consider. As a result, rewrite or replace any content that does not provide value to your guests. It’s one of the most natural ways to stop having to figure out how to get rid of Google penalty hits on your website. Also, keep in mind that content writing is difficult, so don’t make the mistake of causing your own demise. While duplicate content is not penalized by Google, having multiple pages that say the same thing can irritate your readers. Google will be confused by the duplicate and will serve the original copy, which may or may not be the one you want to rate for that subject or keyword.
- How to Find Out Whether You’ve Been Penalized by Google: Penguin
Unnatural connections are penalized by Panda algorithm updates, but only on the pages that are affected. If any of the following pages on your site have backlinks, you might be making the following costly errors:
- You have a lot of backlinks in the comments section, for example.
- There are a lot of low-quality links on your website. If you have a lot of high-quality connections, Google may become suspicious. The trick is to maintain a sense of balance.
- You’ve quickly amassed a large number of backlinks.
In the Penguin age, what are the requirements for Google penalty resolution? Be on the lookout for a drop in organic traffic and search rankings.
How to Get Out of a Google Penalty
Depending on the Google SEO penalties incurred, the path to recovery could take anything from three hours to three months. This does not take into account the time spent prior to and during the identification of problems. You won’t have to worry about late discovery or long recovery times if you hire the right SEO firm. So, you know what to expect from your Google penalty recovery service provider, here’s a summary of the process for each penalty type:
Penalty Removal by Hand on Google
Send a reconsideration request from the Manual Actions report in Search Console after you’ve found and resolved all problems. Include the following information in your request:
- A rationale for the issue
- Describe how you resolved the issue.
- Documentation of the outcome of the patch (Convince Google that you did everything you could to eliminate the violation and prevent it from happening again.)
Wait for confirmation that you were successful. If your appeal for reconsideration is denied, you must resubmit it before the problem is resolved.
Removing the Google Panda Penalty
Since a Panda penalty affects the whole platform, concentrate on identifying and resolving all current problems in order to raise the quality score. Thin material, redundant content, and incomplete pages with critical details, such as the Contact page, are some examples. It’s possible that a few or a hundred pages would need to be updated. Changes to the header, footer, or navigation are often required by Google. The difficulty lies in determining what should be updated and withdrawn, as well as what should be kept.
Waiting time: After you’ve made all appropriate adjustments, give Google some time to update your quality ranking. You’ll note a rise in traffic within 48 hours after the quality score is restored.
Getting Rid of the Google Penguin Penalty
Special pages and keywords with poor or abnormal connections are subject to an algorithmic penalty. Remove these ties as quickly as possible. If this isn’t feasible, you should instead disavow the URLs. The method of disavowal is explained in detail by Google. You’ll need to file a reconsideration request if the problem is not included in a manual actions report. Wait for Google to re-crawl the affected websites, which can take anywhere from three hours to three months until you’ve resolved the issue.
Don’t be discouraged by Google’s penalties.
What effect would the elimination of Google penalties have on your income, sales, and other financial indicators? Your site’s visibility suffers as it is penalized by Google. And it’s a recipe for failure when it comes to lead generation. You will further delay your Google manual penalty recovery if you take a long time to discover the issues. That’s why, even though we’ve answered the question “What is a Google penalty?” and shown you how to search for a Google penalty on your blog, you can factor in your learning curve. Using a Google penalty recovery tool, on the other hand, should cut down on the time it takes to figure out what happened and how to fix it.
It all comes down to finding someone who knows their way around Google Analytics and can perform a thorough site audit and review to see if you’re at risk of receiving a penalty. Give Thrive a shot if you need someone to help you avoid a penalty or fix one without wasting time and resources. Our web marketing, SEO, and search engine marketing strategies provide Google penalty recovery services.