This article is all about the tricks how to keep your website away from any Google penalty. PBS Guru provides a free SEO advice to assist you in recovering from a Google penalty and analyzing the most common causes.
If you are looking for some hard and fast rule to check for Google penalties with any degree of certainty, then I would say it’s quite difficult task.
Let’s take an example, if your website experiences a sudden dip in ranking for its important keyword terms it can be caused due to a Google algorithm change or search results (SERP) update.
Here I would like to pen that if we have any algorithm change or Google SERP update, there are always winners and losers. When a sudden dip in rankings is experienced, webmasters often incorrectly blamed Google penalties.
Google Penalty results into a sudden and dramatic fall in ranking of your website. The most severe Google penalties lead to total website de-indexing and Google may impose site ban too.
Also there are lots of forum which usually keeps you updated on any of algorithm change. I suggest SEO Chat Forum for any reliable Google Algorithm updates.
Now let’s move to most important part of the article, I have summarized a SEO Checklist which will help you in identifying the causes and reasons for a sudden dip in Google ranking (SERPS position)for prime keywords.
Avoid linking to ban sites and you need to run a test on all outbound links from your site to see if you are linking to any sites which have themselves been Google banned.
PBS Guru Tips: Use Back Link Analyzer Tool, run a test and fix the problematic links
Check your website are not linking to any bad neighborhoods, link farms or doorway pages.
PBS Guru Tips: I would like recommend quality checking all of your outbound links to external sites using the Bad Neighborhood detection tool.
Avoid using Automated Query Tools as Google penalties can sometimes be applied if particularly such queries are made from the same IP address that hosts your website.
PBS Guru Tips: Do not use Google API’s, automated Search Engine Ranking Tools, Submissions Tools for your website. Always believe on doing things manually.
Always insist on White Hat SEO Techniques, poor SEO techniques such as aggressive link building using the same keywords in link anchor text would results in Google Penalty.
PBS Guru Tips: If you are doing link building add no more than 5 new one way backlinks a week for your website. Also do not target Homepage Link building rather use deep linking to website internal pages as well.
If you owns more than one website and the Google penalty hits all sites at the same time, check the interlinking (cross linking) between those sites.
Extensive interlinking of websites, if they are on the same C Class IP address (same ISP) can be viewed as “link schemes” by Google and this void the terms of service. The risks are even higher where site A site wide links to site B and site B site wide links back to site A.
PBS Guru Tips: Make sure you Avoid site wide reciprocal linking.
Always avoid to use any hidden text in your content and remove any hidden keywords. Matt Cutts openly stated about hidden links in his blog that using this practice break the webmaster guidelines.
PBS Guru Tips: Avoid using text may have been coded to be the same colour as the page background, intended to make it invisible.
Avoid using excessive keyword stuffing in your webpages content.
PBS Guru Tips: Always use natural, well written web copywriting techniques.
As we all know that Doorway Pages are perceived to be doorway pages and hence if we use automated browser re-directs in any of your pages or Meta Refresh and JavaScript automated re-directs it result in Google penalties.
PBS Guru Tips: Always use a 301 re-direct or Mod Rewrite technique instead of these methods. Setting up a proper .htaccess file on your web server to redirect any page is always loved by Google.
Always avoid using Link Buying/Selling for improving website rankings or Page Rank
PBS Guru Tips: Matt Cutts (a Google engineer) on his Google SEO blog. Matt states that Google will also devalue links from companies selling text links.
Avoid Excessive reciprocal linking as it may results in a Google penalty.
PBS Guru Tips: Never forget to check that prospective reciprocal link partners must have a similar theme as your homepage. A Thematic link building keeps you safe.
Always mind if you are pulling in large amounts of duplicate content through content feeds (including RSS). In extreme cases this may trigger a Google penalty.
PBS Guru Tips: Avoid the use of I-frames to pull in affiliate content. It’s better to use banners and text links to avoid any possibilities of penalty.
Read the Google Webmaster Guidelines. According to Matt Cutts’s Blog, Google is improving webmaster communication and Google is now informing some (but not all) webmasters the cause of a website ban or penalty.PBS Guru Tips: Submit & verify XML Sitemap on your site and then to check site status in the Google Webmaster Console. Concluding the Article I would highly recommended to follow the entire checklist , if your website hit by Google Penalty or site ban, a Google re-inclusion request can be made from the same interface after fixing the errors.