Just imagine that you, one day, log in to your Google Analytics dashboard and find that your website traffic has decreased drastically.
You will feel that the ground has slipped under your feet, right?
While, this is a rare situation, there are many websites that are going through this scenario. No wonder if it happens with your website if you disobey one or more Google’s search engine quality guidelines.
I have researched a lot and have come up with the below-mentioned 15 tricks that will help to avoid SEO Google Penalties.
1. Do Not Buy or Exchange Links:
There is a tremendous increase in the number of people who try to sell you links from their established private blog networks or offer you to exchange your links from theirs. Even though it looks quite useful for you, it really exists only to serve up backlinks to the individuals who pay the network or creating reciprocal links in an unnatural way. Google is quite conscious of people who are actively involved in these unscrupulous activities. So, never buy or exchange links.
2. Avoid Keyword Stuffing:
There was a time when webmasters and SEO professionals used to include keywords with a high density and frequency, but now it is an unethical way of search engine optimization and Google can penalize your site if you are practicing stuffing of keywords on your webpage or blog post.
3. Check Your Backlinks and Disavow Bad Backlinks:
Regularly checking your backlinks is really good idea. You can be sure that Google is not going to penalize your website. By checking your backlinks, you can disavow any bad backlinks which Google may refer as spam. There are some great tools available like Majestic SEO, Google Search Console, Ahrefs etc, using which you can get the complete list of backlinks that Google has indexed for your website. You can further use Google Disavow tool to request Google to remove spammy links from its search engine database.
4. Create Alerts of Your Google Analytics:
If you are creating Google Analytics alerts, you are allowing Google analytics to notify you by sending emails in case of anything changes such as you face a drop or rise in web traffic, etc. By doing this, you can take the necessary actions at right time to save your site from Google penalties.
5. Creating Too Many Backlinks in a Very Short Time:
Every webmaster knows that the more backlinks a website has, the better ranking it will have in the SERPs. Webmasters, sometimes, to get good rankings in a short time, create too many backlinks in a very short time. No matter how good quality sites you choose to create backlinks, if Google finds too many backlinks in a short time; Google can penalize your website. So, prefer quality over quantity. Ten backlinks on high-quality websites are better than hundreds of backlinks on spammy or low-quality websites.
6. Avoid Using Interstitial App Pages on Mobile Sites:
It is really appreciating to have a brand-specific app to simplify the lives of your existing customers and potential website visitors. But, you still need to be ready in order to lose rank if you are too aggressive at advertising your mobile application on your mobile-optimized site. People often use Smartphones for performing a Google Search. In case your site is placed first in the SERP, the users will click on your site followed by begging others to install your app. In contrast, if your site is not placed #1, you will surely get penalized by Google. So, don’t try to do that.
7. Avoid Using Sneaky Mobile Redirects:
At times, webmasters may turn to the darker side only for mobile users. In this instance, when someone would land your website through a mobile device, the visitor will be redirected to another site, which is entirely different from the content found on the actual website. But, it is not the case for desktop users who also click the same link. SEO Google penalties also apply to sites, which make use of sneaky mobile redirects. So, it is wise to do it with your mobile search traffic as straightly as possible.
8. Avoid Using Content Spinning:
Most of the entrepreneurs are so busy that they have not enough time to write a fresh content for their site. So, they simply use article spinner tools to save time. But, this is really a bad idea as a spun content may be 100% unique, but it has a very poor quality and such content seems laughable to the human readers. Google can also easily detect such content and can penalize your website for disobeying a very important search engine quality guideline. So, you can either hire a professional content writer or write the content yourself to produce quality content for your website.
9. Avoid creating widgets with sites linking back you:
If you are expertise in developing software, you may able to produce a fabulous widget. You are surely appreciated for your high-tech breakthrough. However, you have to be assured that your widget won’t include a link back to your site. By doing so, you are enabling Google yourself to penalize your website. So, be aware of what you are doing.
10. Never Copy Content from Other Sites and Paste on Yours:
Already discussed above, having a good quality and 100% unique content is referred to be extremely important. If you are using pirated content on your website, you are at the risk of getting penalized by Google. As per the search engine giant, you are disobeying the search engine quality guidelines by using a plagiarized content.
11. Be Sure That Your Website is Responsive:
You need to be sure that you have a responsive website, which your visitors can easily access on any device. If you fail to own a responsive site, you are going to limit your reach as mobile visitors may expect to face some issues while visiting your website. With a mobile-friendly website, you can be able to achieve a huge chunk of traffic in addition to remaining on the similar playing field just like your competitors. So, the success of your sales and ranking is in your hands.
12. Avoid Using Search Engine Directories Again and Again:
Just like a virtual phone book, online directories let people find sites according to the relevant category. It is an excellent concept and also an easy way to get some legitimate backlinks towards your site. But, keep in mind that some of those directories are being penalized by the Google. So, you simply discuss with some peers and in turn, collect a list of certain directories in which you would like to submit your website. By this way, you can end up receiving bad backlinks from sites which seems like to be using unethical practices against Google.
13. Don’t Use Hidden Texts:
Are you a knowledgeable person in CSS, Cascading Style Sheets? If so, you may know how to give text in different colors. You can be able to make the text disappear by giving it in the color as similar to that of the background. You may think that you will trick Google by making it think that certain text will be available on your site, though it is not entirely visible to human readers. But, you must know that Google will penalize you for the practice of violating its policies.
14. Never Use Comment Spam:
Having too many irrelevant comments and links in the comment section of your site will let Google mark your site as spam. But, Google has done a good job by being able to detect the SEO tricks being performed by the dark side practitioners.
15. Avoid Cloaking:
In the world of information technology, there are many different definitions available for the term “cloaking”. Here, the term “cloaking” refers to a spam practice of search engine optimization which presents your content to the search engines in one way but completely shows different content to the human readers. This is another shortcut trick, which can make your site get penalized by Google. We hope these SEO Google penalties tricks will help you.
A little bit more about protection from SEO Google penalties:
Most of the webmasters are now working hard with an intention to build their brand. Also they want to build reputation online and get top rankings in the Google SERPs. That’s a great goal. But, what people had done is violating the Search engine policies of Google instead of adhering to it. As an outcome, there is a huge drop in their search engine traffic along with SEO Google penalties. So, you are required to play it as straightly as possible while running an SEO campaign for your website.
This list of the 15 SEO tricks was an attempt to help you in saving your website from SEO Google penalties. You have all the tricks to deal with it. If you liked what the list mentions, don’t forget to share these 15 SEO tricks with your friends and other webmasters. Also, if you are aware of some other tricks to help with SEO Google penalties, feel free to mention it below in the comments. If you want to know about optimization read here.
