Search Engine Penalties – How to Detect and Fix it

Search engine penalty – The ugly and dreadly word for any webmaster but its a reality that many sites suffer penalties by search engines due to unethical practices. Search engine doesn’t think about whether the bad practices are due to ignorance or a known commitment of the webmaster. It is prudent to know, how to detect search engine penalties and fix it as early as possible.

One thing you should always remember - Search engines frequently changes their algorithms. Google changes its algorithms more than 400 times in a year ! If you are dealing with search engine penalties you should be aware about the latest algorithms followed by major search engines.

Basic Search Engine Penalties Check

Important: Always remember, simple downgrading of your page or post by 5 to 10 ranks lower doesn’t constitute a penalty by search engine. This phenomenon is called “ Google Dance ” and we will discuss about it later on.

OK, you have performed the basic check using the above flow chart and found that your site is actually suffering from search engine penalties.

Fixing Search Engine Penalties

Fix the root cause or problem responsible for search engine penalties

Technical problems like invisible text, hidden links, involvement in link scam,keyword stuffing, spammy outbound/inbound links, pages with excessive irreverent words, duplicate content, doorway pages, numerous sub domains with duplicate content.

Its always time consuming to fix the root cause, if you are engaged with multiple manipulative activities. But its the reality. It is even harder, if your site is banned due to unintentional/unknowingly SEO errors from your side. But, unintentional SEO error is extremely rare.

File a “ reconsideration request ” to search engines

1. Reconsideration request to Google for search engine penalties

Google Webmaster Tools —> Click on the Tools —> Click the “ Submit a reconsideration request ”.

2. Reconsideration request to Yahoo! for search engine penalties

Fill out all the required data and submit. Click here

3. Reconsideration request to Bing for search engine penalties

Bing Webmaster Tools —> Bing site owner support form —> Fill out the required information —> Submit

Remember while filing for search engine penalties

• Take your time and try your best to fix all the problems responsible for search engine penalties.
• Mention clearly, the wrong or bad practices you have done which resulted in banning your website.
• Mention, few examples via links that you have corrected the root problem.
• Promise them it will never happen in the future.

Search engines provide you the traffic. So, they have the authority to make rules on their own and publishers have to abide/follow it.