Former Google employee Kaspar Szymanski has just talked about Google spam filters and shared his expertise about how to recover websites from all kinds of Google penalties. Kaspar had been part of the Google Search Quality team for 7 years, where he was the driving force behind global web spam tackling initiatives and the public face spearheading Google’s webmaster outreach and communication efforts.
The first and the most important recommendation is to read and re-read the Google Webmaster Guidelines. Following the Guidelines will help Google find, index and rank your site, and will assure that your site will not be removed from Google index for violations. Re-reading is really important as Google often updates the Guidelines and a technique that was legitimate yesterday might have become shady today.
What to Do if Google Has Penalized Your Site
Google’s manual action email is not a death sentence. You should remember that all penalties have their period of validity and will not last forever. Besides, the penalty impact may be very different: it may be a tickle with a feather or it may be a real nuclear explosion.
Define the scope
Google may penalize the whole site, a site directory or one site page only. Perform a site:domain search to see if your site is still in the Google index.
Find out the reasons
Google always explains the reason for a manual action via Google Search Console (Google Search Console → Search Traffic → Manual Actions). Be sure to check the Manual Actions sections regularly.
Types of Google Penalties
Google Manual Actions messages always explain what caused a penalty and what should be done to recover from it.
Major spam problem
Google may remove the whole site from its index when a major spam problem is found. A major spam problem is a violation of Google Webmaster Guidelines (remember to read them regularly!)
Thin content
If a site provides content with little or no value to searchers, Google may remove some parts of the site from the index.
User-generated spam
This problem may occur with sites that allow posting links in a comment section with no moderation and without a no follow attribute.
Hacked content
Google may notice if your site was attacked by hackers and now promotes malicious content. The worst about this issue is that in the SERPs a “This site may be hacked” notification may be shown for all pages of your site, even those that are OK.
Incorrect structured data
Structured data is meant to help Google understand what a site is about. We’ve noticed that adding structured markup greatly improves a site’s visibility and rich snippets attract more clicks in the SERPs. However, some not-very-white-hat SEOers try to use schema to manipulate search results. For example, a brand review with 5/5 stars by 300 people may trigger a Google manual review and spam actions.
Selling links
Unnatural outbound links, i.e. selling links violates the Google Guidelines and may be a reason for some manual actions applied. Links that are placed to manipulate the Google search results are considered unnatural.
Buying links
Unnatural links that point to your site may also trigger a manual action. What looks unnatural to Google:
- Great amount of links that appeared in a short period of time
- Especially if they have keyword-rich anchor texts
- Especially if these anchor texts are commercial (i.e. contains CTA like “buy best socks here”)
How to Recover from a Google Penalty
Document
Document what was causing a penalty and carefully note what you are doing to stop violating the Google Webmaster Guidelines. You will need these notes when you send a reconsideration request.
Create Unique Selling proposition
If your site is accused of having thin content, Google wants you to not only re-write your content to make it more valuable and unique, but they also want you to create a unique selling proposition. A unique selling proposition is what your business stands for.
Remove or NOFOLLOW links
Add a No follow attribute to all outbound links that may look suspicious to Google or remove them. Be sure that user-generated content on your site is moderated and NOFOLLOW is added to all links that your users post.
Disavow inbound links
This is the hardest part, because you will need to change other sites, not your own. First of all, carefully investigate your inbound link profile. Things to pay attention to:
- Diversity of linking domains
- Diversity of anchor texts
- Amount of keyword-rich anchor texts
The best tactic is to use a reliable source of link data. I prefer to use the WebCEO Back link Quality Check as it allows a user to see how many linking domains he or she has, what link texts are used and whether the keyword-rich texts have NOFOLLOW. You can report links you want to disavow directly from WebCEO.
Source: Webceo
