Google penalties can be very difficult to recover from. If you receive a Google Webmaster email, also known as a manual action email, informing you of a penalty, you must stay calm and act quickly.  It is important to note that Google outlines very specific things that you must do in order to recover from each penalty it gives out. For this reason, you should figure out exactly what it is that you were penalized for, so you can begin the recovery process as soon as possible.

Fasturtle, a company specializing in online marketing in Scottsdale, has compiled a list of 10 common reasons that businesses receive a Google manual action email. The following list will help you to quickly determine what you were penalized for, and put you on the road to recovery from a Google penalty:

1. Pure Spam. If you receive an email informing you of a penalty for pure spam, this means trouble as it is one of Google’s most severe warnings. Recovering from a pure spam penalty is incredibly difficult. In cases such as these, Google has labeled your site as one that uses aggressive spam techniques, including automatically-generated gibberish, cloaking or scraping content from websites. If your small business website in Scottsdale was using any of these methods, you simply have to stop and start over. If you weren’t intentionally using these bad SEO techniques, you should have your site audited. Working with a company specializing in online marketing in Scottsdale is highly recommended if you have received a pure spam penalty.
2. Cloaking and Poor Redirects.  When your site shows different content to users than it does to search engines, you may be penalized for cloaking. When you are redirecting users to a page other than the one that search engines saw, you may be penalized for using sneaky redirects. For those businesses that are intentionally using these bad SEO techniques, you should cut your losses and create a new small business website in Scottsdale using SEO techniques that are legal under Google’s guidelines as it is almost impossible to recover. If you were unaware that your website was cloaking or sneakily redirecting users, you may want to take a look at your coding. It is important that you use only 301 as your standard redirect in order to avoid penalties from Google. Remove all cloaking and sneaky redirects, and then submit to Google for reinclusion.
3. Hacked Business Website. Sometimes, a small business website in Scottsdale is the victim of hacking by a third party. Hacked websites are filled with content that is flagged as spam by search engines. When this happens, it is essential that business owners work with a company specializing in online marketing in Scottsdale to remove the spam and malware from their site and tighten up on security, locating and fixing all the gaps. Hackers are experts at what they do, and can hide malware throughout your site. For this reason, specialists in online marketing in Scottsdale are an important resource as they have a lot of experience dealing with hackers. Once all the fixes and security updates have been made, you can submit your site to Google for reinclusion, which is usually granted quickly.
4. Keyword Stuffing. Black hat SEO techniques, such as keyword stuffing, are rarely used intentionally nowadays. Many businesses, however, are using this illegal search engine optimization technique without even knowing it. For example, if you are adding multiple keywords to alt tags, titles and descriptions, you may be flagged for keyword stuffing. If this is the case, you may need a site audit to determine what is being flagged as stuffing as well as things that may be flagged as hidden throughout your site. After you have completed the audit and made changes based on recommendations from a company specializing in search engine optimization, you can then submit your request to Google for reinclusion.
5. Parked Domains. If you have a parked domain, you likely aren’t providing unique content, meaning your site has little value. For this reason, Google doesn’t include parked domains in search results, so they do very little for your search engine optimization strategy. Parked domains are used mainly to bring in revenue on AdSense, so if this is your intention, you should create a site and then add AdSense to it.

The above are only 5 of the most common reasons that businesses receive manual action emails from Google. Stay tuned for our next blog posting to learn about the last 5 that round out our list.

Keep in mind that after your discovery of any penalty, it is recommended that you review your Webmaster Tools email, and then seek help from a professional at a company specializing in online marketing in Scottsdale. Professionals have a lot of experience helping businesses to recover from Google penalties, and are your best option for recovery. If you are interested in some professional help, trust in the search engine optimization experts at Fasturtle, a company specializing in online marketing in Scottsdale. We have the skills and experience to fix and rebuild your website, so you are able to quickly recover from any Google penalties. For more information, call Fasturtle at (888) 468-8785 or contact us online.