Every website owner has a story about getting penalized by Google Search Engine. Confirmation suggests that though many websites have been penalized (not just by the big Google updates, but also by any one of the thousands of tiny little manual Google updates), the common marketer or webmaster hasn’t noticed such updates in most of the cases. According to blog I read in Kissmetrics, only 5% of penalized websites are submitting a reconsideration request every month to recover their rankings.
Since websites are all dependent on search engines for traffic, we have to continue aware about the latest updates -- and make changes if our website is affected with any of penalties. Not only is it good common sense to keep side by side of the updates, but it can give you the competitive advantage if you can recover faster than others. As a website owner if you are looking for some professional help than as a Digital Marketing Company you can contact us for that.
Thankfully, here in this article I am just writing down few steps that you need to do to ensure your SEO stays agile and ahead-of-the-game at all times.
Step 1: Familiarize yourself with the types of updates that were released by Google and other Search Engines.
Here I am writing down quick list of the most significant updates and an overview of what they included.
A)Panda Updates: Born in 2011
There were updates before Panda, but this was the first substantial pain for every websites.
Its purpose: To clean-up on websites containing poor content, excessive ads, and possibly better design. This was rolled out in stages, and it continues to this day.
B)Venice Updates: Born in 2012
This was the one that increased the number of local results for broad queries.
C)Penguin Updates: Born in 2012
In the same year of Venice Update one more update was released namely Penguin. This update is designed to combat actual SPAMMY websites rather than sites that are legit, but poorly made.
Its purpose: In this update Google cracked down on keyword stuffing, cloaking, link building ... basically, any method you’ve heard of referred to as “black hat.”
D)Pirate Updates: Born in 2012
This update was targeted at websites that violated copyright on multiple occasions.
Its purpose: Stolen content or copied content would have been hit here.
E)Secure Updates: Born in 2014
In this update preference is given to websites with SSL security.
Its purpose: As website hacking becomes more sophisticated and people are more aware of the risks, it is important to moderate those doubts by offering security (particularly if you require personal and financial details from your web visitors).
F)Mobilegeddon Updates: Born in 2015
In this update preference is given to websites that are responsive.
Its purpose: Unsurprisingly, having a website that is readable and navigable on a handheld device as well as desktop is preferred by visitors.
These updates are not one-offs; they are repeated to keep up with changes in black-hat techniques and to keep ensuring that searchers are satisfied with their results.
To conclude this step, before you go further, make sure your website:
- is not full of ads
- is not keyword-stuffed
- has long-form and/or quality content
- is localized where localization matters
- does not engage in any spammy link building practices
- has a legitimate security certificate
- does not steal or copy content from other websites
- looks good and functions well on mobile
As a website owner if you are looking for some professional help with such website design and security concern than as a Search Engine Marketing Company you can contact us for that.
Step 2: Find out whether you website has a ranking difficulty in Search Engine.
To begin with, identifying the problem is key to success. Without aware of what you have been penalized for, you can’t deal with it.
For example, back in September ‘14, most webmaster thought they were dealing with a Penguin update, but it was in fact an extended Panda update.
Here are a few guidelines to help you appropriately diagnose what happened with your website.
- Use a penalty indicator tool to find out what has happened to your website in the past, and if you have yet to recover from it. A fast and simple tool to drop this knowledge bomb on you is this succinctly titled Website Penalty Indicator. Here I am showing screenshot for the same.
This handy tool from FEInternational can show you which of the major Google penalties hit you and at what point they hit. (For example “www.google.com” to see what would happen.)
However, you’ll notice that this tool focuses on the Big Bad algorithm changes and not all of the little manual ones in between. To find out those, you’ll need to follow the next step.
- Use tools like SEMrush to find out if your website is penalized by one of Google’s updates.
By using tools like SEMrush, you can do a complete site audit and check how your position has changed in SERPs, check your website backlinks, and analyze your content too with the help of this tool.
To conclude this step, before you go further, make sure your website:
- Use penalty checker tool for updates effects on your website
- Use website audit
- Check your website backlinks
- Check for SERPs
As a website owner if you are looking for some professional help with such penalty check and website audit than as a Search Engine Optimization Company you can contact us for that.
Step 3: Learn how to make progress.
This section was contributed by Elena Terenteva, Content Strategist at SEMrush.
“The best thing you can do for your website is to avoid penalties in the first place. Website owners who break SEO rules risk manual penalties or being seriously harmed by algorithm updates. When a website is hit with a penalty, it’s more than likely.”
There are few reasons for that as described below:
- A lack of knowledge on behalf of the SEO specialist
- A purposeful violation of basic SEO principles
- The use of black-hat techniques
But if you have been hit by a penalty, how you'll figure out the root cause will depend on what kind of penalty it is:
- Manual Penalty:
If a website gets a manual penalty, the owner will be notified through Google Webmaster Tools and receives a letter explaining the reasons for its failure. This means the website owner will at least have an idea of how to recover and can begin working on the suggested changes.
- Algorithm Change:
If your website is hit by an algorithm change, the situation becomes slightly more difficult. You need to find a correlation between Google’s last actions and your website’s losses. Don’t forget that website position and traffic losses can be caused by general problems and may have nothing to do with algorithmic changes. If you do find that you were harmed by a specific algorithm change, get all the information you can about that update so you can start to resolve the issue.
Of course, all of us want to avoid being hit by a penalty in the first place. So if you want to be prepared, I recommend hire someone who is proficient of consistently running SEO audits. Here are a few things that we will do for you:
- Remove or disavow unnatural or spammy links manually
- Be sure that your anchor text is diversified
- Get rid of all duplicate content
- Create non-keyword-stuffed, quality content
- Keep an eye on UX
Remember that the best strategy is to avoid penalties and realize that SEO is not just about trying something new. It’s also about constantly monitoring the success of your previous efforts.
Although avoiding penalties may seem like building a house of cards that may collapse at any minute ... well, that’s kind of the way it is! That’s why it’s important to ensure that your website is up-to-date, helpful, and trustworthy.
So as a website owner if you are looking for some professional help with such penalty check and website audit than as a Search Engine Optimization Company you can contact us for that.
If you have any questions, please contact us.
No comments:
Post a Comment