Google is my Internet love as well as my worst fear on the Internet. The reason why I am so much afraid of Google at times is because it has the power to ban me completely. Getting a Google ban is more like getting a life sentence in jail where you are alive but you life has no more meaning.

Reasons Why Google May Penalize You

Google Penalty is the practice of black listing a particular site or blog. It is considered as a very big punishment for webmasters and is done to keep the Internet clean and free of bad sites. There are a lot of reasons which may trigger a Google Penalty and I have tried my best to explain each one of them below. To ensure your blog does not get penalized by Google make sure you read all of them and avoid perpetrating them.

1. Short-Term Domain Registration

This is one of the most controversial reasons that supports the fact of Google Penalty. Google might penalize you in a sense if you run your blog on a domain that has been registered for only one year. The reason is that most of the scam, fraud and spam domains only get registered for one year and Google has less trust on short-term domains so you may get lower search engine ranking positions. Good way to overcome this is to register your domain for a long-term.

2. Duplicate Content

Most of the bloggers are already aware of the duplicate content penalty by Google. Google may penalize your whole blog or some of your pages because of duplicate content. Not that you created them deliberately but also if you similar post content in your categories and archives. Notsoboringlife has a very good article that can save your blog from being penalized by Google this way.

3. Link Buying/Selling

MattCutts, who is a Google Engineer, gave a brief explanation some time ago on how selling paid links on your blog can cause Google to devalue your blog. Moreover buying links just for the sake of increasing Pagerank is also considered as an evil activity and is not appreciated by Google. Checkout how Google can catch your paid links.

4. Hidden Text or Hidden Links

Google does not like hidden text or hidden links on your blog. Hidden links or hidden text can easily be created by wrapping them around a zero font tag or by using the display:hidden css property. Even if you code the links/text to be the same color as that of their background then they are considered as hidden by Google and this technique may lead you to a ban.

5. Excessive Use of Keywords

Google likes keywords that are relevant to your blog content or post content. If you have a technology blog it is not necessary for you to add the keyword “technology” in all of your blog posts. Only use keywords that are at most relevant to your article/content. Using irrelevant or unnatural keywords can give you a penalty.

6. Automated Redirects or Doorway Pages

Google has less liking for sneaky or suspicious redirects. Those pages which just offer a doorway to other web pages and use automated redirects can be banned by Google at once. These pages confuse the search engine and are highly disliked by Google. Using a Mod Rewrite rule or a 301 Permanent Redirect is a good technique to save yourself for this type of penalty.

7. Linking To Banned Sites

In the real world you are known by your community. The same rule is followed by Google on the Internet. If you consistently link to sites that have a Zero Pagerank or are themselves banned by Google then Google may also remove you too from its good books list.

8. Getting Linked By Bad Sites

Make sure you don’t exchange links with sites that have a Zero Pagerank. Scam sites, online phishing sites and other fraud sites can get you penalized by Google if they keep on linking to you.

9. Violate Google Webmaster Guidelines

I don’t think there is much to say about it. It is understood that Google will ban you if you do not comply with their Google Webmaster Guidelines so avoid going against them.

10. Link Building Campaigns

It is a very common practice among bloggers to start link trains in order to get more backlinks but this can be harmful to your blog sometimes. Even great blogging kings like JohnChow have been affected by this too. It is good for you if you avoid excessive link exchanging campaigns.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 at 1:35 am.