The Effect of a Google Penalty

By Adam  |  17 Aug 2016 12:00:00

If you make a living from the internet, a Google penalty is one of the worst things which can happen to you. If Google issues you a penalty, your site will be removed from the rankings of search results; people who have your site favourited would still be able to find you following a penalty, but traffic to your site will be cut right down and unless you are exceptionally good at social media marketing, you're most likely to see an enormous drop in traffic to your site. Very recently, Google said " It’s almost never going to be that we will just restore the previous state [after a penalty.]" which actually goes to make them even more worrying.

So how can you avoid a Google penalty? Well, there are lots of things which can cause Google to give a website a penalty. They've got an extensive set of rules which you need to abide by and if you avoid breaking these rules, you should be okay: you need to ensure that your site doesn't contain any illegal or dangerous content (obviously), you musn't steal content, you musn't ever sell other people links on your site, you musn't ever buy links on other people's sites and you just generally need to avoid ever doing anything which might artificially alter search engine rankings. If you're ever worried that some form of marketing that you're planning to do might be a little bit unethical, then don't do it - a penalty is not worth the risk as it could cause you to lose a lot of money.

I hope that this has been a useful warning and that you won't ever face the consequences of a Google penalty! If your website is doing well and growing steadily and then you get a call from an SEO agency trying to sell you their services, it might be best to avoid using them as many SEO agencies are not aware of current practises - always do a bit of research because it would be devastating to get a penalty because of the actions of an agency you hired. Keep this in mind and your eCommerce site could have a long and healthy life! But if you don't even have an eCommerce website, then sign up to Sellr now and get started for no cost at all!