Sep 02 2009

How to Diagnose the Reason of Google Penalty

So you’ve built a site and started to see some Google traffic and feel happy. And then one day comes when you wake up in the morning and find your site penalized (here are some ways to find out if you are penalized). A nightmare… But life goes on and you have two choices: either you give up and start from scratch or you try to give that old site new life.

One way to make Google re-evaluate and re-install your site is to file the reconsideration request. But before doing that you need to be sure the site is absolutely clean. So here are the steps to make sure your site is ready to get back to Google index:

  • Check your Google Webmaster Tools account for alerts or site crawl errors;
  • Check your site server for possible hacker attacks;
  • Check your site Robots.txt (better add one if you don’t have any just to be on the safe side);
  • Check if there were some sudden (negative) changes in backlink profile: both sudden rise and sudden decrease in backlinks may seem unnatural;
  • Check your site outbound links (try free Xenu Link Sleuth for that)
  • Check if all your site pages return proper header status responses;
  • Analyze your site recent on-page SEO changes;
  • Review your user generated content (for possible links to bad neighborhoods or improper vocabulary);
  • Try browsing your site with the user agent being Googlebot;
  • Anything else? Please share in the comments!

Also, here’s a perfect case study for you to read about a person’s website penalized and then reinstated.

66 Responses to “How to Diagnose the Reason of Google Penalty”

« Older Comments
  1. newport beach houses says:
    January 21, 2011 at 1:39 pm

    Yes my site has disappeared from google, I will check the list above you mentioned. thanks.

  2. robertpowell says:
    May 28, 2011 at 6:39 am

    This really one of the most hustle thing in my site; receiving a notice of penalty. But Anyway, thanks a lot for sharing great tips.

  3. sohbet says:
    July 17, 2011 at 11:36 pm

    Yes my site has disappeared from google, I will check the list above you mentioned. thanks.

  4. Mr.4x3 says:
    July 25, 2011 at 12:38 pm

    Ya I also got paneltized But its alright now

  5. Cornea503 says:
    August 6, 2011 at 9:46 am

    My site was penalized in June. Lots of changes following your suggestions. Applied for reconsideration and denied 3 times. Totally at a loss. Google wont tell you whats wrong so basically it’s like flying blind especially when you have not done anything blatant. Looking at a 80% haircut in traffic..

  6. Mr.4x3 says:
    August 31, 2011 at 6:35 am

    I got out of panelty after reading this post

  7. Packers Movers in jaipur says:
    September 12, 2011 at 7:30 am

    Yes my site has disappeared from google . oogle wont tell you whats wrong so basically it’s like flying blind especially when you have not done anything blatant. Looking at a 80% haircut in traffic..

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