Recall the instance when I suffered a Google penalty. It was quite painful. I sincerely hope that you do not face a similar situation, or suffer the same penalty in the future. Thus, I am sharing my experience with you on my Google penalty recovery with the Google penalty checker and the following tips as I got the penalty revoked.
Table of Contents
The Penalty Recovery Process
It was back in April of 2015 and I got an email from Google about having unnatural links and my site being penalized.
The first place I started looking at the links was in the Google Webmaster tools. (Today you see them in the Google Search Console.) I saw many inbound links coming from websites that were no longer in existence linking to the website.
I then made an Excel spreadsheet with the list of dead links and enlisted the help of Mayura. For almost a year we tried several times to get the penalty revoked.
Nothing. Mayura used a WordPress plugin to change links from Follow to No Follow here. Still Nothing.
Going The Old Fashion Way – Post By Post
Then, I decided to go blog post by blog post since the beginning of time. Over 430 blog posts.
It took time, patience, and work. And the links all had to be put in a spreadsheet. I found something very interesting.
The plugin did not look at the links prior to WordPress. Many posts originated on another platform, Blogger. The mystery began to become clearer.
Then Google emailed me a hint when I pleated with them “I really don’t understand….why my site is still being penalized.” They replied with a hint. Yes, Google actually did that back then.
I found the link they complained about and made it no-follow along with another 800+ links.
The typing was great for my physical therapy as I hope to return to my day job soon.
The moral of the story? Don’t rely on automatic systems. You have to sometimes dig deeper and do the real dirty work.
How To File A Reconsideration Request To Google For Google Penalty Recovery
Google Penalty Checker in Google Search Console
- Go To The Google Search Console– If you do not have one, do sign up today for this FREE Google tool. It can help you find out what may be wrong with your website. The search console tools can also tell you what you have been doing right with your website.
- Verify your website if you haven’t done so already and check that Google has verified it. They include instructions on how you can verify your own website. There are at least 2 different ways that they let you choose to verify your website.
- Go to your manual actions section and you will see what Google has done. Hopefully, you won’t see any manual actions in your search console tools.
- Fix the issues that Google has claimed your website may have. Give yourself time and patience to do this. If you don’t understand what the issue is about you can check their search console help section.
- Double-check the security issues in your Google console tools. Make sure you have none.
- Click on “Request a Review” which is only shown if you incur a Google penalty. In that section, you must explain what you have done to your website and describe the steps you have taken. Do have your documentation ready if Google asks for it. You may have to attach it. Having documented what you have done is helpful on its own for yourself. It won’t be a waste of your time.
Learn From Matt Cutts
You can also listen to Matt Cutts from Google on his high-level view of what you can do to get your Google penalty revoked. He has a few cool tips on the subject for you to hear only as he can give them.
The Important No-Follow Attribute
I had to keep searching on how to change my links from Follow to No Follow. If you don’t know how to make your links no-follow please see the example below:
<a href="http://example.com/post" rel="nofollow">Post Example</a>
That is how I changed my links from Follow to No Follow manually, one link at a time. It is not an easy process but one you must do if you ever get hit with a Google penalty.
Another thing I learned was that many affiliate links do NOT include the No Follow, I just assumed they would. Never assume a link is No Follow unless you see the attribute in your code. You can label the links nofollow, sponsored like this: rel=” nofollow sponsored”
(Just one more lesson I had to share.) See why you have to dig deep into your website to check all the links. If you want to learn the latest link-building techniques check out this updated guide.
Bonus Tip – No-Follow Links For Google Penalty Recovery
Making links that are not relevant to your website a no follow attribute is another way to avoid a Google penalty. Why link out to other websites that are not relevant?
You may want to show examples of things on your blog. I used them for examples but many of these example blogs were not blogging, social media, or SEO niche type of blogs. Therefore, I put in the no follow attributes.
If other websites or blogs are not related to your site’s topics or niche do not give them a follow link. I know it may make you sad not to give your friend a follow link but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
Why Does Google Care?
Why does it matter so much to Google? When a link is a follow link, link juice is given to the site (the one that is being linked to) thus being one of the 200 ranking factors to increase their ranking in search or pagerank.
Hence, when it is a no follow link, no link juice is given.
Internal Links Matter Too
Not only do you need to monitor your inbound and outbound links but your internal linking matters too. You want to be sure to give your readers the best experience on the blog.
By having the right content linked to other relevant content it puts them on a path to find more information from your blog. You don’t want to leave valuable content orphaned on your website.
How The Blog Recovered After The Google Penalty Recovery
After the Google penalty recovery, the blog took multiple months to regain its traffic. However, after a full year, it reached its highest peak.
Naturally, more adjustments had to be made such as updating aged content to boost both SEO and traffic. If you notice a decrease in traffic over a week or longer check your Google penalty checker for any penalties.
Your Turn On Google Penalty Recovery
Have you been hit by a Google penalty or have you had a Google penalty revoked in the past? Have you used the Google penalty checker?
I’d love to know about your experiences with a Google penalty in the comments below and what SEO techniques you use for your blog today.
She has 30+ years of experience in marketing/advertising with 12 years of experience in content marketing, social media, blogging, and SEO.
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Hey Lisa! It must be horrid to get a Google penalty. The good thing is you recovered.
Thanks for the article.
And do you know any ways to avoid spammy backlinks that are pointing to your site? I have a lot of them and I don’t know why.
Most of them are ‘domain lists’.
I think having bad backlinks is equally harmful.
Hi Ali, I don’t know how to avoid them as much as how to disavow them. However, with that said, maybe avoid the less known online directories or share places like Link Collider? Some may come from there. I hope that helps. You could also block them from yourself in WordPress for leaving comments.
Hey Lisa,
Yes, sometimes we just have to go deeper remove links. Relying completely on automated system does not give the real picture. Google penalty can be revoked if one does the needed.
Thanks for reminding us of How to File a Reconsideration Request to Google if Hit with a Google Penalty. Many webmasters are not giving the possibility of Google penalty a new thought. I guess this is what we must put in place in our online marketing strategy!
I left this comment in kingged.com as well
Hi Sunday, oh yes. I surely learned the hard way on that one! You are welcome, I wanted to make it easier for other bloggers and web folks along the way. Thanks for commenting and on Kingged too. Have a great rest of the week Sunday.
Just a few days back I purchased an expired domain, the later on came to be known as a “Penalized” on Google Panda Update. The posts weren’t getting indexing, despite all the rest new domains I’ve purchased were mostly being indexed in matter of mins. Upon filing a reconsideration request to Google, I came to know that for having really poor quality auto generated content that led to manual penalty & de-indexing from Google during Panda 4.1 update.
Ah, bad experience. But luckily solved it within a day. BTW, thanks for the in-depth procedure, Lisa.
– Bishal Biswas
Hi Bishal, oh boy, no warning before you purchased it? Interesting. That’s quick if you got it resolved in one day Bishal. Thanks for sharing your story with us here. Have a great weekend.
Hey Lisa,
Great post. I read something recently about bad links that’s got me thinking about my own site. I have to check to see if I have bad links to my site. I think I do. So I have to go and fix those.
It does sound like a lengthy process, but it’s needed. So I thank you for pointing this out and I’m headed over now to check out and clear some links that may be damaging my blog.
And congrats on fixing yours.
– Andrew
Thank you Andrew. Yes, do be sure too! And be sure you haven’t a penalty in your Webmaster tools. You probably would have received an email about it anyways. Thanks for coming by and have a great weekend Andrew. And best wishes on the upcoming wedding too!
Hi Lisa,
My God, that must have been a nightmare! And a year is a long time to be in the Google penalty box. Fortunately, you got it revoked, but the process was long and such hard work. Such a horrible experience!
You gave great advice here. I always nofollow external links and social media links too. I am a little bit nervous about changing those to dofollow like Scott Allen said. I probably should! I thought of using the plugin you talked about for automated nofollow links, but after reading that it’s not as reliable as I thought, I’ll probably continue putting the nofollow links manually.
Thanks so much for sharing your experience with us. I am sure that it will be extremely useful to many bloggers. I know I’ll keep it for future references. Have a great weekend!
Hi Nataly, it sure was but it took a year because I had some life events within that year that took me offline a bit. I’m glad it’s over. I even made some other sites and blogs similiar to mine dofollow. I read having all nofollow was not good either so I took no chances. I really had to think which to made dofollow.
You are welcome Nataly and I appreciate you coming by and taking the time to comment on this one. I hope you have a great weekend as well. I can’t believe it’s the last one of May already. Ready or not, June will be here!
Hi Lisa,
I do remember when this happened to you. My goodness what a nightmare. I am so glad you wrote this post and I’m saving it on my Evernote. I do want to make sure that if Google ever gets after me, I have your share to rely upon.
I did have some trouble about a year ago with those 404 errors and had to spend two days fixing that one up.
The one thing I don’t do is automation. It is too unreliable and no matter what I read about it, my intuition tells me different. Good thing I followed that.
Again thanks so much for this!
-Donna
Hi Donna, you have a good memory. It certainly was an online nightmare. You intuition is great Donna, automation is not always good and you have to do other things manually just in case.
You are very welcome. I hope by sharing my experience with this Google penalty it will help other bloggers or small businesses with their websites. Have a great rest of the day Donna!
Wait; I thought that when you got the penalty you got delisted. It was only for pagerank? Heck, I thought that sucker was dead. I went almost a year without page rank some time ago and didn’t care; would have cared if I’d been delisted though. Still, glad you’re back in their good graces
Hi Mitch, I didn’t get delisted but I noticed a lot more traffic around the time I was revoked via Google. It was Pagerank and I’m sure I didn’t come up well in the seach results. I was shocked they gave me a hint Mitch, made me feel like Google is really human (or with people behind the logo). I’m glad it’s over and that process is done. Thanks for coming by and taking the time to comment on this one Mitch. Have a great rest of the day.
Hi Lisa,
I have been experiencing the same problems and it took me a long time to fix everything. Actually, after reading your post I had to log in to Webmaster Tools to see if everything was still ok.
I don’t focus much on SEO at the moment, but I understand how important it is and that Google is driving a lot of traffic to my blog. It’s one thing to focus on SEO and do things right using the different seo methods, and it’s another thing to get penalized by Google. A penalty from Google really hurts, I lost a lot of traffic over a long period of time and my blog hasn’t entirely recovered from it.
It’s great that you’re describing your journey and what to do about it.
Hi Jens, that’s right you had one too. You are not the first to log into those this week after reading this. It’s good to log in there every week or at least every month. I didn’t lose a lot of traffic but it really picked up once it was removed. Hard to tell since I start blogging more since the accident too. Times of year can make a difference as well. Thanks for coming by Jens and sharing your experience with a Google penalty too. I hope others can learn from this. Have a great rest of the week there Jens!
Hi Lisa,
YOU did it! Congratulations on revoking the Google’s Manual Action dear.
I’m very pleased to hear you did it even after months of action and while you had a lot more going on behind the scenes.
The next thing I loved hearing from you is that Google was humble enough to give some clues about where the problem lies. I believe if they follow it for all the reconsideration requests get failed, they won’t have to deal with too many requests. Now for those who are still trying to get theirs revoked, your advice will be golden – go ask ’em.
Hmm… I don’t think SEO will be dead until Search Engines exist. However, SE will be smarter enough, so we won’t have to optimize so much from our end. That day all we have to do is blogging and stop worrying about tech aspects much.
Thanks for the kind mention, and I hope you’re exhilarated to see your PR back to original again.
You have a lovely week there dear.
Cheers…
Hi Mayura, yes with your help – I would have not known where to start. Yes, so true with life behind the scenes for sure Mayura. Otherwise it would have probaby taken months not a full year.
Yes, it made Google appear human to me that they gave me a hint! Very cool huh?
You are welcome my friend, you are so quick with the tech stuff, you truly amaze me. It’s hard to believe this week is almost over. I hope you have a great weekend ahead Mayura with some fun included!
Hi Lisa, Wow, good for you to keep trying. Google should applaud your efforts! I remember when you received your penalty. Jens Berget got one too. So frustrating when high-quality bloggers get penalized. It really can happen to anyone!
You sent me over to Google Webmaster Tools and I spent about an hour there. I’m good but found some broken links I cleaned up. Tech becomes obsolete almost as often as it gets launched. It’s hard to keep up with tech that’s been retired.
I hope Google recognizes you for the legitimate, quality blogger you are, Lisa!
Hi Carolyn, thank you. Yes, it can. LOL – funny you are not the first one to check on your Google Webmaster tools after reading this one. It’s always good to check at least weekly or monthly. My pagerank went back to 3 right after I published this post too. So I’m glad it all worked out well. Thank you for coming by Carolyn and enjoy the rest of the week.
That’s faamazing, Lisa.
Congratulations!
All the work you put into it and the dedication have rewarded you.
I know it’s really hard to get a penalty revoked.
And it’s a surprise to me that Google actually gave you a hint!
I wish to recover at 100% of your health very soon.
Have a great rest of this week, Lisa.
Hi Erik, thank you. It certainly was not easy to get it revoked. I was shocked I received a hint in my email from Google – makes them really appear as human. Me too – arm is getting better but not straight and will find out next week if there is any nerve damage. Thanks for coming by Erik and enjoy the rest of your week.
Thanks for sharing this, Lisa. There are actually several ways to get penalized, and just as many different ways to get the penalty removed. One of my clients had a penalty — turned out it was from a brief stint where some spam comments had gotten through, and then automated link-building tools had linked to those posts. The spam comments were gone within 24 hours, but the links were still there. We had to identify them all (I found someone to do a LinkDetox report on Fiverr for about $50) and put them in a disavow file. That solved it for him.
It’s kind of ridiculous that there’s so much collateral damage in Google’s war on web spam.
Hi Scott, Welcome to Inspire to Thrive. Yes, there are many ways you could get penalized by Google. That sounds like it must have been a mystery after the comments were removed. Thank you for sharing that with us. Glad to hear the disavow file worked. I’ve heard of so many stories where it hasn’t. I agree, especially when it’s out of our control. Have a great day and rest of the week Scott.
Google Penalty… Ohhh God… I’m too disappointed by Google works ! I know Google has become too smart & now punishing to low quality works as well as links & due to this Google’s decision. Most of website are facing Google Penalty! Well this is good that matt cutts is sharing his view to save their website.
Hi Christina, welcome to Inspire to Thrive. I was disappointed for a long time too but I was happy when Google gave me a hint, it made me feel like they are actually human. I felt bad years ago when many small businesses did not survive the Google changes, they no longer made sales from their sites as they were penalized. I don’t think they know what hit them at first. Thanks for coming by Christiana and have a wonderful rest of the week!
Hey Lisa,
SEO is far from dead! If you’re not careful many can get penalized the same way that you did. I too had to go through a lot of links to unlinked them. Now I have made it common practice to whenever I use external links such as link out to a fellow blogging friend (yes, sorry guys, I do apologize in advance) or an affiliate link, I make sure I make them nofollow. It’s a big hassle when you have to go through each of your post to figure out which links are holding you back. I really feel sorry that you had to go through 430 blog posts, but you had to do what you had to do!
Thanks for the heads up Lisa! I hope you’re enjoying your memorial day!
Hi Sherman, glad to hear you say that too. Me too. It wasn’t easy to do but I did it. Oh yes, 430 was a long list to get through but so glad it’s over now and I got a new logo and am tightening on up the niche here to social media. I’ll still post on SEO and blogging from time to time but want to focus more on social media and especially Twitter, hence the new logo. Yes, beautiful weather here Sherman, I hope you had the same on the west coast too! Thanks for coming by and for your input. Enjoy the rest of the short week here.
Incredibly solid tips Lisa! I’m glad you got everything sorted. Have you changed ALL your outgoing links to ‘no follow’ ?
Thanks Stu and welcome to Inspire to Thrive. Not ALL but most. I kept some to sites that were in the same niche as me. Thanks for coming by and have a great rest of the week.
Hi Lisa,
First of all congratulations for getting off hook with the Google penalty! And you really got a cute cartoon telling it all!
You really did a lot of hard work and kudos for doing that – I know its not easy but you really showed determination. It’s nice of Google to help you and give you a hint, but all the credit of really getting the penalty off the hook goes to your hard work. This is really a great lesson for everybody.
I always have all my outbound links as “nofollow”. Of course, I can manually “dofollow” if I want to . WordPress has many plugins to do that and Vinay tells me that you also have codes to do that. Probably that could have worked for you as you had links on your site when it was on Blogger prior to being on WordPress.
You should even “nofollow” the social media links – why should you pass over the link juice to them, they have got enough already! However, I really do not think that one should not give “dofollow” links to sites that are not of your site’s niche. You can always do that in moderation but you start risking yourself when you do it in extreme and do it for commercial sites as well.
Yes, SEO is not dead but now it’s all about playing safe and fair. One has to be careful about linking also in the comments section.
Thanks for sharing your experiences and spreading this awareness to all. I’m happy that you got over it! Enjoy your weekend, while we start off with a new week our end.
Thank you Harleena, I thought it was cute too. I have some as follow and many as no follow links but the plugin tool did not find them all. I had to do it manually. That was the key. Yes, I only give follow links to the same type of niche websites or blogs now. I felt bad giving no follow to some friends but their sites are not in this niche so I had to nofollow them. Great point on the social media links too Harleena. I appreciate your feedback on this one.
You are certainly welcome and I hope it helps some other bloggers out there to either comeback from a penalty or not get one to begin with. I hope you enjoyed your weekend Harleena.
I disagree with nofollow-ing your social media links. Remember that you’re not just passing authority to the domain, but to the specific page. Don’t you want your social media accounts to rank for your name? Might not be so much of an issue with a rare name like “Harleena Singh”, but when it’s “Scott Allen”, it is.
I agree with you there, Scott and thanks for pointing that out.
I researched a bit after reading your comment and found that you should not “nofollow” your social media links. Actually, any link that goes to a quality and high rank site, if not a competitor or of commercial interest, is a good candidate for a “dofollow” tag. However, I’ve also read that you should rather use rel=”me” for your own social media pages, what do you say to that?
Thanks.
Hi Scott and Harleena, oh yes, the one to my own Twitter page @Lisapatb I kept as dofollow. It has it’s own pagerank as well. Thanks for bringing that up Scott and Harleena for your extra research on that.
Do not rely on automatic systems. Lesson learn! There are many tools offered online that it’s useful and tested. Your personal experience being penalized by Google and the problem you figured out helped us readers and most especially for marketers and bloggers to be not penalized in the future. Now we know that it’s also better to manually remove the links from Follow to Unfollow links. Time consuming yet it works.
“How to File a Reconsideration Request to Google if Hit with a Google Penalty” is helpful. Thank you for lending your hand. This will really help to know the problem and how to resolve it.
Thanks for sharing this!
Hi Metz, oh yes, that is for sure. Tools are tools but they are not always 100% fool proof. Nothing like doing things manually though it takes so much time. You are welcome and I hope you don’t ever need it but share if someone you know does. Thanks for coming by Metz and taking the time to comment. Have a great weekend!
That’s fantastic news Lisa.
At least all the work that you’ve put into getting the penalty removed was worth it. I’ve not had a penalty yet and I hope I never do but at least I know where to come and find useful info about it.
I’m surprised to hear that Google gave you a hint. That was very helpful and unlike them! It would be so useful if they could point anyone who does get a penalty in the right direction.
Hi Tim, YES! I was so happy to get that email from the Google team. Me too, it made them seem human Tim. I agree and maybe they are starting to do that. I sure hope so for other’s sakes. Thanks for coming by Tim and I hope your summer will be starting out well there. Kids done school yet?
They’re off this week Lisa for half term. Then there’s five more weeks at school until the summer break. We have a lot planned for the summer :-).
Sounds like fun Tim, enjoy the time! It goes by fast.
Hi Lisa,
Wow, I cannot believe it took you so long to get this resolved but you are resilient and got it done! Thankfully I haven’t gotten hit. Of course, if I were going to tag team with someone to help me I would certainly pick Mayura! He’s awesome!
Thank you for sharing your experience with us and showing us the steps you took to get it resolved. I think it was great Google stepped up like that. That doesn’t happen a lot :).
Hope you’re having a great week and on your way to 100% better! See ya in the socialverse :).
Cori
Hi Corina, well I had a few life events within the year too so that took me away from being online. Yes, Mayura certainly is. He is so quick to find things too. It made me feel like Google is human now. I’m getting there Corina, not 100% as my PT person said today my arm has a way to go to get straight but I hope to return to work in June. I’ll see what the doctor says. I’ll be doing PT for quite some time after too. See you back in the socialverse for sure. I hope you have a great weekend ahead too!
Hey Lisa,
I’m doing the happy dance over here for you my friend. So a lot of those links were from before you moved your site over to WordPress. That’s interesting.
I did some spring cleaning a few years back and at that time I went back through all my posts as well and removed links that no longer worked and made sure I had the nofollow tag on others. Those were from back in my earlier blogging days when I didn’t know any better and was blogging about subjects I’m not into today.
This is a great lesson but most won’t take that time to go back through their blogs because of how time consuming it is. If they have even the slightest thought that there are some in a few posts then from your experience alone as to how long this took you to get resolved, that should be the true lesson here.
I’m happy this is resolved now and let’s just say, welcome back.
~Adrienne
Thanks Adrienne, I was too when the email arrived. I knew as soon as Google sent that hint that I had to go one by one. I just worked on it day by day a little at a time. It’s stuff like that that can drive bloggers crazy and away from the computer. Some for good. Of course I had a death in the family and a serious accident within the same year so it took me a little longer if life didn’t throw curve balls my way. Thanks for coming by and for your input Adrienne. Happy Thursday!
Hi Lisa,
This is helpful indeed and a good reminder; sometimes good old fashioned hard work is the only way to get the job done.
I found my blog a bit slow, even after I had my theme re-done. In truth it was light years quicker than my old theme yet, I knew something needed work. I just spent the past 2 weeks going through all 111 of my posts, reducing virtually all image sized to 300 X 225, or in some cases, a bit bigger. I also deleted some images completely.
I had a plug in that crunched images but ya can’t re-create the idea of actually editing every image, resizing them. My blog is MUCH quicker than it was, and my good old, 1 by 1 editing did the trick.
Thanks Lisa.
Ryan
Hi Ryan, I’m glad you found it helpful! That is for sure, no shortcuts. Oh boy I smushed a lot here too but not like you did resizing each individual. (That’s the stuff that can drive one crazy!) That may be next. Thanks for coming by and sharing your story with us on that Ryan. You are welcome. I hope you have a great rest of the week.
Hey Lisa,
Thanks for showing us how to go about this.
I have not be hit by Google and I don’t ever want to get there. That’s why I nofollow all links on paid posts. There are links I give out to some targeted content and I dofollow them – most of the links to other blogs are dofollow. I find these contents so valuable and I just recommend that. I think that’s what Good wants.
Hey! SEO is not dead. Anyone saying that is surely living under the bridge. It’s the most awesome source of traffic that converts.
Great guide Lisa. Please keep coming up with such
You are welcome Enstine. That’s good that you haven’t. That’s what I’ve done here as well. I had thought some affiliates were no follow but they were NOT. Yes, it’s my #1 source still and followed by Twitter. I’m glad you liked this post and thanks for taking the time to comment today. Enjoy the rest of your week.
Oh my gosh, Lisa! An entire year? Egads! Your post made me hop right over to my Google tools and check each item you mentioned above. Thankfully, I’m safe (for now). I think there may be some advantages to being a small fry in the world of bloggers. Google is less likely to pick on ya. Sorry it happened to you but thankfully you found a remedy. Interesting about the Blogger thing too. I wonder if that’s what started it all, Blogger links and not WP?
Great post, Lisa. I’m saving this one to my Pocket for future reference.
Happy Small Friday!
B
Hi Brenda, yes – but remember too I lost my mom and had an accident within the year so that stretched it out as well. That’s a good thing you are all set with no penalties. I’m glad I found a remedy and was even happier to see my pagerank of 3 return this morning after I hit publish.
It was a combo of both Blogger and WordPress – I think the link plugin did not get every single link like I did when I went in manually. So many lessons learned! Thanks Brenda and enjoy your long upcoming weekend!