What are “Google Penalties” and why should my business work hard to avoid such penalties?
When we think about penalties, some of us may think of a car parking fine, and that may be a low figure in order to settle the fine.
Which is a bit of inconvenience- but not worth loosing sleep over that’s for sure.
However, what if your business was to incur a different type of penalty, that’s to say a “Google penalty”? That’s to say you run a business, say its in Cardiff Bay, and one moment your company is on the first page of Google, yet then it incurs a Google penalty, and its not on Google anymore.
Well, this is what can happen when an SEO company implements low-quality SEO, or a business implements low-quality SEO, for example the business could incur a Google Penguin penalty, and that’s because the business has low-quality backlinks.
So, what’s our best advice?
Well, we would say that whichever SEO business you go with, they must offer high-quality work, that is white hat, which follows Google’s WebMaster Guidelines. That’s to say every aspect of the SEO work must be white hat.
And this doesnt matter if you a sole-trader, let’s say a builder or you run a law practice which has over 1000 employee’s, the work must be white hat, otherwise your business could incur a penalty. So only hire a top quality SEO business, like Top Space.
Top Space is based in Cardiff, we work with businesses all over Cardiff, from Cardiff Bay, right through to Roath, we can offer the following services:
- Organic and local SEO
- Web design
- WordPress web design
- White hat
What would happen if my business was to incur a Google Penalty?
If a business was to incur say a Google Penguin penalty, well this doesn’t just mean that the business moves down a place or two normally in the SERP’s, nope, it means the business could be removed from Google altogether sometimes!
And, your thinking, well- I would just put a call into my SEO company here in Cardiff, and in the blink of eye the problem can be fixed- right?
Wrong, it can often take a long time, sometimes a very long time to recover from a penalty. Sometimes it can take months, yet we have even read it can take some company’s years to recover from a Google Penalty. So for example, the organic visitor numbers might be high one moment, that’s to say a lot of shoppers finding your business via Google.
Then because the marketing agency you have employed has used low-quality SEO methods, this means that the organic visitor numbers may fall off a cliff-edge! So this means that instead of say ranking 3rd in the SERP’s your company website may rank now say 82nd in the SERP’s, or worse, your website may not appear anywhere on Google.
This is when another SEO agency may well be needed, that’s to start fixing the problems that the marketing agency has caused, which will be more than likely costly!
And this obviously means that your business may suffer a loss of business if it once ranked on the first page, then it moved to say page 10, or got removed altogether!
So many businesses in Cardiff opt for the cheapest organic SEO quote, however if the work is low-quality then this can mean that the business will incur a penalty. So our best advice is hire a freelancer, or say an agency that only offers top quality work. This is exactly what Top Space offers, we are an established agency, which has copywriters, link builders, and SEO consultant’s which can improve your company’s onsite SEO, such as adding meta titles, meta descriptions, anchor text.
This means that Google’s algorithm will spot if the SEO work is low-quality, and it could mean that your business moves down the ranks if the SEO work is low-qualit, or it could mean that your business is totally removed.
This is why we only recommend investing in high-quality SEO.
Therefore, the following work must be high quality
Why your SEO company must follow Google’s Webmaster Guidelines
So whether your implementing SEO inhouse, or your employing a large SEO company, the work must be “white hat” and it must follow Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
This means that every single aspect of the organic SEO work must be top quality, the backlinks must be built in the right way (white hat), the content marketing written correctly, the onsite seo, everything must be done right.
High-quality search results
And why does Google remove businesses from it’s index?
Well, that’s a really easy one to answer, so let’s say that your looking to solve a DIY problem, do you want an answer to that question that you find very helpful, or do you just want 10 different businesses, which are banging on about a brand of power tool that you should purchase now, and you walk-away none the wiser of how to fix your DIY problem after reading say 1000 words? That be annoying right?
Exactly, you want to fix your shelf, or shower, or that leaking tap that’s been keeping you wide awake at night! You dont want to know about why an electric drill is so good, and to keep reading an article which keeping mentioning “electric drill”, over and over again, as that doesnt answer your DIY question.
So, you want a quality answer to your DIY problem, and that’s why you use Google, because it supplies quality answers to a question.
So, to ensure the quality of the answers are kept high, Google will remove businesses which do not adhere to its guidelines.
So if you were to build low-quality backlinks, your business could be removed, or as we SEO consultants call it “de-indexed”.
If you were to use “spun content”, which is a blog post, like this, and then spin in to make hundreds of blog posts with the wording jumbled up, well, your likely to be de-indexed. So, if an SEO agency think’s it’s being clever by cutting corners, well its not! It will mean that your company could incur a penalty, such as a Google Penguin or a Google Panda penalty.
And these are just some examples of many in terms of how a SEO business could be removed from Google.
Make your work useful
So, here’s the thing, the SEO work that you add to your company’s website, in terms of blog posts and SEO work, must be useful to your customers.
If your SEO company states that they should just concentrate on improving your SEO, and not focusing on the customer they are “wrong”.
Here’s the thing, you should offer top-quality advice, and as a result of this your customers will find this useful, if they find the work useful your business may obtain “quality backlinks”, plus your businesses bounce rate is also likely to decrease, so this will indirectly give you stronger SEO.
What are the different types of Google penalties?
There are many different types of Google penalties, some of the most well-known are the Google Penguin and Panda penalties.
However, broadly speaking, penalties fall into one of two categories they are manual and algorithmic penalties.
Manual action
A manual penalty is applied by Google, it is thought that someone working at Google who has manually reviewed a website, and found it to be flouting one, or sometimes many of Google’s rules, will incur a manual action.
Algorithmic penalties
Algorithmic penalties can be much harder to spot, that’s to say the algorithm will issue a penalty onto a website, and the business, or the seo agency will not receive sometimes a notification through Webmaster Tools, which is now called Search Console.
So, for example, if your websites organic visitors numbers drops, so that’s to say in Google Analytics you spot that the websites organic visitor numbers drop, then this can sometimes be an indication that the website may have incurred a penalty.
Roll-out of a new algorithm update
Let’s say Google is rolling out a new update, such as updating it’s Google Penguin update, then potentially millions of businesses could be impacted by such a roll-out- this is why on SEO websites, there is often much conversation when a new roll-out of an “algorithm update” occurs, because so many businesses could be impacted, that’s if they have low-quality SEO.
GoogleBot
However, its important to know that it’s not just when a new algorithm update is rolled out, Googlebot is used by Google to crawl and index a website, it may do this as often as a few times every day, so when Googlebot does spot that the business has low-quality seo, then the business could incur a penalty.
So, for example, let’s say that Google spots that a new SEO agency that you have just hired is adding duplicated text, let’s say that each article has a lot of paragraphs which have been copied from another business, Googlebot will spot this, and the business could incur a penalty.
So, which businesses get hit by a penalty?
Any business could be hit by a penalty, if the work applied is deemed as low-quality seo.
Poor link building
One of the most common reasons that a business can incur a penalty is simply because the backlinks that the company or the seo agency has built are low-quality.
This can mean that the business will incur a Google Penguin penalty.
Automatically generated content
Another common reason is if the content marketing is low-quality, for example, spun content or duplicated text.
Hidden text (cloaking) & Scraped content
What are the effects of a business being hit by a penalty?
The effects could be large, for example the business could be deindexed, this means it could be removed from Google.
Need help to improve your businesses SEO?
If you would like a quote for quality seo, then why not call us?
