A frequent question I get asked is about Google banning websites. How do you know if your recent drop in rankings is because of a new algorithm update or because Google penalized your site?

This will be the first of a three part series on this topic to help website owners understand how Google’s penalty system work and what you can do to resolve any problems.

Check Your Site:www.yourdomain.com

The first thing you should do if you suspect that your domain has been banned is to enter site:www.yourdomain.com into Google. Doing this shows a list of the pages you have that Google recognizes in its index. For example, site:www.youngentrepreneur.com returned 51,000 results! I am also pleased to see that the blog is the second entry picked up by Google after the home page!

If your website is not showing up or just the home page is recognized then something is wrong. You stepped over the line by engaging in some sort of activity that Google sees as illegal and you are banned. Note that this is only the case if you were already in the index and you suddenly disappeared. If you are a brand new website, do not panic because you see no results. It takes time for Google to pick up your site.

What to do? If your site is banned, log into Google’s Webmaster Tools to confirm that you are indeed banned. Clean up the problem and submit your site for a reconsideration request. What can cause you to get banned? Google does not share all of the measures it tracks but according to its website:

Google may temporarily or permanently remove sites from its index and search results if it believes it is obligated to do so by law, if the sites do not meet Google’s quality guidelines, or for other reasons, such as if the sites detract from users’ ability to locate relevant information. We cannot comment on the individual reasons a page may be removed. However, certain actions such as cloaking, writing text in such a way that it can be seen by search engines but not by users, or setting up pages/links with the sole purpose of fooling search engines may result in removal from our index. Please read our Webmaster Guidelines for more information.

When you submit a reconsideration request you will have to tell them what happened. Show them that you know what actions led to the penalties, explain who was to blame (ie if you hired a SEO firm), and tell them that you will act in good faith not to cross the line again. The more honest and genuine you are the faster you will get back in the index. If you do not know what is wrong, read over the guidelines again or have an expert look at your site to give you some help before you ask for the reconsideration request.

Evan Carmichael

Evan Carmichael
YoungEntrepreneur.com Blog Manager

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