Google penalties are a lot like penalties in sports. They are primarily meant to reprimand websites for breaking the law. These sanctions may harm websites made by persons who had no idea what they were doing wrong since they are not always manually implemented. They still have a substantial influence on a site's search results, among other things.

If you receive a Google Penalty, you are in big danger. If you receive a Google penalty, your website will either no longer appear in search results or will rank much lower for the keywords you were trying to rank for. In the event that Google penalizes your site, your target audience won't be able to locate you. Your traffic and, consequently, your earnings suffer when you lose sight of your target audience.

Any website could be affected. A Google penalty can result from sincere and well-intentioned efforts to improve your site's ranking. However, once you've received a Google penalty, regaining your good ranking and getting back into Google's good graces isn't easy.

What causes a Google Penalty?

The job of Google is to deliver the most relevant search results. Any website that tries to manipulate search results, according to Google, is hurting the Google product. Would Google still be Google if it returned unhelpful results or provided a negative experience to its users?

A Google penalty is the result of Google's highly evolved, ever-changing algorithm for crawling and inspecting websites. While some actions can result in immediate penalties from a Google employee, others aren't publicly announced, or some can gradually drop rankings. This is to protect Google from websites that are attempting to outsmart it or manipulate its results in any way.

Penalties imposed by Google

Make sure your site doesn't have any of the following to avoid a Google penalty:

1. Spyware, adware, or viruses are examples of malware.

2. Text or hidden links

3. Cloaking is the third step (displaying a different version of a webpage to the search engine robots)

4. Redirections that are deceptive (when a visitor is automatically taken to another page without clicking anything)

5. Keywords that are irrelevant to the page

6. Stuffing keywords

7. There is a lot of duplicate content.

The large list of Google penalty grounds is simple to sum up: penalties are brought on by any action made by a website to mislead a search engine or negatively impact user experience.

How can I get my Google penalty back?

Removing a Google penalty is not always easy. The distinction between algorithmic and manual adjustments must be made clearly.

What is a Google manual penalty?

The manual sanctions are applied by a Google employee. You'll probably get one if Google determines that your website is in violation of its Terms of Service. Examples of this include a virus infection, cloaking, redirects, or connections to online stores. When you obtain a manual penalty, you must ask Google to reindex your website so that it is once again visible in search engine results.

The algorithmic penalty, on the other hand, is applied automatically and without Google's involvement. 

These typically follow an algorithmic adjustment made to give worthwhile websites priority over those with subpar substance or relevance. Algorithmic penalties like Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird may be applied to websites that have sparse or duplicate content, keyword-stuffed text, poor page loads, or no inbound links. With this penalty, you will still appear in search results, but your position will probably be substantially lower.

It isn't always a punishment.

Just because your site drops in search engine rankings doesn't mean you've been hit with a Google penalty. Your competitors are becoming more numerous by the day, and Google's algorithm for ranking websites is constantly changing. When you suspect a Google penalty, you'll likely need to improve your search engine optimization techniques.

How long does Google penalty last?

A manual penalty can be imposed when a website is manually reviewed by a Google employee, for example, because they suspect ranking manipulation due to backlink purchases.

A specific time frame for the penalty will be set based on the extent and severity of the transgression, during which the website will be punished. For example, a minor violation of the Google Webmaster Guidelines could result in a 30-day suspension, while a more severe offense could result in a longer suspension. The manual penalty will automatically expire after this time has passed.

How to check if my website is in Google penalty?

1. Examine your standings

Because search engines now provide personalized search results, it's a good idea to check if you're in the top 100 search engine results for specific keywords with a free keyword tool like Rank Tracker. It's likely that your site was penalized or that the backlinks you built for SEO purposes were devalued if your rankings dropped dramatically.

2. Find out what your page rank is.

Page Rank is a Google metric that ranges from 1 to 10 and indicates the popularity of a webpage based on off-page factors (backlinks). It is preferable to have a higher number. This number can be obtained using tools such as PR Checker. A website that has been removed entirely from Google's index will usually have no Page Rank or a gray bar.

3. Make sure your Robots.txt file is up to date.

It's natural to panic when reading about a Google update, especially if you haven't closely monitored any SEO metrics. However, I've seen cases where a website's failure to appear in search engine results is simply due to the site's refusal to allow search engine robots to crawl it. If you see "disallow" in the robots.txt file at the end of your domain (www.domain.com/robots.txt), it means your site is blocking search engines from doing something. This is an excellent article that goes over robots.txt in greater detail.

4. Verify that your domain is still listed in Google's index.

Search for site:http://www.YourDomain.com in Google and see what comes up. Your website has likely been penalized if Google says there are no results.

5. Examine Your SEO Techniques

Finally, assess the SEO team's or agency's methods. Ask yourself the following questions: 

• Did you get links using the software?

• Have you purchased any links?

• Did you share any links?

• Did you use the same anchor text for SEO purposes regularly?

All of these are reasons for Google to penalize you.

How to send a Google email for a reconsideration penalty?

To begin, go to Google Webmaster Tools and click on Search Traffic -> Manual Actions. A red Request a Review button will appear if a manual action is in place. You can now write a reconsideration request in the text field provided by clicking this button, which will take you to the reconsideration request form.

Steps to Take Before Filing a Request for Reconsideration

You will be penalized if Google suspects a violation. Manipulation of backlinks and selling links on your site are the top two link penalties. Regarding SEO, the more high-quality links your site has, the better it will appear to Google and the more beneficial it will be to users.

The goal is for your website to be regarded as a reliable source of information. Google doesn't like it when you unnaturally manipulate this because you're not giving the user an authentic experience.

So, how do you get rid of the bad links? You can request that the link be removed by contacting the webmaster. If they don't respond, this may be time-consuming and ineffective, but you'll want to take screenshots of your emails and date your inquiries as documentation when you submit your request.

Disavowing the links is the next option. When Google crawls your site, it tells it not to consider certain spam or low-quality links. To do so, go to your Search Console page and click Search Traffic, then Links to Your Site. Review and document all of the links you want to remove in a Google spreadsheet from here. Please use the disavow links tools page to submit this. Choose the site from which you want to disavow links, click Disavow Links, and then Choose File to upload the spreadsheet you created. Before you write your reconsideration request, keep track of the steps you're taking and provide any documentation proving you've worked hard to fix the penalty.

Rather than submitting the request and indicating how you will respond, take the proper steps first and gather the necessary information. Google will want to see that the work has already been completed before removing the penalty.

Writing a Request for Reconsideration

You'll want to draft your reconsideration request after you've gone through and removed as many spammy links as possible and address any and all issues Google has raised in its notification. Before sending, include all necessary details to avoid delays or denial of the process. Also, save a draft for your own records because you won't be able to revise it once you've submitted it.

The following items should be included:

• Introduction – Identify the issue(s) for which Google has penalized your site and provide a summary of what you've done to address them.

•Make a list of the steps you took – Provide a link to a Google Doc that contains all of the links pointing to your website, including any removed but still active. Also, include screenshots of emails sent to websites where you requested that links be removed.

• Provide examples of toxic links that have been removed and explain why they were released, such as ads on the site, poor content, a spammy link profile, etc.

• Apologize – Thank Google for their time and consideration, be courteous, and regret the inconvenience. Indicate how you'll keep a closer eye on your link profile in the future and follow Google's guidelines.

It's critical not to skip any steps and to present your request professionally. Before sending your draft, double-check that nothing is missing.