What Are The Various Causes That Result In A Google Penalty
Published On - August 28, 2014
The primary aim of Google has always been to try and improve the user experience on websites. The technology and search engine giants strive to achieve this through algorithm updates thus enabling the very best sites to get the top search rankings that they so duly deserve.
One easy way of improving user experience is through imposing a penalty on websites who, either knowingly or unknowingly, break the rules laid down by Google for search engine optimization and promoting page visibility. Once your site gets penalized by Google, it becomes invisible to the potential customers. Thus you will be robbed off the opportunity to create an effective digital presence not only for your online business but also for yourself.
Possible reasons why Google may impose a penalty
#1. Poor website content:
One of the primary reasons why Google imposes severe penalty on a website is because of poor content. When your website has poor content, it results in a bad experience for the visitors. This is strictly against the policy of the search engine giants who are always striving to improve on the same. Thus your page is initially afforded a poor page ranking before being eventually penalized.
#2. Lack of quality links:
If there are bad, broken, or hidden links on your website, Google may consider it to be suspicious. And whenever there is any inkling of a suspicion, they will ensure that your site gets penalised.
#3. Internal 404 pages and other error:
After making your website live, check to see if there are any 404 error pages or other similar errors cropping up anywhere. This is something that greatly hampers a smooth search and affects overall user experience. If your website is littered with such 404 errors, it will lead to a penalty from Google.
#4. Presence of too many outbound links: If you are planning to create links to some other website or page, ensure that you go about it in a very natural way. Having a high number of outbound links for your site will increase the possibility of a Google penalty.
#5. Use of black hat SEO techniques:
Black hat SEO refers to the use of aggressive strategies, tactics and techniques that lend greater focus to the search engine rankings rather than any human audience. These techniques typically do not follow any form of SEO guidelines that are laid down by Google. Page swapping, addition of unrelated keywords, invisible text and keyword stuffing are some of the techniques that form part of back hat SEO. It has been found to be one of the major reasons why websites fall prey to Google penalties.
While a number of other reasons exist behind a website being penalized courtesy Google making updates to their search algorithm, we have decided to focus on the ones that are most commonplace.
How is a professional SEO service beneficial in this regard?
Pulling a website out of a situation where it gets a penalty imposed by Google can be a pretty tedious and time-consuming process. In this regard, a professional SEO service can be helpful in not only assisting a website recover from a penalty but also in preventing it from falling prey to any such Google penalties in the near future.
If you have a website that is not faring well in terms of site rankings on any of the search engines, then an expert team of SEO specialists can be of assistance. Their specialized knowledge with regards to SEO-based website and web pages development will help in identifying the problem and finding a rightful, effective solution for it.
