Google Penalty

[ChrisF79]

I've read a few posts on this forum where people mention that they're in the penalty with google. Why does google penalize sites and how do you know if you've been penalized?

[CoastalJacksonville]

Wow, that's a good question. I would like to also hear about this as well. Come on experts out there, share some knowledge on this one please!!!:o

[E8MC]

Numerous people with new websites have asked me to explain what I call the "Google Same Site" penalty.

When you have too many links from one site to another and reciprocated, when the websites are targeting the same search term, Google can show only one website for the search term = Google same site penalty.

It's then very hard to get both sites pages showing for that same search term, and it's very easy to happen...

* You get a new client, they need Google PR and a link from an authoritive site, and your sites have both of these. You then want credit from that website that you have done the SEO/web design. Your business happens to have web pages SEO'ed for the same industry/area and so you have pages that target the same term - say on your reciprocal links directory.
* You have a friendly business in the same area, or same industry. You want to help each other out and so have whole of site links reciprocated. You target the same search terms - industry or area, and find only one of the two sites is showing high on Google for that search term.
* You trade site maps for your sites, so that you only have one link on your site per your friends pages, but you have all or the main pages of your friends website.
* You use the co-op for all your websites, and you just happen to get many links between those websites via the co-op. I use a hack on the Co-op php file to not show my own sites.
* Now the controversial one (I havn't decisively proved this one) - If you have too many sig links from a forum, merely the actual link on your sig, or a thread entitled with your search term could be enough to trigger the same Google same site penalty. The PR and authority status of the forum is so high, it can be enough that the forum is shown for the search term, and your site is not shown.
* If you have a multi language website, and you have multiple links to the same site because you have pages duplicated one for each language. If the other sites then has a number of links back to you... (Again, I have not proved this one, but it seems possible for there to be an issue with this scenario)

Proof of the Google same site penalty
I have proved it many times - when you optimize one page a little more than the other websites page, or have a little more anchor text or PR to that page, there will be a see saw effect - one site will be 1st/high for the term, and the other site will be 100th. Then you add some more PR/anchor text to your site and the see saw will again happen (I have not done this analysis on forum sigs) -- you then realize the problem, and want to remove links ... only problem is that both of you need each others PR etc for your other search terms that you are not competing against each other for.

This is a great one for the co-op. Use weight on one that is ranking low, and see it pop up to 1st while the one that was first that also links to you, goes to say 100th ... if the penalty did not exist, you would get the sites fighting for the top two positions, rather than 1st and 100th.

How to correct the Google same site penalty
The only safe way to try and get out of Googles bad books is to delete all links between the sites (or use the rel=nofollow), and wait till Google fully updates all the pages of both sites. Some internal pages can take Google a while to spider again, and these links can be enough to continue the association between the websites for long after the links have been removed ... I have seen Google caches of pages that don't contain the reciprocal links, but those links are still showing on the Google Link: search. And Google still has the same site issue for those websites pages.

rel=nofollow
The new rel=nofollow is another great way -- have all the links between the sites as rel=nofollow so you can keep the links and not have the same site issue with Google; then once Google is showing both sites again for the same search terms, you can experiment with having one link between the sites that is a normal link.

Code -- <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.website.com">keyword phrase</a>

Triangular links
If you really want to trade many links between sites, do it via a third site

a links to c
b links to a
c links to b

But you have got to be careful that Google has not determined the same site penalty on any of the sites concerned!

I dont like triangular links in general, as you can end up giving a link to a person and get a link of little value in return - since that site can receive so little PR etc into it, that links from it are of little value.

Bad triangular links - a is your site,
a links to b
c links to a

c has very low PR since few link to it given the arrangement.

Same IP range
The problem can be heightened when the websites are from the same IP address range, but I believe that the situation can happen between any two sites that have too many reciprocal links. This is why you see many link requests mentioning that they are from different IP address ranges ... the situation can certainly still happen when you move say your clients website from your main hosting to a totally different host to try and remove the problem. The problem still stays until you have removed the links and Google has updated ALL those pages.

How many is too many?
Lesson learned:

* Have a maximum 1 link between websites, maybe two, but don't push your luck as it can take months to get both websites showing for those search terms.
* If you have multiple links from one website, make sure you don't have even one link back to that website.

I don't know how many is too many, but it's best to keep it low.

How do you know its the "same site penalty"?
This is definitely the million dollar question ... there are so many penalties that can wreck your listings that it can be very hard to know what is happening -- one big issue seems to be that when you try too hard to get lots of links, and try too hard to SEO, that it's easy to go overboard in any one area, or get a link that wrecks you - ie a 302 link.

With the new Google Patent application highlighting areas that Google either uses or would like to use, SEO is becoming that much more complicated - especially for competitive phrases where the fine points of the algorithm make so much difference.

Hopefully, this will help many of you with your sites.

[kensmith]

You can get a penalty for spamming, hidden text, hidden links, and any other manipulation that Google catches.

[naix77]

Now, that was interesting to learn :) I didn't realize that google.com could do that.

[Javier Jimenez]

What hidden text means?
It´s the text with the same color from the background? Or maybe a <div> not visible? :confused:

Google can also penalize for the mirror sites: two sites with the same content but different domains.

[spanishproperty]

Go to google and put in "google webmaster guidelines" and it tells you what they want from your site.

There are a hundred and one reasons for a good site and the same visa versa.

The best way to produce a good site is not for the search engines, for normal human users and that is the best way.

[HHI Golf Guy]

There are many, many reasons that can cause your site to be penalized with any search engine, especially Google.

Penalties imposed may be an outright ban, a minus 30 penalty (http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3216368.htm), or a host of other ranking and indexing penalties.

Once recent Google filter addition will send your pages to the supplemental index. In essence, Google is imposing a penalty to boilerplate template (http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3192967.htm) type web sites.

While I'm sure that this filter was designed to attack spam sites and MFA sites, it has had significant repercussions for honest webmasters. I should know, one of our new client sites was hit by this filter.

We made some changes to the layout of the site, and within one week pages were being moved from the supplemental index back to the regular index.

This is probably the most evil, nefarious filter I have ever seen with Google or any SE. And depending upon how Google eventually tweaks this filter, it might spell doom for many, many template based web sites.

Technically, when Google puts your pages in the supplemental index it is not a penalty. But considering that pages in the SI have very, very little chance of ever ranking for a KW, it might as well be an outright ban as far as I'm concerned.

[jellyfish]

I do not see any mention to the sandbox effect. Which occurs to new sites basically getting devalued until google gets used to them..

[HHI Golf Guy]

I do not see any mention to the sandbox effect. Which occurs to new sites basically getting devalued until google gets used to them..

The Sandbox effect has to do with links and TrustRank. It does not have to do with the age of the site. For example, a site that has been online for years but has very few links to it (especially from trusted sites) will still go through a Sandbox period when you begin a traditional link building period.

Also, the Sandbox is not a penalty - it's one of the many filters used by Google.

[ROpenHouse]

Thanks for sharing, great insight.

ROpenHouse
ROpenHouse (http://www.ropenhouse.com/)

(HTTP://www.ROpenHouse.com)

[seoai]

Thanks for all the info.

I agree and think that you are able to have several links from one site, but you cannot link back to that website if you do. Thanks again for sharing.

[Mortgage_Author]

Some really good information in this thread, that I will need to think about carefully with regard to my own sites. Thanks for the info!

Dan Amerman

[AllBizHere]

Some really good information in this thread, that I will need to think about carefully with regard to my own sites. Thanks for the info!

Dan Amerman
It's really helpful..
I run my site few days ago
Thanks for all

[vamoosevarmint]

Dont do a lot of linking all at once, make sure when you run a link campaign it does not hitting all your links in one day, make it spread out over time.

[chrishummel]

Great posts. Good to know some of these things.

Chris
www.hummelcompanies.com (http://www.hummelcompanies.com)

[mortgagesum]

Also, read their TOS. They're pretty strict if you're violating any of them.

[happymondays]

rel=nofollow
The new rel=nofollow is another great way -- have all the links between the sites as rel=nofollow so you can keep the links and not have the same site issue with Google; then once Google is showing both sites again for the same search terms, you can experiment with having one link between the sites that is a normal link.


Wrong. Google fiollows links with nofollow tag, it's just the PR will not be transferred.

Great post anyway!

[1003Link]

I added an image rotator to my site and droped from number 8 in ranking to off the chart. how can I find out why?

[happymondays]

I added an image rotator to my site and droped from number 8 in ranking to off the chart. how can I find out why?

It is hard to tell... usually you can't figure it out, this is the game... They don't tell you the rules, you have to guess. However in some cases, when something is obviuouly wrong it's easy to to tell. What's your domain?

[1003Link]

the domain is 1003link.net I have the fix the images but i'm having a flash image built for me so i'm not sure if that will fix it. I added the rotator my self so its a little off. It will change three images every time the page loads.

[happymondays]

the domain is 1003link.net I have the fix the images but i'm having a flash image built for me so i'm not sure if that will fix it. I added the rotator my self so its a little off. It will change three images every time the page loads.

Image rotator has nothing to do with the ranking.
Is your content original? Did you buy links recently? What's the search phrase you lost rankings? Did your overall traffic drop?

[HHI Golf Guy]

I added an image rotator to my site and droped from number 8 in ranking to off the chart. how can I find out why?

The image rotator has nothing to do with any drop in rankings.

Did you check your rankings across multiple datacenters? Was the result the same for all DC's?

My guess is that you went to Google.com or your Google toolbar, popped in your phrase, and didn't see your site in the results and that you did not check multiple DC's.

Most likely what has happened is that Google brought a datacenter back in service, and that was the datacenter you were served when you checked your rankings. Because Google had taken this DC out of rotation for a while (for maintenance or other reasons) the updated data has not yet propagated to that DC.

Even with DC's that have not been offline, you may occasionally experience a temporary drop in your rankings. Google is pushing data almost every day now, and sometimes there may be a problem with a data push to a particular DC.

Google occasionally puts a test dataserver into the rotation. These servers are trying new filters or algorithm changes.

If you check multiple DC's (10-20) and see that your results have dropped, then you have an issue.

[1003Link]

Image rotator has nothing to do with the ranking.
Is your content original? Did you buy links recently? What's the search phrase you lost rankings? Did your overall traffic drop?

my traffic has doubled over the last year. google had been climbing from sept 06 to a peak in jan 07. the traffic stayed the same but the referrals from google drop 2/3's in feb. I do see the referrals climbing but I'm almost half way back to the peak level I had in jan.07 I'm not sure what blew our ranking. I did take the info email address off each page , to stop spammers and replaced the text with the contactus link.. The ranking was number 8 in the native search on goolge for mixed use property I can't see where we are now. The call have slowed on that inquiry. I'm at a loss?? :confused:

[1003Link]

how do you check multi data centers? is there a way to check each one?
Is there a ranking program i can buy the check my ranking in DC's?
Thanks

[skypix]

does google penalize for "semi transparent" text? text that is not the same color as the back ground but nearly the same so that its pretty much invisible?


Thanks
Dan Shaw
SkyPIX Imaging LLC

[mortgagesum]

They might so it's not worth the risk.


(http://www.mortgagesum.com/)

[mayorm]

I guess we need to keep on building links and keep working to keep up the ranking.. and i see that as time passes by there are new techniques.. if we keep ourselves updated with all of them we can stick on to our rankings is what i have seen..

I hope you havent changed any of the key words for which your site was optimized..

[realestatedondiva.com]

Google can also penalize for the mirror sites: two sites with the same content but different domains.

If this case is factual, what do you suggest I do? You see, I have a website that has two domain names pointing to the same site. One domain name is one that I puchased & own, the other one is a subdomain name given to me by my broker that allows people browsing the brokerage website to click on my profile & link to my website. Any suggestions?

[TanyaMc]

If this case is factual, what do you suggest I do? You see, I have a website that has two domain names pointing to the same site. One domain name is one that I puchased & own, the other one is a subdomain name given to me by my broker that allows people browsing the brokerage website to click on my profile & link to my website. Any suggestions?

Duplicate content filters are indeed factual. Why would google want to rank a dozen sites for the same search term if they all have the same content, word for word?

Pick the site that you want to be actually indexed - I suggest your own domain name. Set up an .htaccess file on the free subdomain to do a 301 (permanent) redirect to your domain.

Either that, or add the "noindex" meta tag to all the pages on the sub domain.

[TanyaMc]

does google penalize for "semi transparent" text? text that is not the same color as the back ground but nearly the same so that its pretty much invisible?


Thanks
Dan Shaw
SkyPIX Imaging LLC

Yes, they do. Some sites manage to still slip by with this, but eventually they'll be devalued. If you need attempt spammy things like hiding text, or almost hiding text, you should think long and hard about where your site really deserves to rank for your target term, and then start your improvements there.

[kelsheikh]

The Sandbox effect has to do with links and TrustRank. It does not have to do with the age of the site. Not the age of the site but the age of the domain. Even though the Sandbox is a hot topic, it is still a theory. Google has never come out and said anything about algorithms. In my opinion, links and page rank do play a part, but i also believe Google looks at the age of a Domain or else any site could compete for a top position over a site that has been around for years.

[HHI Golf Guy]

Not the age of the site but the age of the domain. Even though the Sandbox is a hot topic, it is still a theory. Google has never come out and said anything about algorithms. In my opinion, links and page rank do play a part, but i also believe Google looks at the age of a Domain or else any site could compete for a top position over a site that has been around for years.

If you take an aged domain (2+ years old) with little or no links pointing to it you will experience the same Sandbox effext as if you purchased a new domain. I know - I have experimented with this.

That tells me that the age of links is a factor in the Sandbox effect, not the age of the domain.

I will not deny that the age of the domain may play a minor factor in TrustRank. But again, link age and quality is more important.