Google in its constant endeavor to provide relevant search results is always looking for ways to refine its algorithms. It follows a set of well-defined guidelines to deter websites from using spams, unnatural links and toxic domains. It continuously makes updates to punish sites and pages that have been spamming and using techniques such as keyword stuffing, cloaking, back-link building software tools, etc. So, if your site has been negatively affected by a Google algorithm update, it could possibly mean that Google has penalized it.

Meaning of Google Penalty

In simple words, Google penalty means lowered rankings, reduced web traffic, and very less search visibility thus negating all SEO efforts that you have put into strengthening your web presence. For instance, Google’s Penguin Algorithm update has been one of the primary reasons behind a drastic fall in rankings for countless number of sites in the time period between April 24, 2012 and October 17, 2014.

In fact, over the last two years, Google had been very regular with updates in its algorithms, with some releasing every 6 weeks. Most such updates were released with two primary objectives – first to fine tune the rankings criteria for improved relevance and second to penalize the sites that were incorporating techniques violating Google’s guidelines. In order to understand what techniques are working against your website, it is first important to keep a close tab on your site’s rankings. Unless you identify the penalty, it is difficult to recover your site from it.

There are several companies offering affordable website SEO services that also include monitoring your website for any such penalty.

Tools to Check Google Penalty

SEO companies make use of several tools to effectively check for Google penalty for their clients’ websites. These tools strive to offer a complete overview of any negative impact on your site following Google’s updates. Some of these tools are discussed in this section:

Google Analytics is a free service available that offers several features to monitor your site’s traffic and ranking status. Regarded as a primary tool, it provides a quick glance at the changes in your organic traffic and provides you an idea of when the traffic began to drop.

Google’s Webmaster Tools is also available for free and offers a number of ways to monitor your website closely.

Moz Rank Tracker is an effective tool for tracking rankings over a period of time for pages and keywords on all major search engines. However, it is not free and requires one to subscribe to it. With the help of this tool, you can closely monitor the efforts that are making an impact on rankings and also sign up for notifications on rankings updates.

SearchMetrics is another effective tool for getting a clear picture on your sites’ search visibility over a period of time. The free version of the tool allows you to see the trend over past few months. However, if you go for paid subscription, you can see the trend for a much longer period of time. The tool clearly pinpoints the peaks and lows in search rankings and the changes occurred around those times.

Seositecheckup.com offers a host of free SEO tools to help you check for all those factors that could send a signal to Google. This could be undesired links, inappropriate tagging, and many such on-page issues.

With so many effective SEO tools and affordable website SEO services available, monitoring and optimizing your website has become easy and therefore should not be missed.

Google’s ‘website hacked’ notice can be a nightmare for any business. Google’s malware database is designed to identify potentially harmful sites and pop up a warning for users visiting such sites. Any legitimate site can be labeled “dangerous” by Google if hacked. So, if hackers have targeted your site and inserted some malicious content, your website too is likely to receive Google’s Hacked notice. This can severely impact your site’s traffic, reputation, and business. This calls for immediate action. You would need expert help from a reputed affordable SEO company.

Recovering your site post Google’s hacked notice could be a tedious task and usually requires professional help. Here are few steps that are typically followed as part of the site recovery process:

Step 1: Seek help from an expert server administrator as there are several steps that require thorough understanding of server related technicalities.

Step 2: Try to identify the source of the problem by using tools such as Firebug or Fiddler. Once identified, shut down the infected portion of the site completely in order to protect your visitors.

Step 3: Seek professional help to add your site to Google Webmaster Tools and complete the verification process. Once your site is accessible in webmaster tools, you can get information on the malware page or threat and a potential identification of the source. In order to clean the site, it is important to first understand the malware and its source.

Step 4: Now that you have some knowledge on where or what the threat is, it’s time to clean it up. This is the most crucial step for recovery and requires thorough understanding of every component of your site and database & SSH/Shell administrator access and knowledge. At this stage, you are required to perform actions such as running root kit hunter, anti-virus scanner and shell command and disabling third party add-ons. It is always advisable to take expert help at this stage. You may choose to reach out to your SEO company for an affordable solution.

Step 5: After you have cleaned up the malicious content, ensure that your server OS and all installed software including database are up-to-date. In order to prevent such threat in future, make sure you change the password to all database and administrative accounts and tighten your permission levels and firewall.

Step 6: It’s time now to request Google to review your site again and remove the hacked notice if everything is found in place. This can be done by logging back into Google Webmaster Tools and request for review on the Health-Malware page. Remember, it may take some time for Google to review the site and provide the updated status.

So it is entirely the expertise of the professional help at hand that decides the duration of this ordeal. As Google follows a standard process for removing malware warnings, the effectiveness of the solution depends on the removal of the threat. This is the reason why many businesses take help from their SEO partners whenever such an event occurs. Several affordable SEO company also help their clients in recovering their hacked sites and getting a clean chit from Google.