Possible Causes of Google Penalties

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Possible Causes of Google Penalties

aristotle

1:32 pm on Aug 15, 2010 (gmt 0)

Since the subject of Google penalties comes up so often, I thought it might be useful to complie a list of possible causes. Here are some
possibilities that I've seen mentioned:

-- Selling links
-- Hidden text
-- Hidden links
-- Un-natural backlink profile
-- Over-optimization (Don't know the specifics)
-- Being part of a network of interlinked sites
-- Buying links (maybe - not sure)
-- Linking to bad neighborhoods

That's all I can think of at the moment, so maybe someone else can add to the list.

tedster

9:16 pm on Aug 15, 2010 (gmt 0)

Over-optimization (Don't know the specifics)

Seems mostly to have been centered around keyword stuffing in titles and anchor text. Also seems to be on much less of a hair-trigger these days. I guess they've taught the algo to just ignore it.

A few more common penalties:

deceptive cloaking

manipulative 301s across domains

auto-generated text (Markov chain junk) when detected

c41lum

10:44 pm on Aug 15, 2010 (gmt 0)

hi tedster what do you mean by "manipulative 301s across domains"

c41lum

1:30 pm on Aug 16, 2010 (gmt 0)

Dupliacate Content still can hit your site pretty hard from what I can see.

tedster

4:30 pm on Aug 16, 2010 (gmt 0)

what do you mean by "manipulative 301s across domains"

I mean building up a laser beam of PageRank by networking a domain pyramid together via 301 redirects - often a large pyramid network with scores or hundreds of domains. It's the kind of thing that's done only to manipulate rankings.

aristotle

5:24 pm on Aug 16, 2010 (gmt 0)

Thanks for the input. Another one I should have mentioned originally is the presence of malware that installs trojans and other malicious software.

karter

3:04 am on Aug 17, 2010 (gmt 0)

does this mean that consolidating small sites into one site via 301 could lead to a penalty ?

That would explain something greatly surprised a while ago

tedster

6:28 am on Aug 17, 2010 (gmt 0)

Dupliacate Content still can hit your site pretty hard from what I can see.

does this mean that consolidating small sites into one site via 301 could lead to a penalty ?

Both these things can cause loss of rankings, especially if there are any technical missteps. But lost rankings are not always a penalty.