Google Penalties - The Ultimate Guide

Have you heard this word before? Or you came to know that your website is under google penalties. If this is the case and you want to find out what they are, you are at the right place. This essay will enlighten your eyes to what a Google penalty is.

Are you aware? With 92% of the market share for search engines, Google is the most widely used. With this much popularity comes enormous responsibility. And Google takes care of all its strict norms by keeping an eye on the websites.

And if your website needs to follow the norms suggested by google. You may not rank even after putting so much effort into it. Let us move further and know what exactly is a Google Penalty.

What Is Google Penalty?

Google Penalties are punishments given to your websites when you misbehave or do not follow guidelines provided by Google, which are called Google Webmaster guidelines.

The severity of these punishments varies according to the mistakes you make. But moreover, google blocks particular keywords, URLs or sometimes the whole website.

So, When your website or some of its parts are under the radar of Google Penalty, this happens when someone searches your content they can't find it.

Different types of Google Penalties

• Keyword
• Subdomain
• URL
• Domain
• Whole Website ( Delisting)

Delisting is the harshest penalty. In this, the complete website is removed, and no one can search your website on google. The reasons behind Google's penalties are mainly copying content and links from the content already in google.

What Are The Types Of Google Penalties?

The common reason behind these penalties is the scam done during the digital marketing of your website. It includes Keyword stuffing, backlinking etc.

Mainly there are two types of Google Penalties, which we will study in detail in the upcoming paragraphs of this article only. –

1. Manual Google Penalties

A human reviewer detects this type of penalty. So, when google employees monitor search engine data, they find someone violating guidelines. They report their content, and this complaint results in Manual Google Penalties.

2. Algorithmic Google Penalties

So, Google does have some already set algorithms. When someone violates a particular type of guideline, google's algorithm automatically shares a penalty without someone even complaining about it.

What are Manual Google Penalties?

Manual Google Penalty is again sub-categorized into three main types, according to their severity. These three are arranged below in order-

Keyword Penalty - This type of penalty arises when one or more keywords are flagged. As an outcome, these flagged keywords need to be searched organically. At the same time, You can search other keywords as earlier. Organic search means the searches which come rank-wise on google. In this manner, all your SEO strategies will fail if you suffer from Google Penalties.

Site-wide Penalty - Site-wide Penalty is a higher penalty when compared to Keyword Penalty. Here top keywords of the domain are being flagged and can not be searched from the google search bar. However, someone with a link to your blog can search for it by pasting the URL.

Delisting - This is the worst type of Google Manual Penalty. Here the whole website is the punishment. Delisting is the situation when You need help searching your whole website of yours on Google. It will vanish all your SEO efforts in one go. To avoid it, one should work according to guidelines only.

What are Algorithmic Google Penalties?

Algorithm Penalties of two types-

Panda Penalties: This type of penalty is associated with the quality of web content.

Penguin Penalties: This type of penalty is associated with the website's backlinks.

What is the difference between Manual and Algorithmic Google Penalties?

Many think that both are similar. But this is not the case. There is a vast difference between manual and algorithm penalties.

Algorithm penalties are indirect penalties. And manual penalties are direct penalties. 

The Panda and Penguin are there to enhance search result qualities. At the same time, manual penalties are substantial penalties which impact the website.

Algorithm penalties help digital marketers, business people, and individuals who want to establish their e-commerce setup.

What are the Reasons Behind Google Penalties?

Out of many, some of the reasons behind google's penalties are-

Keyword Stuffing

SEO experts say it is essential to add an adequate number of keywords in an article to rank it. But in the greed of ranking articles, website owners add an extra number of keywords called keyword stuffing. It is why keyword stuffers have a lower rank in Search Engine Result pages, commonly called SERPs.

Website Hacking

Website hacking is something which may not be your fault. Then too, you have to suffer for it. It is the rationale it is advised to keep full security sites. To avoid website hacking and hence google penalties.

Weak Content and Images

Weak content here means insufficient information, i.e. some headings are saying something and showing something else. Apart from this, content with lower SEO friendliness, Duplicate Content, Copied content, Unauthentic Content, and Spun and auto-generated content is called weak content. Images-wise, the images are not royalty free, and you have used them without permission can be a reason behind the Google penalty.

Link Spam and Redirects

Many Websites keep redirecting you to other pages, which certainly is annoying, and google takes proper care of its users. Excessive redirecting can lead to flagging by Google. In 2012, Google updated its algorithm penalty policy by mentioning penalties for unnatural outbound links. At the same time, it increases your ranking if you use natural links for your websites.

There are many more reasons behind google penalties which you can read in the web admin guidelines by Google.

How to Avoid Google Penalties?

Avoiding Google Penalties is easy, but recovering from them is undoubtedly not easy. For this, you need to avoid the following mistakes-

• Keep an eye on backlinks, do not buy them from others
• Avoid Keyword Stuffing
• Avoid User-generated Spam
• Post Authentic Content Only
• Do not Pirate Images
• Avoid pure spam
• Read regular Google updates
• Avoid News and Discover policy violations
• Key Takeaway

Google Penalties are not equivalent to your website's death but will undoubtedly impact your web career. And google penalties are tough to clear.

The simplest way is to look after your web analytics properly, have clear statistics of your web traffic, and work on it for smooth web working.

Author: Amit Kumar Khare

Amit is a tech enthusiast and loves writing about it. He is a senior developer with good hands-on experience in digital marketing.