Google penalty is a nightmare for all the people who have an online presence. Not always Google penalty is the reason behind the decline of your search engine rankings. Therefore, in the blog post, we are going to help you find out whether your website is penalized, and what caused it? Knowing the cause that led to Google Penalty can make Google penalty recovery easy.
What Is a Google Penalty?
Whenever a site is hit by a Google Penalty, it is either no longer displayed in the search results, or search rankings of the website may go down significantly. The decline in search rankings might happen to the entire website or some of the web pages that violate Google webmaster guidelines.
How to Detect a Google Penalty?
There are two types of Google penalties. They are a manual penalty and an algorithmic penalty. There are several ways to know if your website is hit by these Google penalties. Let us start with the best method:
Use Google Webmaster Tools
Log in your Google Webmaster Tools account and click on “Search Traffic.” A drop-down list will appear. Click on “Manual Actions.”
If your website is suffering from any kind of manual penalty, then the type of penalty will be displayed. If your website is free from the manual penalty, then you will find a “no manual spam actions found” message under Manual Actions.
Analyze Google Traffic
Another best way to know whether your site is penalized is by reviewing Google organic traffic. Login to Google analytics, and check your organic traffic. If you notice any decrease in traffic from the date of any Google algorithm update, then it could mean Google Penalty is the reason.
Determining Without Google Analytics
You can still find out which Google Update has caused the significant drop in traffic. There are many traffic estimator tools like SEMrush available. Using these tools you can analyze the drop in traffic and Google Algorithm Update history. If you lost traffic after an update, then it may mean your website is suffering from a Google Penalty.
Google Your Domain Name
A simple Google search can determine whether your website is hit by Google Penalty or not. Just search for your domain name or title tag text. If your website is not displayed on the first page of Google, then it may indicate a Google penalty. If your website isn’t displayed on the first page for the domain query, quickly use the other methods and confirm the penalty.
Final Thoughts
Getting hit by a Google penalty is bad. It can risk your online presence and lead to several negative consequences. Avoid using any kind of on-page or off-page black hat SEO tactics. Always follow Google webmaster guidelines and keep your website safe from Google penalties.
