Steps to Remove Google Penalty from Website

Receiving a Google penalty can come as a shock if you run a quality site, but there are a variety of reasons it occurs. Here are the steps to take to remove penalties.

Understanding Penalties

There are two types of penalties that you can be slapped with by Google that will require action toward SEO penalty recovery:

• Algorithm: A drop in ranking when Google’s own algorithms change in Panda or Penguin. Panda picks up on subpar content, excessive ads, and slow traffic speed. Penguin addresses issues that ping the negative radar – including over-using links, over-optimization of content, and links from sketchy sources that lead back to your site.
• Manual: This is a penalty where live human reviewers assess whether or not your site is spam-filled or deserves to be penalized. This is a more severe type of penalty to be taken seriously and uses human intelligence.

Identifying and Understanding the Penalties

Any type of penalty you’ve received will appear in Google webmaster tools dash, and Manual penalties will be clear and present in messages. Algorithm penalties require reviews of recent changes to Google’s own algorithms and how your site’s ranking has suffered as a result. Manual penalties are the ones to watch out for, and require more complicated action.

Action to Be Taken

Identify culprits that contain too many links to your site, or links that originate from suspicious, low ranked sites that are identified as being spam-oriented. You’ll need to go back and ask for the links to be removed from the sites, which can be time consuming. Using SEO professionals to do this is much easier than trying to compile the information yourself and conduct the step-by-step process of contacting individual webmasters, in addition to addressing other problems. After you’ve made the fix, you’ll need to submit a request to Google for reconsideration.

By taking these simple steps, the penalty can be resolved. It’s all about closely monitoring the status of your Google metrics and activity, and ensuring that you’re paying close attention to how your site ranking is performing. Regardless of how large your website is, no one can afford to ignore Google results in this day and age.