Google Penalty Recovery: Panda, Penguin, Manual

Whether it’s Panda, Penguin, or any other animal that starts with P, removal of penalties from Google and other search engines is a tricky process.

We understand the urgency of getting your site back on the right track as fast as possible and we know what Google wants to see from your site before they lift the penalty. We’ve worked with sites that have been hit by a manual action penalty, and sites that saw a drop in rankings with no warning at all.

Google penalties do not go away on their own, and you will want to take immediate action as soon as possible to lift the penalty. Netvantage has experience in cleaning up websites and getting them back in Google's good graces. You can learn about one of our experiences of recovering from a manual spam action penalty here.

Signs that you need Google penalty recovery services

It isn't always clear if your site has been hit with a penalty from Google, and it typically requires penalty assessment to tell if you have been hit with a manual penalty or not. The following are some of the warning signs that you are dealing with a manual penalty:

• Sudden drops in keyword rankings
• Sudden drops in organic search traffic, particularly from one search engine
• Warning messages in Google Search Console

What caused my penalty?

The first thing that we will help you identify is whether you have a manual action penalty, or if you have triggered something in Google's algorithm that has caused sudden harm to your keyword rankings. Regardless, penalties given out by Google can be caused by a few different factors, but they are usually related to one of the following:

Unnatural links to your site

If you are aware that you have a Google penalty, the most likely cause is your website's backlink profile. If you or a previously hired digital marketing firm participated in link exchanges, paid for links, or were involved in other unnatural and manipulative link building schemes, Google may have imposed a penalty on your website. Even if your links come from relevant sources, your backlink profile's anchor text distribution may be considered unnatural. In other situations, websites have been victim to negative SEO attacks and suddenly have thousands of unnatural links from spammy websites.

The only way to lift the penalty is through hard work and showing to Google that you have taken all possible actions to clean up your website's backlink profile.

At Netvantage, we will manually review your backlink profile and identify backlinks that are causing the penalty, and work with you to remove as many of these bad links as possible. We won't just disavow a list of bad links - Google expects much more than that. We will then provide documentation to Google that shows our efforts to clean up your website's backlink profile so that Google can remove your algorithm penalty.

Thin/duplicate content

If pages on your website have little to no content, or use content that was pulled from external sources, Google may impose a penalty on select pages or across your entire website. We'll find pages that need to be fixed, remove or improve them, and help you get rid of the Google penalty. We may also be able to improve your site structure and make technical changes to prevent the issue from happening again.

Keyword stuffing

Just like most things in life, too much of a good thing can be bad. If your site is overly optimized for certain keywords, or there is hidden text on your website, Google may see that as a means to game their algorithm. We use in-house tools that can quickly identify pages that have thin content or are overly saturated with keywords. We'll then help you identify and address any issues with keyword stuffing, and submit changes to your website to Google and other search engines.

How do you fix a Google penalty?

When dealing with sites that have been hit by a Google penalty - manual, Penguin, Panda or otherwise, we take a no nonsense approach to identifying the issues, taking action to fix those issues, and developing a strategy for the future that avoids Google penalties. Our Google penalty recovery services are individualized to each client's situation, and we don't follow a checklist of items like other SEO companies do.

Through our Google penalty recovery services we:

• Draw from experience to know what specific backlinks, content on your site, or technical elements of your site are in violation of Google’s Quality Guidelines.
• Contact site owners multiple times requesting links to be changed or removed immediately.
• Create an organized and systematic document of our efforts, write a reconsideration request that highlights our work and commitment to never violate Google’s Quality Guidelines again, and present both documents to Google to have the penalty lifted or alleviated.
• Develop a future SEO strategy that focuses on quality links and not just quantity so you won't need future Google penalty recovery efforts and you can focus on creating a better experience for your customers.

How much do Google penalty recovery services cost?

The Netvantage team estimates the cost of Google penalty removal based on the severity of the case. Depending on the specific issue causing the penalty, our team will assess the size and scope of the project and estimate a price based on our hourly rate of $125 per hour. In some instances this can be as low as $1,000 while more complex issues can cost significantly more.

Why work with Netvantage?

We know that traffic from search engines is vital for your business, and we'll help you tackle your Google penalty issues in a short amount of time. We have years of experience in dealing with Google penalties and know exactly what to do in order to quickly lift the penalty on the first try. If you think your site has been hit by a Google penalty, contact a Netvantage SEO representative to learn how we can reverse your penalty and help get you back in the rankings. Call us at 877.204.0234. or fill out our contact form.