Google penalties: the big monsters of the web scare many social media strategists and SEO specialists. But how to recognize them? And how to avoid them?
Anyone who has a blog , an e-commerce or a normal site, has asked the fateful question: “Do I really risk a Google penalty ? And isn't there a way to avoid it? "
Yes, it is common to wonder when you have invested time, effort and money in a project. To be clear, every site risks being penalized by Google's algorithms , or worse by the antispam team, but it is equally true that avoiding it is not at all difficult.
In most cases, Google only penalizes those who try to deceive the user or the search engine. Those who respect readers therefore have nothing to fear. Of course, it's not easy, but applying all SEO best practices and above all respecting the user are the only way to avoid a Google penalty .
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How to understand if a site has been banned or penalized by Google?
Before explaining the rules for avoiding a Google penalty, it is worth explaining how to recognize one.
If, at times, a manual intervention by the webspam team is notified by email, the same cannot be said for a stop imposed by the search engine algorithms, the effect of which can be observed in Google Analytics.
Right from here we start, and it is not even too difficult to see, because the effect is devastating : a collapse of organic views , starting from 50-60% of traffic, even if often the drops in traffic are much more abundant, up to 90% .
Like dominoes, after the fall in organic views, the rankings for all the interesting keywords for the website plummet, thus outlining the profiles of the disaster.
Finished site, compromised, whose recovery can be difficult or even impossible, based on the amount of "wrong behavior" and disrespectful towards the user.
Here, disrespectful behavior towards the user . This is the real cause of the debacle , why think only of the search engine , offering users a site with bad navigation and content that is not at all thorough and comprehensive?
To avoid Google penalties you must respect the user
Respecting the user is the only real solution to avoid falling into the cleaver of search engine algorithms and, however clear and reasonable it seems, applying it is not easy.
Respecting the user means: it implies study, preparation and flexibility in understanding what one's audience is looking for.
Here are some tips:
· Create authentic , in-depth and complete content, and avoid copying content from other sites;
· Build an easily navigable site , with a clear structure and no hidden or unreachable sections
· It is necessary to have a fast and optimized site for all devices, especially now that the Google algorithm is moving towards the " mobile first index ";
· Limit the number of banner ads on the page and build a site that can inform. Not just selling.
Crucial: create great content
Search engines, and Google in particular, develop and refine day by day, and their goal is to provide the best possible answer to the visitor's search . The trick to adopt is to ride this change , without trying to circumvent it (or fool the algorithms).
It is necessary to offer users refined texts enriched with videos, images and social posts . In a nutshell, offer excellent content specifically designed for your audience and reasoned on the basis of search terms, and above all authentic.
Call therefore:
· to computer-assembled texts (spinned content)
· searches copied and pasted on your site
· to misleading and click-catching titles
· to pages lacking text and descriptions
Just as it is necessary to remove all poor content, all SEO over-optimization techniques must be avoided , i.e. those tricks that allow you to deceive Google, perhaps positioning the site well in the search results.
SEO over-optimization condemns pages to be incomprehensible and unusable to people , quickly causing the site to sink back into the same hell it was aiming to get out of.
To avoid a penalty, the site must be fast, clear and mobile friendly
How many seconds does the user's patience last? 3, 4, for the more patient 5, but it is unthinkable that a visitor remains on a site that fails to load in this time frame.
Anyone who reads is in a hurry . He does this at home while making dinner, while he has to look at what number has been called in line at the post office or before getting off the bus. She doesn't have time to wait for a page to load! Google knows this and gives more and more importance to this aspect, rewarding those sites that make speed their strong point .
But that is not all. You can have the fastest site in the world, scoring 100/100 on PageSpeed Insight, but without a clear and precise structure … it's a waste of effort.
Finally, mobile browsing: today Google values browsing from a smartphone much more than from a desktop . The habits of users have changed and it is right that the sites also change. The first item on the agenda for changes must be the responsive version of your website; immediately after, its performance and interface, prepared and designed to make life as simple as possible for the user.
Too much advertising!
What do you hate most in traditional media? That thing that gets in the way during the epic scene of a film, that dulls the enthusiasm before the most popular program starts, that destroys the pathos that the director and actors have patiently nurtured up to that moment: advertising .
If she is "hated" on TV and Radio, why shouldn't she be hated on the web? So far we have talked about sites that are fast, navigable and with excellent content . Why ruin all the work done with 5 full-screen banners that, shouting and screaming, even prevent you from understanding where the red X is to exit the browser? This is what happens: instant page abandonment.
Google is very sensitive about this, as are website visitors. Such a way of behaving can only lead to a lowering of the positioning of your site in the SERP .
Let's be clear: banners have the right to exist. The AdSense advertising circuit (owned by Google itself) is alive and well, as are so many other dealers. The important thing, as with SEO optimization, is not to overdo it and always respect the visitor .
The pitfalls hidden in links
Links are the main element of the internet . The links are internet. The peculiarity thanks to which the network has developed and has become what it is today.
The links aren't all good though. There are authoritative links and domains such as a government website or newspaper. Then there are junk links, links coming from who knows what site, in who knows what language, and who knows what relevance.
The link chapter is often a sore point. While you can intervene directly on the contents , advertisements and performance of your site, this is not possible with links. Google over the years has refined its algorithm so as to no longer evaluate only the quantity of links to a particular site, but giving importance to the quality of these links.
What does it mean? It means: better few but good. Illustrating the concept, it doesn't matter how many links (or at least that much). It counts to have valuable links from sites similar to your own and authoritative.
What if one site were to be hacked, or a competitor decides to play dirty, and send tons of junk links against another? In that case the solution is to rely on a good SEO , able to use the tools that Google provides to avoid the worst.
Graphic design software:
Different types of graphic design software are often designed to edit different type of graphics such as vedio, photoes and vector-based drawing.
In conclusion: what is the secret to avoiding a penalty?
There is no secret, no magic recipe. The only real way to remove the problems is to always work with your head, remembering that on the other side of the screen there are not only Google robots, but also people.
People looking for an answer, a solution or an in-depth study. And only by respecting the user can you be sure not to attract the ire of the search engine.
