When it comes to google penalties, the internet is replete with misinformation and users are full of FUD, i.e., fear, uncertainty, and doubt. The rapid advancement in the world’s biggest search engine has also increased the regulations on the website. Moreover, the mounting number of business listings on Google calls for drastic measures to prevent ill-marketing practices.

Hence, with every algorithm update, Google rolls out a revised guideline for users. It contains information about the changes made and the related compliance codes. Many users often mistake the word algorithm for penalty. It’s important to note that a Google algorithm is a complex system that retrieves, collects, and delivers data to users. And a penalty is a pinpoint source that identifies black hat Google marketing practices.

High-profile Google algorithm updates known as the Panda and Penguin aren’t penalties but a set of rules that every business must comply with to steer away from penalties and achieve desired results.

Despite the employment of manual and automated reviewers to identify any red flags on websites, there are numerous businesses that breach Google’s compliance codes. There’s a prediction that in the near future, Google’s RankBrain and BERT algorithms will make it smarter and eliminate the need for manual reviewers.

However, right now, as a marketer on Google, you need to know how to deal with a Google penalty in the shortest possible time to mitigate the loss of important, virtual business hours.

Google Penalty: Digging Deeper

Google punishes the businesses that defy Google’s codes and implement ill marketing practices to gain web traffic, increase conversion rates, and enhance web engagement. In short, if you choose a black hat SEO tactic to increase your website performance, there are high chances that you’ll be struck with a Google penalty.

The consequences of facing a Google penalty can be quite bad. They can lead to dropped rankings, reduced web traffic, and in extreme cases, complete de-indexation of your website.

Here are all the ways to recover from different types of google penalties:

The Two Categories

Google penalties are categorized into two sections: manual and algorithmic. In these two categories, there are several different reasons your website might get penalized.

1. Manual Penalties 

A manual Google penalty happens when a manual reviewer spots a scam or uncompliant marketing practice on your website. These penalties normally occur when your website is in breach of Google’s webmaster guidelines. Manual penalties mostly affect a website’s backlink profile. There are three main reasons you might face a manual penalty:

• Presence of impact links
• Unnatural link on your website that spams a visitor
• Unnatural links directing a visitor to your website

Recovering from a Manual Penalty

First, you’ll need to detect whether Google has manually penalized your business. To do this, log into your Google search console account and check messages. Normally, google sends warnings as messages before penalizing.

In case you find out that your website has been manually penalized, the best strategy is to start removing any bad backlinks, plugins, and spammy impact links from your website. Oftentimes, it’s difficult to identify the exact link you’ve been held accountable for. However, mostly the marketers know this because they’ve intentionally engaged in a black hat link-building tactic; those are probably the links Google has flagged.

Once you spot the bad links, reach out to the Google webmaster website and request link removal. In case, you don’t get a timely response, continue disavowing the link yourself.

2. Algorithmic Penalty

The other type of Google penalty is known as algorithmic penalty, which occurs if the search engine spots a breach of codes on a website or a new website refreshes the codes from the outdated algorithm. Similar to a manual penalty in many ways, an algorithmic penalty might occur due to bad links, but it’s more about the violations of the most well-known Panda and Penguin updates.

These two updates focus on helping mobile-friendly websites rank higher. Algorithmic penalties are harder to detect as you won’t get a message about them. Instead, you’ll have to keep tabs on web traffic and engagement. A sudden drop in these two quantities might confirm a penalty. Note that in case your website is penalized, you might lose the Google domain URL and access to your website for some time.

The best way to keep your business safe from Google’s algorithmic penalty is to stay updated on ever-changing Google codes by referring to the Google search liaison Twitter account.

Recovering From an Algorithmic Penalty

To fix an algorithmic penalty, the first step is to rectify any wrong marketing practices that you’ve been using to increase your website’s performance. Replace them with a Google code complaint and effective marketing strategies, and simply wait for Google to notice your efforts.

It’s important to fix this kind of penalty as soon as possible because unless Google deems your website free from black hat SEO practices, it won’t recover the data. As a result, you will lose website traffics, SERP rankings, and other well-established and developed success measures.

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