If your site has been penalized by Google, it can be a frustrating and time-consuming process to recover from it. However, there are some steps you can take to try to regain your site’s ranking.
Step 1. Identify the cause of the penalty
The first step in recovering from a Google penalty is to identify the cause of the penalty. Google will typically send a message to the site’s webmaster or owner through the Search Console, which will indicate the reason for the penalty.
See also: How to Create Google Friendly Content in Simple Steps
Step 2. Remove any spammy or low-quality content
If the penalty is related to spammy or low-quality content on your site, it’s essential to remove that content as soon as possible. This may include removing duplicate content, removing irrelevant keywords, and removing pages that are not providing value to your users.
For example, you have 2 articles on your blog with similar title or content as mentioned below
1. What is ChatGPT? All you need to know about ChatGPT
2. 10 things you should know about ChatGPT
In this case, what you can do is, remove one article which is performing less compared to the other.
To check your content’s quality score you can read this article from marketmuse.
Step 3. Fix any technical issues
If the penalty is related to technical issues on your site, it’s essential to fix those issues as soon as possible. This may include fixing broken links, correcting any crawl errors, and ensuring that your site is mobile-friendly. To check
Step 4. Create high-quality, original content
Creating high-quality, original content is key to recovering from a Google penalty. This may include writing blog posts, creating infographics, and creating videos.
Step 5. Build quality backlinks
Building high-quality backlinks to your site is another essential step in recovering from a Google penalty. This may include guest blogging on other sites, creating infographics, and participating in online communities.
See also: YouTube Streaming Vs Twitch Streaming
Step 6. Disavow links
If the penalty is related to bad backlinks, you can submit a disavow file to Google in order to tell them which links you don’t want to be associated with your site. Be careful, doing it wrong may result in your good backlinks and it’s benefit disappearing.
Step 7. Monitor and track progress
Once you’ve taken steps to recover from a Google penalty, it’s important to monitor your site’s performance and track its progress. You can use tools like Google Analytics and the Search Console to track your site’s traffic and ranking.
In conclusion, recovering from a Google penalty can be a difficult and time-consuming process, but by identifying the cause of the penalty, removing spammy or low-quality content, fixing technical issues, creating high-quality original content, building quality backlinks and monitoring progress, you can take steps to regain your site’s ranking. Remember that it takes time to recover from penalties, so be patient and persistent.
How long do Google penalties last?
Some penalties, such as a manual penalty, can be lifted within 30 days once the offending issue has been fixed and a reconsideration request has been submitted to Google.
If your site is hit with site-wide algorithmic penalty, it may take longer for the penalty to be lifted as the website will need to wait for the next algorithm update to see if the changes made have had an impact.
What kind of Google penalties can you get?
There are many types of Google penalties and the list can get even bigger with always evolving Google algorithm. Here are the most common types of Google penalties
- Manual Penalty: Manual penalty is applied by a Google employee after a manual review of a website. This can happen if the website is found to be in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
- Algorithmic Penalty: It is applied automatically by Google’s search algorithm when it detects that a website is in violation of its guidelines. For example, if a website is found to have low-quality content or spammy backlinks, it may be hit with an algorithmic penalty.
- Penguin Penalty: It targets websites with spammy backlinks. This penalty is part of Google’s algorithm and is applied automatically.
- Panda Penalty: The Panda penalty deals with websites with low-quality content, such as thin or duplicate content. This penalty is also a part of Google’s algorithm and is applied automatically.
- Top Heavy Penalty: The Top Heavy penalty targets websites with too many ads above the fold (the part of the page that is visible without scrolling). This penalty is also part of Google’s algorithm and is applied automatically.
What happens when you get a Google penalty?
If your site is hit with a Google penalty, depending upon the severity, it can have a very long lasting impact if not corrected timely. You can see the sudden drop in traffic to your website if Google punches you with a penalty. Next thing, your existing articles may get de-indexed and future articles will not get crawled/indexed. Revenue drop will happen so quick, you won’t know what hit you. Ha! jokes apart, if you are punished by Google, take it very seriously as Google search accounts for 84% of the total searches on the internet.
