How to Not Receive Link Penalty from Google?

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Rinky Moolchandani Apoorva Bajj

Rinky Moolchandani, Apoorva Bajj

— 7 min read
How to Not Receive Link Penalty from Google?
How to Not Receive Link Penalty from Google?

Link Building is an inherent way of making a website more visible and getting higher places in search pages. However, many websites knowingly or unknowingly use critical links that distort the entire website, because of Google's safety rules. Toxic links on your website can quickly cause link penalties from search engines. 

Google penalty is a primer action taken against websites that violate Google's Webmaster guidelines, resulting in a significant drop in organic visibility. This can hurt a website's success and deprive its online importance. Understanding the complex structure of links and what you need NOT do to avoid such link penalties.

What Causes Google to Penalize Your Website?
What’s So Serious About Spammy Links?

What’s so Hard About High-Quality Links?

How to Not Receive Google Link Penalty

How to Recover from Google Link Penalties

These 9 Mistakes Will Get Your Website PENALIZED in Google

What Causes Google to Penalize Your Website?

Google has its rule book, which every website using the platform source has to form. Using black-hat SEO techniques connects websites with unnatural links violating Google's guidelines and resulting in a manual penalty.

Inbound and outbound links that are not natural are among the most frequent causes of a Google link penalty. We usually call them "harmful" or "spammy". Your website may be penalized for both inbound and outbound links. 

Suppose you create an external link that violates Google's guidelines, such as by creating a "pattern of artificial, deceptive, or manipulative internal links," you risk facing penalties from Google. In short, any website with evil links in the eyes of Google shall be punished.

What’s So Serious About Spammy Links?

Penalties and Loss of Rankings

Using tricks to build links or breaking Google rules can lead to serious problems. You could rank lower on search results or even be removed from them. 

For example, too many link trades, buying or selling links, and being part of schemes to change search rankings break Google's rules. It can result in punishments. In 2011, Google punished JCPenney for using paid links, which caused an enormous loss in their search visibility.

Reputation Damage

Bad or spammy backlinks can damage a website's reputation. Links from bad sites with a lot of spam or questionable content can make both users and search engines suspicious. 

For example, if a money advisory website gets links from gambling or adult-themed websites, it can hurt its image in the financial world. This might hinder good users from trusting it.

Risk of Negative SEO

Sometimes, bad people or enemies might use mean tricks on SEO by making harmful or spammy links to a website. They do this to try to make the website get in trouble or harm its reputation. Spammy links can drop your standard on Google in no time.

For example, a competitor might use tricks like making cheap links to another company's website or using tools to make lots of spammy links. They do this to mess up their search ranking and name.

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What’s so Hard About High-Quality Links?

Resource Intensiveness

Making strong links takes a substantial amount of time, work, and cost. Building connections, making gripping content, and doing campaign work all need hard work and skill. Startups or small businesses with limited resources might have a hard time at this stage. 

For instance, a novice business website that wants to get links from various startups and business leads might not have enough people or money to do that compared to the big companies that can enroll them easily.

Constant Monitoring and Maintenance

Making good connections isn’t a one-time job, it's something you have to do throughout the period. Checking regularly if old links are still important and good, and always looking for new and better chances adds to the need for constant use of resources. 

Not checking and updating the list of links often can cause old or not important links to build up. This can make the site weak over time. 

By using these plans and following Google's rules, websites can not only protect themselves from punishments but also develop a strong link network that helps their website stand out and be trusted online.

Focus on Quality Over Quantity

Focus on getting good connections from powerful sources related to your area. For example, a software company getting a link from a famous technology magazine in their area is more important than many links from small directories.

Move the attention to making content that naturally gets links because of its worth. 

Suppose a helpful blog post or a study can make popular websites or bloggers want to use and link to your content without being asked.

Regular Audits

Do regular checks of your website links using tools like Google Search Console or special SEO software. This will help you find and say no to poor-quality or spammy backlinks. 

For example, if a health and wellness website finds useless connections from drug spam sites, it should immediately stop those links to avoid getting punished.

Diversification

Use different methods to get links from various platforms. For instance, writing articles for websites in your field, collaborating with renowned people in your niche, and creating unique content worth linking (graphics or studies) spreads your collection of inbound links.

This reduces depending on one plan. This makes it safer when search engine rules change or you get punished for certain moves.

Anchor Text Variation

Use different words in the links that point to your website to keep your link setup looking natural. Stop always using the exact match keyword as anchor text. Instead, try using variations like brand terms, partial keyword matches, or natural language phrases. 

For example, a website that sells sports stuff getting different links with text like "best sports items" or "trendy Nike sports shoes" seems more natural than just the repeated word "affordable sports equipment."

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If you get a link penalty from Google, it's important to resolve this sooner and take action to avoid it in the future. Here is how you can recover from one:

Distinguish Penalties

Use Google Search Console to find out and learn about the penalties or steps taken by hand that affect your website. For instance, determining whether the punishment is a result of error, in linking or an algorithmic penalty like Panda or Penguin, can aid in devising a customized recovery plan.

Examine to identify and remove or disapprove of any spammy links that violate Google's guidelines. Utilize tools such as Moz Link Explorer, SemRush, or Ahrefs, to analyze the link profile. 

If a website has been penalized due to paid links, they can reach out to the website owners. Request their removal or utilize Google's “Disavow Tool” to detach from them.

Reconsideration Request

Correct the issues that led to the penalty and then submit a request for re-evaluation by Google. Explain the steps taken to address these problems, ensuring adherence to Google's rules.

If a website has resolved duplicate content issues, it should demonstrate its improvements and outline measures for avoiding such issues in the future.

Prioritize High-Quality Content

Concentrate on creating relevant content that fulfills user intent. By producing informative and interesting content, not only will trust be regained but also natural backlinks from reputable sources will be obtained.

If a website has been penalized for keyword usage, it could alter its approach by focusing on creating valuable content that genuinely benefits users.

Monitor and Adapt

Keep an eye on the website's performance, links count, and user activity measures after it gets better. Change your methods to match with new SEO rules and Google tips. This will stop you from getting punished in the future. Checking and fixing content and link-making methods often keep your website’s growth multiplying with time.

Never Forget!

Google keeps working on its system to always put user experience first when it comes to real and trustworthy content. Therefore, the success of link-building lies in:

  • User-Centric Approach: Focus on user experience when creating content and getting links.
  • Quality over Quantity: Google will keep caring about good backlinks. So, websites must put quality first instead of the number of links they get.
  • AI and Technology Integration: Use AI tools to understand connections and improve content based on Google's changing rules.

Link building can be very effective for your site but could drop you down if your practices are wrong in Google's sight. It’s better to focus on making content better instead of link manipulation. Following Google's rules, and going with natural links, leads to lasting success in link building.

FAQs

What causes Google to penalize your website?

Google has its rule book, which every website using the platform source has to form. Using black-hat SEO techniques connects websites with unnatural links violating Google's guidelines and resulting in a manual penalty.

Google link penalty can be avoided by focusing on quality over quantity, natural link acquisition, regular audits, diversification, and anchor text variation.

Google link penalties can be recovered by distinguishing penalties, link cleanup, prioritizing high-quality content, and monitoring the website's performance.

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