A Google search aims to help users find relevant material and connect to legitimate websites trying to reach their target audience. It runs numerous algorithms to eliminate spam and filter out the noise to bring the most relevant websites to the top of the results page. Ranking highly on Google is great for your website, and it vastly increases the number of visitors you get.
Many companies aim to understand and sometimes manipulate Google’s algorithms to increase their search engine ranking. However, Google takes steps to prevent websites from tricking their way to the top of a results page. If Google believes a website is deliberately manipulating its algorithms, it may impose a penalty (automatically or through a manual action) which relegates some or all of the pages of a site further down the results page – or removes them altogether.
Google penalties, though sometimes reversible, can be detrimental to your website. Understanding how to avoid Google penalties is critical to search engine optimisation (SEO) strategies that increase your website traffic and connect you to more of your target audience in the long term.
Here are some tips for how to avoid the most common Google penalties.
Use Links Carefully
Buying, renting, and excessively using links used to be standard methods for increasing SEO rankings; however, Google has taken steps to stop this practice. There are now several things to watch out for when using links on your site.
- Avoid using too many links. Make sure all links are relevant, high-quality, and well researched.
- Don’t link to pages in different languages. High-quality websites aim to inform the reader and provide genuine evidence for their claims. Links to sites in a different language may be meaningless to a site viewer and may suggest that a site is of low quality or contains spam.
- Don’t use unnatural links. Unnatural links – where you buy or participate in link schemes to increase your page rank – are against Google’s webmaster guidelines and may result in a penalty.
Avoid Keyword Stuffing
Keywords play an important part in Google’s algorithms. In general, sites that contain particular words or terms will rank higher in the results of the user.
Filling or stuffing content with keywords was previously an effective SEO strategy, but changes to Google’s algorithms and guidelines mean you can now receive a penalty for misusing keywords.
Keywords are, of course, still important. Websites should use keyword counting tools to ensure that you use the optimum number of words and not overdo it. You can also focus on other strategies like effective keyword placement and keyword research to boost your SEO ranking.
High-Quality Content
Websites with high-quality content rank well on a results page. Google wants to ensure that sites on its first page offer the user a quality experience. Content should be well-written, grammatically correct, and informative. Badly written pages may look like spam and be eliminated from Google search results.
Duplicating material should be avoided at all costs – it does not improve your SEO ranking and can result in a penalty.
Cloaking Web Pages
Cloaking web pages is the practice of showing one version of your site to search engine algorithms and a different version to the user. This clear attempt to manipulate SEO rankings will result in serious penalties and issues. Google penalises deliberate SEO manipulation to ensure a fair experience for both searchers and websites – cloaking webpages for your own personal interest clearly contradicts these aims.
Auditing Your Site
Auditing your site can help you spot potential for SEO red cards such as broken links, duplicate content, or other errors. Checking that your site is working correctly and making ongoing improvements and changes should be important in your regular marketing strategy.
How Do You Know If You Have Received a Google Penalty?
Sometimes, you receive a penalty as a result of a manual action by the Google team. Google will alert you of this in a Manual Actions Report and in the Search Console message centre.
Other times, your page may be automatically flagged by an algorithm. While you may not be informed directly of the penalty, there are several ways to know that you have received an SEO red card:
- Google has relegated your website to the back pages
- Your website is not the top result for your brand name
- Google has removed your website from Google’s cache
- Your listing links to a web page other than your home page
Google penalties, though troublesome, do not mean the end of your website. There are ways to get your website back on track – numerous websites have recovered from Google penalties. Once you understand what caused a penalty, you can work to remove the issues and see your website’s ranking increase again.
