Confessions of a Six Figure Professional Blogger

Has Google Penalized Your Site?

September 10, 2007 | Search Engines

YoungEntrepreneur.com has posted a quick piece about Google penalizing your site. In it, they mention that Google has, last week, reinstituted the practice of emailing webmasters in the event that they are blacklisted. They were doing that originally, but they had stopped in favor of simply posting notices into Webmaster Tools. The problem is that not all site owners are using Webmaster Tools, so they decided to start email again. Good move.

Google penalizing your site would suck in a big way. Google is the #1 search engine, and speaking for my own sites, Google is responsible for well over half of my total site traffic.  If I were to be penalized by Google, my business would take a large hit. So, why might they penalize your site? Sizlopedia has posted a “top 10″ list which is worth reading. He clarifies a little more, but here is the list:

  1. Short-term domain registration. In other words, registering your domain for only a year.
  2. Duplicate content.
  3. Link buying / selling. I do not know if this would affect things like Text-Link-Ads, but I rather doubt it.
  4. Hidden text or hidden links,
  5. Excessive use of keywords.
  6. Automated redirects or doorway pages
  7. Linking to banned sites
  8. Getting linked TO from bad sites
  9. Not complying with the Google Webmaster Guidelines
  10. Link Building Campaigns. John Chow, for example, got bit by Google when their algorithm apparently caught on to the fact that he was promoting doing site reviews strictly for the linkbait.

We all like Google, but Google didn’t get into that position by sitting back and letting spammers get into the database. Sure, a Google search today will, of course, lead you to spam sites – sites that paid SEO-types to get them into that position even if they are not the most relevant. SEO has a role, but there is no doubt that much of the SEO industry just goes to lessen the value of the internet for the purposes of making money. I don’t like it, but I understand why people do it. Google will continue to do what they can to minimize search engine spam. So, it is wise to be in tune to the reg flags and keep your site on Google’s good side.

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  • There never seems to be an end to the top so called gurus releasing a new product that will somehow trick the big "G".
    I have a lot of my sites well ranked and depend on the traffic that comes my way. The only uneasy feeling I have is that it seems all too much like a monopoly or even a dictatorship. I wish the other SE's would lift their game and bring in some serious competition so we wouldn't be so reliant on just the one.

    Alex
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