Google Penalties – The Specter of Banishment Haunts the Internet!
Anyone familiar with SEO has probably heard of the penalties Google imposes on websites . What are these penalties, what are the penalties, what are their consequences, and can anyone expect a reprieve?
Google Penalties for Bad Behavior
Google, based on its algorithm, ranks websites based on the degree to which specific sites meet these requirements. Tips on how to maintain your website and what Google expects can also be found in Google Search Console. This is where webmasters gain information on what to modify on the pages they manage. Ignoring webmaster recommendations doesn't promote ranking growth. Websites that blatantly violate Google's preferences should expect a penalty. Penalties impact the SEO process.
Penalties are imposed, for example, on websites with aggressive links, inappropriate content (content inappropriate to the topic of the website, e.g. a dentist's website promoting counterfeit Rolex watches) which is a consequence of a hacking attack and is used to distribute malware.
Websites penalized by Google are commonly referred to as "filters" or "bans." Such penalties can hinder or even prevent a website's SEO . The most serious offenses can mean the site is permanently removed from the search engine index. In such a situation, the most sensible solution is to create a new website on a new domain. For less serious offenses, rankings may be reduced and/or growth hindered. It's worth noting that a penalty can affect the entire website or just a portion of it (selected subpages). This means the website may struggle to improve its rankings for all keywords or just some. The latter situation requires special consideration in SEO efforts.
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Google Penalties – Types
One of the penalty categories has already been mentioned – unpleasant sanctions can apply to an entire website or just parts of it. Google's penalties are also divided into:
- manual penalties – information that a website has been penalized can be found in Google Search Console; after meeting certain conditions and informing Google about it, such a penalty can be removed from the website,
- algorithmic penalties – information about them cannot be found in Google Search Console, so it is more difficult to detect; only a change in the Google algorithm can result in amnesty for the website penalized in this way.
As you might imagine, the latter is definitely more difficult. In both cases, there's no guarantee of a positive outcome, but it's definitely easier to obtain amnesty in the case of a manual penalty. Removing a manual penalty from a website is possible, but it's a time-consuming and time-consuming process that might not be successful on the first try. If a website has been penalized by Google in the past, it's worth informing your SEO specialist right away.
What sentence must be served?
There's no clear answer. In the case of a manual penalty, it may be possible to remove it on the first try, but it may take several attempts. Subsequent attempts to remove the penalty shouldn't be repeated consecutively – they should be made at least several weeks apart.
We know from experience that it can take up to two years for a manual penalty to be removed from a website. Only after that time did the manual penalty information disappear from Google Search Console. However, this doesn't automatically translate into seamless ranking increases. It's not uncommon for a site with a history of penalties to hit a "glass ceiling"—it can't break through a certain position threshold and stagnates around the top 20 or 30 search results, regardless of an SEO specialist's efforts.
It's not uncommon for a website to reach the top 10 only four years after the penalty is lifted. However, there's no guarantee that every website will reach the top 10 after the penalty is lifted. Sometimes, the solution is to change the domain and start fresh. However, this solution is difficult to recommend for large and highly recognizable brands with a recognizable domain.
In the case of algorithmic penalties, it's necessary to fix the potential source of the problem and wait for Google's algorithm changes that will provide relief for sites with specific types of issues. There's no guarantee when Google will implement a change that benefits a given site.
We know from experience that websites that have repeatedly changed SEO companies are at "risk ." Short-term contracts (around 3-6 months) often result in very aggressive, risky link building and significant fluctuations in link counts.
Consequences of Google penalties – summary
What does a Google penalty mean? A website that has been penalized by Google in the past creates a "negative history" in the search engine, which translates into difficulties in its SEO. Google favors websites with a clean criminal record and is more likely to rank them higher in search results. Problems arise with ranking increases for some or all phrases thematically related to a given website. Interestingly, a website penalized by Google with a filter can be promoted in Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords).
In Verseo's six-year history, no website has been penalized by our SEO specialists. Want to learn more? Need help with SEO and positioning? Contact us!
Summary
The above article covers the following topics:
- mechanisms for penalizing websites by Google,
- reasons for imposing penalties (filters) and their impact on the visibility of online websites,
- types of penalties imposed by Google,
- the duration of the penalty, the process of removing it and the impact of domain history on future SEO results.
