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How to Avoid Google Penalties and Rank Sustainably

7th Dec

As a business owner, it's crucial to understand how Google's search engines work and ensure your website appears as the top result. In addition, you must be aware of the potential penalties that can occur from incorrect SEO practices. Here are some tips to help you dominate Google's search engines and stay on their good side.

High-Quality and Relevant Content Matters - A Lot!

Google's number one priority is to provide its users with the best possible search results. This means they are constantly tweaking their algorithms to favour websites that provide valuable, informative content. So, make sure your website's content is well-written, accurate, and up-to-date.

Gone are the days where you have to stuff your website with keywords to rank higher. In fact, if you engage in black-hat SEO tactics like keyword stuffing, Google will penalize your website, and it will likely never recover.

Optimize Your Website for Mobile Devices

More people are using their smartphones and tablets for online queries. This means that it's more important than ever to make sure your website is optimized for mobile devices. If you have a responsive website, Google will automatically detect the device that is being utilized to view your site and optimize the search results accordingly.

If your website isn't optimized for mobile devices, you run the risk of losing an overwhelming amount of traffic. So, make sure your smartphone-optimized site ranks high in the search engines by using SEO best practices.

Avoid Spamming

It's essential to avoid spamming if you want your website to rank high in Google's search engines. This means steering clear of tactics like link schemes, paid links, and article spinning. If you're caught engaging in any of these activities, Google can and will penalize your business.

This is somewhat related to creating unique, high-quality, and time-relevant content. If you're constantly publishing spammy content, your website's chances of ranking are low to none, with the risk of being penalized.

When you need to build links, stick with reputable sources and avoid any questionable websites.

Do Not Buy Unnatural Backlinks

There's no faster way to get penalized by Google than buying backlinks from untrusted sources. In fact, doing this is a good way to destroy all of the hard work you've done building your website's authority and domain trust.

Any link from a high-quality site will help boost your rankings, but never resort to buying them. If you choose to buy links, you'll often be redirected to a spammy site with no valuable content. Google can quickly determine these backlinks are not legitimate, and your website will suffer as a result.

Compose Your URLs for Humans, Not for Search Engines

URLs can play a significant role in how your website ranks. However, you'll want to avoid linking to an XML document as this will send Google's search engines into a crawl.

Instead of creating cryptic URLs that only make sense to the developers coding them, try giving them some context and make them easy for humans to read. In addition, make sure your URLs are crawlable by using appropriate tags and nesting levels.

Keep an Eye on Your Webmaster Tools

If you're serious about avoiding any potential Google penalties, make sure to keep an eye on your webmaster tools. This is where you'll find all of the information about how Google crawls and indexes your website.

By checking in on your webmaster tools and using the appropriate alerts, you'll be able to monitor any changes in your website's search rankings. This includes backlinks and your site's authority and trust metrics.

Anytime you notice a drastic change in how Google views your website, investigate it thoroughly. If it turns out to be a spammy activity, take the necessary steps to remove it and restore your website's rankings.

Never Cloak!

Cloaking is the practice of showing one thing to search engines and another to human visitors. For example, you could create a half-star hotel rating and show five stars to Google's crawlers.

Since your website's search rankings depend on its authority, trust, and relevancy, cloaking is always going to result in penalties. Avoid it at all costs if you want your website to succeed online.

What Happens to Your Site When Google Penalizes It?

If Google detects spammy or manipulative practices on your website, it could lead to a penalty.

Penalties can be applied directly through manual actions from Google's web spam team or indirectly via algorithm changes that have been made in the past to emphasize quality over quantity.

When a penalty is implemented, specific pages on your website will no longer rank in the search engines. If this happens, it's vital that you fix the issue and get your site back on track as soon as possible.

How Long Do Penalties Last?

It can take weeks or months to recover from a penalty. Google usually doesn't provide specific details about what caused the penalty or how to fix it other than general guidelines. The only way to recover is to follow Google's specific recommendations for recovery and wait until they notice an improvement before it can be lifted.

In some cases, a penalty can affect your domain's reputation, and it might be necessary to purchase a new domain or transfer to another hosting company for the penalty to be removed. These are extreme cases, but they do happen.

How to Get out of a Google Penalty Situation

If you think your business has been hit with a penalty due to spammy marketing tactics, the first thing you need to do is read up on Google's guidelines, so you know what needs fixing. Then, make any necessary changes and submit a reconsideration request. Alternatively, our experts at SEO Solutions can do this for you.

This is a process where you ask Google to review your website again and take another look at the penalized pages. If you've addressed the issues mentioned in the request, all you can do is wait and hope that Google will remove the penalty.

How to Get out of a Google Penalty Situation

If you think your business has been hit with a penalty due to spammy marketing tactics, the first thing you need to do is read up on Google's guidelines, so you know what needs fixing. Then, make any necessary changes and submit a reconsideration request. Alternatively, our experts at SEO Solutions can do this for you.

This is a process where you ask Google to review your website again and take another look at the penalized pages. If you've addressed the issues mentioned in the request, all you can do is wait and hope that Google will remove the penalty.

The Bottom-Line

When it comes to avoiding Google penalties, following the rules is key. Make sure you create valuable content, optimize your website for mobile devices, and prevent spammy tactics. Carefully monitor your webmaster tools and if you ever notice a drastic change in your website's search engine rankings, make sure to conduct a thorough investigation. If all goes well, you'll be back on track in no time.

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