You wake up in the morning, check out your Google analytics and you notice your traffic dropped drastically. Next, you check Google and enter your keywords to check your rankings and you notice you just aren’t in the first page anymore. Your blood pressure increases, your pulse throbs and you can feel your heart beat faster. ‘Did Google just penalize me??
And if you’re wondering - yes this stuff really happens. Stuff like this happen in SEO all the time!
So what do you need to do when this happens to you?
First, check if it is a traffic drop or a rankings drop
What’s a rankings drop? Well a rankings drop (if ever you’re using a rank checking software) is going down on your Google keywords ranking. For example, you’re supposed to be on page 1 and ranking second or third place and then suddenly you drop to page 2.
If you’re not checking your ranking (meaning you’re just tracking your Google analytics) and you notice a drop in your Google search traffic – that’s a traffic drop. And it can be due to several reasons. For example, people might just not be searching for your set of keywords anymore because it’s Christmas time and everyone’s happy with what they’ve got – hey, it happens!
That’s why it’s so important to track your rankings – especially the ones in the first page of the SERPs. So that you’ll know the reason behind a traffic drop or increase.
Second, if you’ve identified that you lost traffic due to a particular set of keywords, then that’s when you try to see if you were indeed penalized by Google. Because it’s either Google really did penalize you OR some of your links do not hold that much power/Google juice anymore or those links have simply disappeared – or were removed.
Sometimes it’s with the links and not with the practices we do as SEO’s. Because if you know you’re doing things right, meaning you’re not doing anything to piss Google off, then you probably weren’t penalized to begin with. It’s probably with the links.
How can you check if there is any change in your links? Well, you have go to the sites where you get backlinks from and check out if they’re still there or if they moved or changed your link or whatnot. There are a lot of tools in the net to see where all your backlinks come from. i would suggest SEO toolbar from Aaron Wall’s SEO Book.
When you’re sure you were indeed ‘doinked’ by Google
Maybe you know you did something wrong – maybe you did cloaking or you hid some texts, or you spammed some sites, and you end up with the conclusion that Google did ‘doink’ you out of it’s index then the question you’re facing now is “How do I get back in?”
Well, you have to check the factors of your offense against Google
First, you have to identify the severity of your offense.
How serious was your crime? Mass buying links? Cloaking adult content? There are different weights for different crimes. They don’t all amount to the same punishment.
Second, is this your first offense or is it a repeat?
Maybe you didn’t mean it or you didn’t know that what you did was offensive to Google. Maybe you didn’t mean to manipulate their search algorithm. Maybe – if it’s your first time. Try doing it again, and of course you lose the benefit of the doubt. And you want that benefit when facing the Google spam team.
Third, are you a big player or a dispensable site?
Are you a big brand on the web? Are you giving out valuable information to people? Are you a known name through the internet? Google will most probably go easier on the big and established brands out there. But if you’re small and dispensable, don’t count on it.
What to do to get back in:
Submit a re-inclusion request
Of course, to get back in, you have to submit a re-inclusion request. Yep you have to swallow your pride and beg on your knees depending on how much you value your domain name.
You can also give a tweet to Google Webspam team’s program manger Brian White: @brianwhite just to say “Hi, my site’s been sandboxed coz I made a boo-boo.”
Spill it all out
Google probably knows each and every detail of your offense against them. If you fail to tell them anything regarding your offense (and perhaps say you’re sorry for each and that you will never do it again) they’ll make it harder for you to get back in if not reject you altogether. Google spam team wants a full accounting of what you did.
If that doesn’t work
Raise the white flag and move on to another domain. Google probably won’t include you back again anymore. All we can do is hope for Google to be nice and include us back again. Unfortunately, Google can also catch bad moods. Sometimes you have to decide that it’s time to move on and leave the hopes of getting your site indexed back again.
Tips for Keeps: All this is the hassle of getting caught practicing black hat SEO. It will burn your brand to the ground.
That’s why I only give my clients pure white hat SEO and clean internet marketing. I take care of their brands because the hassle of pleading with Google to take me back just doesn’t appeal to me. And my advice is, make sure you practice white hat too.
You can check out SEOmoz’s video about Google penalty here!
About Sean
Thanks for this important information, i need much it that time.
You're very welcome :)
Hi, what can be done to eliminate unfair competition in google listings? In my niche there are some examples that link between their own sites and have top rankings?
unfair competition? There is no 'fair competition' to begin with Jay. :)
You have to work hard to beat the competition be it fair or not. SEO is dirty, hard work. That's life :)
Unless you cheat using black-hat
Hi Sean ,
I want to ask that my website is penalized 2 weeks ago ,i send re consideration request to Google ,how much time it take to re index my site ??? and another thing is that ,for increasing my backlink some one tell me to use a automatic backlink builder website and i do it and placed a link on my website as there policy ,is this is the main reason for penalization ….pls help me ..my website page rank is 2 and its first time to me
There really is no fast-lane to getting re-indexed Arun. I hate to say this, but you’re in Google’s tender (but time-consuming) mercy. It’s gonna take a while since the spam team is reviewing millions (or even billions) of other websites that are asking for re-inclusion or are reporting an issue or are just ranting around. Let me give you some good advice: don’t use automated backlink builders nor any other ‘automated’ SEO tools. Anything automated is easily detectable by Google.
Hey Sean’ do you know anything about a -50 penalty? Is it true or is it just a myth?
Haven’t heard about it. But I know some websites that have been penalized from page 1 to page 5 if that’s what you’re talkin about :)
I don’t think that make sense. The reason is because if google indeed punish the site. What if I hire someone to spam my competitor’s site? This could be a real good business. What do you think?
I think if you hire someone to try and signal to Google that your competitor is a spam is a very risky ploy. You would either make your competitor a more search engine friendly site to Google (coz some of the spam techniques might work if your competitor is a well established online brand) or you will get the results you want. It’s a double-edged sword. I wouldn’t wield it. Would you?
My keyword ranking has been drastically dropped. As I read this blog and checked my site traffic is good, there is nothing lost but gain few traffics. I have some few keywords on top 10, top 100 and now only 2 keyword in top 100, I even lost my rank 1 keyword.
Just some history, last month all my rankings dropped and after 3 weeks it came back, for only about a week now its gone.
Regarding factors of offense, it doesn’t apply all those three.
Anything else I can do, what I need to see on why it happens all the time my keyword position is like dancing all the time? How can I make my site stable in terms of ranking?
Hi Bien,
Did you do anything to your website before all these occurred?
Google dances from time to time – are you sure it’s not because of this?
Google won’t just penalize you for nothing. Perhaps you have a competitor doing something funny with your backlinks?
Check it out.
Just fix crawl errors and add new content. I hope its Google dance, and should be back very soon. When my rankings first dropped occur it took 4 weeks to get it back and now, only 2 kw remaining. So, do you think it cause Google dance for dropping keywords?
How do you mean competitor doing something with my backlinks? How could I know that?
Check it with a backlink checker like Blekko or SEO Spyglass – if there are suspicious backlinks going to your website then that might be the reason (but it’s unlikely unless your competitor is really good and he really hates you)
It might be because of Google Dance, yes. Just hope for the best – that’s all you can do for now. Or else, send Google your feedback.
My site has been penalized on Feb 2011.
I haven’t been able to recover ever since and still do not even know — Why?
Any tips?
I want to solve this issue badly!
Take away the factors that might have penalized you and email Google webspam team – tell them that you have put down all factors that are considered ‘spammy’ or ‘unethical’
You mean: reconsideration request? I’ve done that more then 10 times for the last year. No success! Do you know of a different way to contact email Google webspam team?
Unfortunately, there is none. You either have to contact them (make sure you clean your site first) or wait it out. Or you have to make a new site.
What is your opinion about onsite penalties? Do you think they are more drastic because you have control over your site? And what about malicious people that put your link on a porn site? There is nothing that you can do about that.
Yes I believe that on site penalties should be drastic because the responsibility is completely with the webmaster. Also about the porn site links, Google will usually just disregard those as long as your have brand links to leverage your link naturality. If you don’t know what link naturality is, please refer to my entry here: http://seo-hacker.com/future-proof-linkbuilding/
This time the penalty is severe on over optimization and poor content site, only one way to bring your site back is to give some quality content to user plus make some quality backlinks.
Hi, Thanks for the tips, We have been hit hard and need help, Can you put me in touch with a seo expert that can help, We have dropped almost off the map, we have done nothing wrong , I feel its the competition, Please help if you can our web site is drlock dot com dot au . Willing to pay for a good seo expert and to find problem
Hi Nathan,
There are a lot of factors behind this. Are you still in a rut and needing help?
my site suddenly lost some keywords after a spam attack how to fix that ? ( error this site may compromised )
Hi Rahul,
I honestly don’t know coz I have no experience with that yet. But you can post it in our Facebook groups here: http://www.facebook.com/groups/SEOHacker/
Some of our pages just disappeared from page 1 and it’s now completely gone! We can’t find them any where.
Any suggestions?
My suggestions are right in the post :) Contact them for reconsideration and fix the reason why you got de-ranked / penalized.
Hacker and spmmers carry same intention , so they don’t care about Google , as we are normal blogger or webmasters must convey the Google’s rules.—–
1. Don’t create post exclusively to give links to some website(s).
2 Don’t create artificial links which is not related to your website category or topic.
3. Don’t post your website links on irrelevant sites, illegal websites, porn websites or spam websites or link exchange or bulk emails.
4. Don’t join in a link scheme. Don’t post your website link on those link schemes.
5. Don’t participate in Widget spam or don’t put widget on your site pointing towards spammy websites (in other words Spammy Links Building or exchange websites)
6. Don’t involve in Paid links from irrelevant websites or spammy websites which is already discussed above. Putting your website links on spammy websites Google distrust your website entirely or partially depending on the number of links your site getting from those spammy websites.
7. Don’t involve in Guest Book Spam, Blog Spam, Excessive Articles Submission, Excessive Link Submission via Link submission software.
8. Don’t give Anchor text name for your widget for a particular keyword or phrase. Google consider this also spam. If your widget 100% relevant one and also link to particular website also in same category with higher page rank then there is no problem. If your widget links pointing towards spammy website. Then your site will be penalized by Google for such practices.
9. Don’t give Top or Below links in the same post too often. Don’t give too many links to other part of your website (other post or other pages of your website) always follow Google Webmaster Guidlines.
10 Don’t approve readers comment before you read the comment fully and also make sure that readers posting URL’s 100% relevant to your post or page or your website “niche”. If your reader try to put some spammy links or irrelevant links on the comment then you will be the loser. Your page rank will drop down drastically and your website taken out of Google Search Index for that post or page or entire website on a whole. So beware of spammy comments on your website.
Thanks for the good information and tips. If you have already joined a link scheme should you get rid of all the links, my site keeps going from page one to nowhere then back again then back to nowhere, very frustrating because cannot find any penalties on webmasters.
Thank you so much for this great informative article i learned something new from this blog.i like this blog very much awesome writhing keep it up thanks.
Hi! Very helpful article, thanks!
Do you know if there is any way you can check if you’re blacklisted/banned on certain keywords?Also, do you know if you can get banned if you use too many links in blog posts? I didn’t know this was a boo boo and now I believe Google has banned me from certain keywords.
Thanks!
I’m glad that you stumbled upon this article Linda. Keep away from building too many links in a span of a few days. Google is getting stricter by the second.
Awesome article. Got a lot of information but still confused about something. I added SEO keywords for some pages of my site for the first time. While for a few keywords, rank became good for others it dropped badly. I simply don’t understand this random phenomenon.