In my last two posts on Google penalties I discussed how to know if you have been banned and how to tell if you have suffered a major penalty. Today, in my last post in this series, I want to cover the more subtle components to being penalized by Google.

Check your positioning for the important keywords

If you have noticed a significant drop in Google traffic and have already ruled out your site being banned or your site suffering a major penalty, the next thing to do is to check where you rank for the keywords you used to be at the top of the index for. If many of the keywords that used to put you on the first page are past the top results and buried in supplemental than you have probably been hit with a major penalty. However, if you still rank on the second or third page and for a keyword that you used to be #1 for then chances are a less severe penalty has been applied to your site.

Assuming you have done all the onsite SEO work needed, the primary factor Google looks at when ranking a webpage is the number and quality of links it has pointing to it. Generally, the more high quality website you have linking to your page, the higher you will rank in Google. This is the core of Google’s algorithm and many webmasters have tried to fix the game by creating link farms, buying links, doing link exchanges, and having hidden links to their site.

If you suddenly drop from the #1 position to page two or three it is likely because Google has canceled the value of the links coming to your site. They detected suspicious linking activity and wiped out all the credibility of the links to your site thereby dropping you into the lower pages.

What to do

In this case, the penalty is related to your linking strategy and you will want to check who is linking to you. Cancel any relationships with suspicious websites and focus on building high quality links. Take your name out of spam directories and off of lists that promise to get you ranked #1 but end up penalizing you. If you are working with someone who is in charge of your link building campaign, question what they have been doing and reverse the links from the low Page Rank pages. Once this is done, the process is the same as I mentioned before: go to Google’s Webmaster Tools, submit a reconsideration request, tell them what happened, and promise not to do it again.

What if none of these apply to me?

If the three scenarios I went over do not apply to your website and you have still dropped in rankings then it is because your competition is heating up and doing better than you are. Continue to focus on building quality links and look at your onsite SEO to make sure you give yourself the best chance of ranking at the top.

I hope you have found this series useful and I look forward to your comments!

Evan Carmichael