After all the ‘Panda’s and ‘Penguin’s, many websites have suffered ranking drop in their search ranking. The question is, “Is the site penalized?”, or it’s simply because old backlinks got devalued and hence ranking dropped?
In today’s post, I’ll show you a way to find out the answer.
Before I continue, it is important for newbie to know Google’s penalty for link building. If you are not sure, read this post.
Basically, what happen is if you want to rank ‘yourdomain.com/article1.htm’ for the search term ‘yeast infection cure’ and you build tons of backlinks and get caught, Google will impose a limit to ‘yourdomain.com/article1.htm’ for this search term. It could be -40, -50 or -100. Say if it’s -100, it means the best position this url can attain is position 101.
Imagine a case where you rank #3 in a search term and suddenly, your ranking drop flat. 2 things could have happened.
1) Google updated its algorithm and many of your previous backlinks were either de-indexed or discounted. Since the total value of your backlinks dropped, your ranking dropped.
2) Your site triggered Google’s manual review and the reviewer team decided that most of the backlinks are junk (and more importantly, your site is a junk site that doesn’t add much value to its users). Hence the Google team imposed a penalty on this url. In this case, your position may drop from #3 to #103, for example, because of a -100 penalty.
If the rank drop is due to scenario 1, it’s simple. Just build more quality backlinks. There is no need to remove old backlinks because Google has in a way removed those links, by either de-indexing or discounting them.
If the rank drop is due to scenario 2, then you will have to clean up all your backlinks and write to Google for a re-evaluation.
Now, how do you know if you are in scenario 1 or 2?
There isn’t an official way to find out. Here is my ‘speculated’ way.
If you want to find out if ‘yourdomain.com/article1.htm’ has been penalized for the search term ‘yeast infection cure’, do a google search for
site:yourdomain.com yeast infection cure
What you are doing is searching within ‘yourdomain.com’ for the webpage that best matches ‘yeast infection cure’.
Assuming yourdomain.com/article1.htm is well optimized (both onpage and offpage) for this search term, yourdomain.com/article1.htm should rank top.
If you can’t find yourdomain.com/article1.htm at the top or among the top, but found it on the last page or perhaps page 5 or page 11, then something is wrong. There is a high chance that this url has been penalized.
What happen is Google uses a similar algorithm to return results for internal search. Hence if a url is penalized, the penalty will be shown in the internal search as well.
Thanks for this Educative and Informative articles.
This is one trick many of us don’t really know.
Thanks for sharing.
Spot on with this write-up, I honestly believe this web site needs a great deal more attention.
I’ll probably be returning to see more, thanks for the advice!
in 2019 future, google is better because they use Machine Learning and A.I. for SEO and another algorithm :)
Hi Kenneth, it has been quite a while since I read your post. I have however enjoyed this post as always. See you at the top!
Regarding backlinks it’s important to always have QUALITY over quantity. Way too many beginners go overboard by spamming 1000’s of links to their site and the Penguin update is all about devaluing those links. Do it the right way and you won’t get penalized.
I think, which web in spam category as spam link in brutally :(
Google seem to keep changing the rule’s almost every month now?
do you think this is a direct attempt to stop people doing any form of SEO and take out paid Google ad’s instead?
thanks as always Kenneth for sharing great tips & content
Google is ethical enough not to do such thing. All it wants is to maintain its authority in search engine market. Any form of SEO means people can take over its algorithm and rank any junk page #1 and that will only ruin their search quality.
Thanks, I never understood the difference between the two.
But, now I’m wondering How Long Is The Penalty? Is it forever, or a certain time period.
I don’t know the answer. But bear in mind that any form of penalty is human implemented and that means that person must have considered the quality of the page. This also implies that only sites with little values are penalized. Hence chances are the penalty is permanent.
Ya I know my website got permantetly banned from google and the only reason I could think of at the time was that it took me to long to decide to start advertising on the google search I see now that other things could have come into play as well
Very helpful information- thany you!
Very Valuable information as always from all the comments.thanks all.
“The “98% Solution”
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This is really true. Google did penalize many website ranking. A page rank 4 could be dropped to page rank 2 , 3 to 2 and 2 to 1.
Today, YouTube also take serious attention on view counts. They can just remove spam views to its actual view. This is really awesome Technology.
BTW, YouTube brings to us Olympics live channel, what I have to say…fantastic!
Enjoy Olympic London 2012.
Cheers!
I wish there was a way to find out why my site is indexed but not ranked……:/
I have a friend who is a designer who I think has been penalized. Should I tell him or not? We more or less compete of course, so I wanted to know if he was banned or penalized. I think he is penalized.
HIs problems:
1) BAD links (said a dude from India takes care of that, that triggered an alarm).
2) His main page points to another directory (domain.com/directory)
3) He has changed item #2 so many damn times (version1, web, site, etc).
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going to have a good read. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks a lot I did not know that google penalize for bad SEO. I also knew the classification of penalization.
I am very much helped of your blog. I loved it.
It is undeniable that when google release the penguin update , many site ranked down . Affected site owners take time to regain their sites back to the top again .
It is undeniable that when google release the penguin update , many site ranked down . Affected site owners take time to regain their sites back to the top again .
That’s a helpful tip thanks. I was worried about one of my other sites, but it “passed” your tip, so hopefully the problem was with some of the links I’d built before I knew better!
If you have a few pages which clearly don’t rank for their keywords doing this method, would you suggest deleting the url and redoing it, or just change the content on the page and hope the next refresh fixes it?
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Hi Kenneth,
Now i am clear about “how Website Has Been Penalized By Google?”
According to scenario 1, if my site lost to page rank due to changing Google algorithm. What i will do to regain my site to 3rd place..
Focus on long term success, not short term gain. That means, focus on building site authority and quality site with great content. If you do that, you will see Google chasing after you, instead of you chasing after Google.
For your info, building site authority means building backlinks from all kinds of sources using all kinds of anchor texts to different pages of your website.
Hi there. I need your help. My employer’s site ranked back to zero? What could be the possible cause?
Thanks for the great and useful information. After the latest update from google my page rank decreased and my visitors became half.
Is there any notification or method to know the penalization?
Before I forget this useful site link, I better share here for everyone.
To check your backlinks from your bad neighborhood, kindly paste your website URL into the box for beginning to scan.
http://www.bad-neighborhood.com/text-link-tool.htm
Hope you like it.
Yes there is a way to know if your website has been penalized by google or even banned the best way is to sign up for there free newwletters so this don’t happen and you can keep up on the latest news with google. But if there is a problem or you been banned you will get an email notification. Warning if you are banned for any reason by google you can NOT reactivate that account however you can still keep all your free things from google like your gmail, blogger and other accounts. I hope this was helpful.
Jimmy
I am looking forward for your next post, I’ll try to get the hang of it!I think I would never understand. It seems too complex and extremely broad forme.
remove old backlinksin a way removed those links, by either de-indexing or discounting them.
Somebody can help me, I am loosing my ranking in Keyword, I have checked everything start working but still facing the same problem, Can Anybody help me to get my ranking back
Panda and penguin did a lot harm to many websites. Nowallthe site owners are so muchcarefull about these things.
Hi Kenneth,
i have just checked my website with this search term ‘http://www.itelmobiledialer.com/’ ‘callback’ now my site page is on 2nd position but when i search “http://www.itelmobiledialer.com/” “callback” search term my page shows on 7th page. plz tell me what search term is ok or what about my page it panalized by google or not.
Waiting for reply ASAP,
Thanks
Naveen Kadian
Great way to see if Google is actually indexing the content also.
way is to sign up for there free newwletters so this don’t happen and you can keep up on the latest news with google. But if there is a problem or you been banned you will get an email notification. Warning if you are banned for any reason by google you can NOT reactivate that account however you can still keep all your free things from google
Great way to see if Google is actually indexing the content also.
….
I don’t use google anymore they banned me and I found alot of other sites to ge me traffic so I don’t really need them!
I had a jewelry site get dinged up. Cost me a fortune is jewelry sales through loss revenue in org search. The lesson I learned was to notate where I left links.
This is a good sign of the right thing to do.
Yes I also have been hit hard on only one site but it was my big money maker. I just about was going to get out of the game until reading this post. So I do appreciate the info and really Google is going to be Google
Kenneth im still not convinced that Google doesn’t just want us all to just take out paid ad’s!?
i do agree there are a lot of bad SEO practioner’s and hopefully some of the changes will mean the old ‘get 10,000 backlinks a day by any means’ people will change what they do but do you in all honesty not think that Google being a business also make some of these changes in the hope that most will just relent and buy sponsored ad’s instead?
thanks i will use backlink way for promotion..
thanks for sharing this very useful information on google penalty on websites.
If suddenly your keyword ranking fell down or becomes invisible from its current ranking then it simply means your website is penalized.
Wow, this is a great way to find is a site has been
penalized.
thanks for this
As I am a newbie in Blogging World this would be dam helpful to Me.
You made some good points. I did a little research on the topic and found that most people agree with your statements and generally your blog.
Thanx for a very interesting web site. Where else could I get that kind of info written in such an ideal approach? I have a undertaking that I’m just now working on, and I’ve been at the look out for such information
You have given a good article about the way of knowing whether Google has added up a penalty to our web page. A large number of people will be facing these kinds of problem with their sites and Web Pages. You have provided a great deal of help for them.
I would suggest reading this article before advertising on google it will save you from the headaches that I put up with and keep you from getting penalized or even worse banned!
You are saying absolutely right, but there is any tool for check penalize websites
Rohit can you tell me which another tool is to knowing if your site is penalized or not?
Look for now and probably not ever I will not use google they penalized me and I don’t care. This is why I use other advertising servicessuch as facebook, godaddy and others.
I’m glad this community and blog helps you. I love this blog too helps me get some great insite. I hope your son does well in his future judi bola :)
can everyone tell me, what is the easy way to increase PR website in Asia Regional?
It’s so interesting post which all marketer should be interesting,when your site is losing position in some space in Google, what minus have you site and when Google penalized your site, look and read careful.
Interesting post. It is a little intimidating how much power a penalization can have over a website.
That’s why I don’t advertise on google Jim I got penalized for something that didn’t seem to make no since at all
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Thanks for this tutorial, how about youtube videos? Do they get penalized the same way?
I don’t believe so you just can’t put any profanity sites like adult site ext…
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Great post,one thing I’ve learned is that you really don’t need to waste too much time removing the links you think may have hurt your site. It’s not like google doesn’t know that you have poor quality backlinks. They basically just discount those backlinks and like you said the best thing to do is just generate higher quality backlinks to your site. Thanks for the informative article!
Thanks for share. The information is really useful for me.
Google’s ever-changing algorithms made rankings of websites go down. No matter how you look at it, websites are being penalized. That’s all there is to it. But, there are some effective ways to make up for those penalties. One of them is to write relevant articles and stop spamming.
Look I just use All Enclusive Ads you can find it on my website and I’ve seen amazing results. Google banned me from using there services I think simply because I waited too long before making a decision to advertise through them so personally I feel if they don’t want my business fine!! And the funny part is I was just going to put up my ad campaign up right before they did that sorry about your loss. I also advertise through Microsoft which is yahoo and bing sometimes and through facebook too from time to time but google can kiss my ass I would love to advertise on google but don’t understand why they banned me from using my adwords account for don’t make any sense.
Based on my experience, you will know that your website is penalized by Google if you receive some kind of notifications or warnings like DCMA or your Google Ads are all gone.
If they ban your Adsense account, then, you are being penalized by Google, right?
Not really. It’s just your Adsense account that is banned.
Very well explained, was looking for information on the penalty from Google (Panda and Penguin) for a project. In my case all the links I perform a file copy in case you need to revise or delete them.
Every day Google say that it becomes more intelligent.
Thank you.
A greeting
Not too long ago, my website was penalized by Google by disabling my Adsense account. Doesn’t make sense at all.
I never heard of that one my google Adsence account was banned for having my ads out of frame on my website but that is a new one for me!
It’s okay to be penalized. But, if you were banned forever, that’s the worst thing that can happen to your website or blog!
Can we really write to Google for re-evaluation? Why, thank you for this information!
Over optimization is a big issue which is the main cause of the drop of site’s ranking.
Even though I don’t pay attention to what Google does these days with all their changes or why, this is most certainly an eye opener. thanks for the share Ken.
All my best for a Merry Christmas to you and yours! :)
Thanks for the article, i will return back to read more about this. I know if you spam with backlinks you will be penalized
If Google has penalised the site for duplicate content it will appear in Google Webmaster Tools under a section called Manual Actions on the left hand side.
Great article and site.
greaaaat article and veryy interssing
Good info about google, I will add to my bookmarks. Thanks, will comeback later!
If your website has reliable and quality content, it surely will be friendly to search engines such as google. It is always good to have the status of your website, and knowing whether your page has been penalized by google is very necessary. This is a great page, and by clicking on the link above you will know more about managing your website content.
Good info about google, I will add to my bookmarks. Thanks….
Great article thanks for this information
Google always changing their ways! Thanks for the information!
Alot of this holds true to this day!
Great post. Help me very much.
Great Post! I was only using the information of Manual Actions on the Webmaster Tools to look out for any Google Penalty. Also, sudden changes in the rankings of my page. Thanks for article, let me try this as well for my clients
You can check out your GSC (google search console) ac for the same. there is an option in the left navigation section to check manual & security issues.