It’s inevitable, no one is 100% penalty proof when Google releases an algorithm update. However, there are a few ways you can lessen the chances of getting penalized. In this post, we’re going to share a few helpful tips on how to protect your website from getting penalized.

How to Tell Your Website Has Been Hit with a Google Penalty

There are three levels of symptoms a website endures after getting penalized. The first level, a website loses its Page Ranking. A website may also lose slight rankings for its most important targeted keywords. The second level, a site suffers from a major drop in SERP for important targeted keywords. The third phase (the most severe), a website is de-indexed from the search engine.

Nothing in life is certain, but you can greatly decrease the chances of getting hit with a Google penalty, if you utilize proven SEO practices.  Here are a few common Google penalties to avoid:

• Avoid having an excessive amount of links from a single source.

• Don’t use poor quality content - this includes articles that are rehashed or articles that have been spinned through article spinners. Make sure you only post high-quality content that is unique, relevant and useful to your readers.

• Avoid duplicate content at all costs. Posting duplicate content doesn’t save time. If you or anyone you hire to work on your website duplicates content, Google will issue a penalization. 

• Don't manipulate your rankings with using too many of the same keywords on a page - this includes Meta titles and descriptions.

• Avoid hidden text, hidden links, cloaking or tricky redirects. Hidden text is basically keywords typed in the same color as a web page in order for Google to index the page. The purpose of hiding the text is so that the visitor doesn't see the text.

• Avoid link farming like the plague. A link farm involves exchanging reciprocal links with websites for the purpose of boosting SEO. In other words, a link farm is a site that's created to boost the link popularity of another site by increasing the amount of incoming links. Link farms are often created by software programs and not humans. This black hat SEO trick has websites linking to each other that aren't related and of poor quality.

How to Recover from a Google Penalty

Recovering from a Google penalty is not something that happens overnight, it can be tedious and time-consuming. However, it is possible to survive the aftermath of a penalty. Here are a few tools to use to help monitor the health of your website, and prevent being hit with a penalty. 

• Copyscape will allow you to check to see if your content has been duplicated elsewhere. 

• Majestic SEO allows you to check your link profile - it even allows you to check your competitors' websites as well. 

• Monitor Backlinks is a must-have tool that helps you to discover any bad backlinks. 

• Every website owner should utilize Google Webmaster Tools. Google Webmaster Tools notifies you about any type of penalties Google has enforced.

These are just a handful of tools you can use to help monitor your website – there are plenty of others to choose from.

Lastly, it’s important that you stay abreast to the latest Google changes. Better yet, make sure you have access to a reliable SEO service that lives by Google’s best practices. Only allow a company that performs white hat SEO techniques to handle your website. Recovering from a Google penalty can be time-consuming and costly. A professional SEO consultant will ensure that they protect your website from a potential penalty. 

eed help optimizing a new or existing website? Feel free to contact Maximize Studio for an estimate and consultation at: (866) 213-2352.