Are you being penalised by Google?

| SEO

Are you being penalised by Google?

Abiding by Google’s guidelines is crucial in order to appear high within the search engine results. If you don’t abide by the Google guidelines you can completely destroy your SEO and in some cases make you unrankable within Google search results.

For this reason it is essential for you to keep up-to-date with the latest and most important Google algorithm updates, as many older SEO practices now go against Google’s guidelines and can be very harmful for your website.

How do you know you’ve been penalised?

There are a few clear indications that you have been penalised, such as that you suddenly disappear from Google’s search engine results or you lose a lot of traffic for no reason. Sometimes it is easy to recover from a Google penalisation, while other cases it can be very difficult or even impossible.

To ensure you don’t get penalised by Google, here’s a list of SEO tricks to avoid:

Duplicate content

None of your content should be copied from another website; it should all be in your own words.

Hidden text

There is no reason for content to be hidden. This technique in the past was used to stuff keywords but although website visitors can’t see it, Google bots can and you will be penalised.

Keyword stuffing

Don’t overuse your chosen keywords. All of your content should be written with the user in mind, not the search engine. Try to keep all of your content natural, informative and original.

Too many H1 tags

H1 tags signify to Google that the content within it is important. This has led to many taking advantage of this and using an excessive amount of H1 tags on a single page. Google now consider this as attempting to cheat the system and will penalise you.

Hacked websites

If your website has been hacked it will be removed from Google quickly to ensure Google users won’t be harmed. Ensure your website is secure and safe to avoid it being hacked.

Dodgy backlinks

Backlinks are used by Google to see how well established, reputable and trusted you are. All of your links should be natural.

Google can now easily pick up on links that have been bought and you will be penalised for it.

Also avoid adding a large number of links in a short period of time as it may indicate to Google that you are using software to accomplish this.

Be wary of who you link to and try to ensure all your backlinks are relevant to your content and industry. 

Luke Stanley