Google Penalties and Filters – What They Are, How to Detect and Handle Them

The work of an SEO specialist seems to ordinary citizens to be an endless struggle with algorithms, updates, filters, sanctions, and other restrictions of search engines. It is important to remember that the winner in this battle will always be a quality product - a resource created by people for people.

In this article, we will look at the main filters of the Google search engine, their difference from sanctions, and recommendations for combating them.

It is worth distinguishing between manual sanctions and filters:

1. Manual sanctions can be applied if the site was manually checked by a Google employee. If you have manual sanctions, you can see them by looking in Google Search Console -> Manual Actions.

If you don't have such a message in the manual actions viewer, it means that you don't have a manual penalty.

Manual penalties are applied by Google employees when Google's machine algorithms detect a suspicious signal regarding certain sites. Other Internet users can also report this - by leaving a complaint. Then the site goes for manual verification.

2. PS filters are part of the main algorithm that can pessimize your site for massive violations of certain norms.

The most important filters of the Google search engine:

 1.  "Panda". It is applied to web resources for poor internal optimization: low-quality, non-unique content, full of spam and devoid of usefulness;  excess advertising on the web resource pages; poor site adaptability; high bounce rate; sale of sites for links to other resources.

2. "Penguin". Search engine sanctions are imposed for dishonestly increasing the mass of links: a large number of non-thematic external links; low quality of links due to placement on unauthoritative donor sites or purchase on exchanges such as Sape; jumps in increasing the link profile. 

Previously, Panda and Penguin were independent filters that were launched after an update, now they are built into the algorithm and work continuously. This can be done, for example, by penalizing a medical website that is not optimized according to EAT.

How do I know if my website is under a filter?

Google will not send you any notifications about filters. You need to monitor organic traffic and update dates. But this is not a guarantee - filters are difficult to diagnose. Before you suspect that your site has been filtered, check the following:

• Check that the analytics counter is connected correctly, as traffic data may be incorrect.

• If there is a drop in positions, check manually in the incognito browser whether the positions have dropped.

• Make sure that you are checking organic traffic, not all traffic on the site.

A drop in organic traffic does not always mean sanctions - it may simply be that your competitors have jumped ahead.

Usually, it is enough to delete a few pages, and rewrite a couple of texts, and rejecting some links is not enough. To get out of the filters, you need to make significant changes to the site: thoroughly clean up everything that might seem suspicious to Google.

What penalties (manual actions) can a website receive?

There can be two types of messages in the console:

• Sanctions to the site

• Sanctions to a page or part of the site

There will also be a description of the "Cause" and "Consequences" items

Standard sanctions can report: * BY LINK IF NECESSARY, READ WHAT TO DO IN EACH CASE:

• That the site is hacked;
• User generated spam;
• Befree spam hosts; 
• Spam markup;
• Unnatural links to your site;
• Low-quality content;
• Masking and/or hidden forwarding;
• Unnatural links from your site;
• Outright spam;
• Masking and/or hidden forwarding;  
• Hidden text and/or excessive keyword stuffing.
   

What causes the largest number of penalties today?

Most often, these are attempts to manipulate search results and aggressive optimization - an excessive build-up of link mass or jumps in the build-up. Also, low-quality content – pages - doorways.

Are there lifetime penalties?

Google reported that they do not blacklist domains. If you had a penalty in the past and you did the right thing to get it removed, your site should no longer be blocked.

However, in reality, in most cases, when cleaning your site, you are removing what previously artificially supported your ranking. If you previously took first place in the results thanks to purchased links, removing these links will not return you to first place again. 

There are cases when it is easier to register a new domain than to put the old one in order.

Types of manual sanctions and what to do with them

A hacked web resource

A similar filter is applied to a resource if malicious content is detected on it. These can be viruses or redirects to pages that are dangerous for visitors. Most often, such content is posted by attackers who have gained access to the site management system.

Fix:

First of all, change the passwords for accessing the administrative part of your resource and FTP. Then scan the site for viruses using free online scanners. Update all plugins and the "engine" itself, which controls the work of your site as a whole. Look in the index file to see if there is any foreign code in it. If you do not know how to do this, seek help from a specialist. 

After you have solved the problem, send a letter to the search engine employees in which you inform them exactly how your site was hacked and what you did to solve the issue. This will trigger a re-inspection.

Clothing and/or Hidden Redirect

Clothing is the process of showing users pages that are different from the ones shown on Google. Hidden redirects send users to a page that is different from the one shown on Google.

Fix:

— Go to Google Search Console > Crawl > View as Google, then load the pages that were penalized.

— Compare the content of the web page with the content received by Google.

— Eliminate any differences between them, and make them completely identical.

— Check all redirects; Remove redirects that:

• Send all users to another page

• Contain a conditional redirect (for example, only for users from a specific source).

— Once you've resolved these issues, submit a reconsideration request.

These types of redirects are often created by CMS plugins, maybe in your .htaccess file, or may be written in JavaScript. Hidden Mobile Redirect

Hidden Mobile Redirect

Some or all pages of a website redirect mobile users to content that is invisible to Google search robots. This is a direct violation of Google's webmaster guidelines.

Hidden mobile redirects are often unintentional and can occur without the webmaster's knowledge. This usually happens if:

• Code is added that creates rules to redirect mobile users.
• A script or element is added to display ads and redirect mobile users.
• Hackers add a script or element that redirects mobile users to a malicious website.

Fix:

• Check if the site has been compromised.
• Remove all third-party scripts or elements that you do not control one by one.
• Then test your site on a mobile device or emulator to see if any redirects remain.
• Once you have identified the specific script or element that you believe is causing the hidden redirect, remove it from your site. If this script is important, create it in a different way, reinstall it, and test it.

Always check mobile versions of pages that contain code or script elements that redirect mobile users with the URL Inspection tool.

Hidden images

Same cloaking as text.

Fix:

• Show Google the same image that your site users see.
• After you fix the issue, submit a reconsideration request.

AMP content mismatch

AMP content is different from the canonical version of the web page.

Both versions should be essentially the same. This doesn't mean the text has to be completely identical, but they should be thematically similar.

Fix:

• Make sure the AMP page is linked to the correct page.
• Check that the overall text content of the AMP and canonical pages is consistent. Edit if necessary.
• Make sure that the Google view of the page matches what users see. You can do this using the URL Inspection tool. This works for both the canonical and AMP versions of the page. A mismatch is often caused by a robots.txt file blocking resources on one or the other page. This tool will detect this issue, among others.
• After syncing your AMP pages and canonical pages, go to Google Search Console > Security & Manual Actions > Manual Actions and submit a review request.
• Keep an eye on your Search Console account. That's where Google will let you know that your site has been reviewed. If your site is no longer in violation, the manual action will be lifted.

Hidden text and/or keyword stuffing

Fix:

1. Go to Google Search Console > Crawl > View as Google , then load pages from the parts of your website identified as containing violations.

2. Look for text that is similar in color to or matches the color of the main text on the web page.

3. Find hidden text using styles or positioning.

4. Remove or change the style of any hidden text so that it is obvious to a human.

5. Correct or remove any paragraphs of words without context.

6. Fix title tags and alt text that contain strings of repeated words.

7. Remove any other instances of keyword stuffing.

8. After resolving the issue, submit a reconsideration request.

Outright spam

Applies to sites that aggressively use a combination of spamming techniques, including cloaking and other Webmaster Guidelines violations.

Fix:

If this is your first violation, simply follow Google's Webmaster Guidelines. After resolving the issue, submit a reconsideration request.

Pro tip: If this is your second violation, forget about this site and create a new one. The likelihood that Google will give you another chance after you betray its trust a second time is slim.

Free hosting

Using such hosting can result in excessive advertising and spam.

Fix:

1. Switch to a "branded" shared hosting.

2. Submit a reconsideration request after the migration is complete.

A problem with structured data

If you don't follow the guidelines for creating rich snippets code and post irrelevant content that is invisible to users, or that may mislead them, you will be penalized.  

Fix:

• Update your current markup or remove any markup that violates Google's guidelines for rich snippets.
• Submit a reconsideration request after making your changes.

Low-quality content

Low-quality pages are content that:

• does not contain unique information;

• is automatically generated;

• is copied;

• is a doorway page.

Fix:

1. Detect and remove automatically generated content.

2. Using duplicate content detection software to identify content found anywhere on the web.

3. Identify content with low word counts and, if necessary, increase the content of these pages to make them useful and informative.

4. Identify and remove doorways.

Submit a reconsideration request after addressing these issues.

Unnatural links to your site.

Buying links and/or participating in link schemes to increase organic search results. This is a clear violation of Google's webmaster guidelines.

Fix:

• Download the links to your site from Google Search Console.
• Review these links for any that may violate our link policies.
• Remove or add the rel="nofollow" attribute to irrelevant links.
• Disavow any links that you cannot remove or that you do not follow.  
• Submit a reconsideration request after cleaning up your link profile.

Unnatural links from your site

Google loves to penalize webmasters for selling links.

Fix:

• Remove or modify the links by adding the rel="nofollow" attribute so that they no longer pass PageRank.
• Submit a reconsideration request after removing the relevant links.

User-generated spam

Typically found in forums, comments, guestbook pages, and profile users.

Fix:

— Define pages where users can leave comments.

— Look for spam:

• Advertisements disguised as comments.

• Comments containing irrelevant links.

• Spammy usernames, such as "Cheap Viagra."

• Auto-generated, generalized, off-topic comments.

— Remove all spam and inappropriate content.

— Prevent unmoderated content from appearing on your website

— Submit a request for re-review once your site is clean and no longer violates the policy.

Policy Violation Detection: Adult Content

Google strictly prohibits displaying adult content on Discover. 

This means no nudity or sexually explicit material. 

The only exceptions are scientific or medical terms related to human or sexual education.

Fix:

• Review and remove any content that even remotely appears to violate the detection policy.
• After you complete the review and make the necessary changes, changes, go to Google Search Console and submit a re-verification request. As with any re-verification request, be sincere and honest – explain how the error occurred and what specific actions you have taken to prevent it from happening again. According to Google's policies, you will need to "provide evidence of changes in editorial practices, including new editorial guidelines and an editorial board with a history of improved practices."

News and policy findings: Dangerous content 

Do not post:

• Dangerous or threatening pranks that cause victims to fear imminent serious physical harm or cause serious emotional distress to minors. 
• Instructions for killing or causing harm that shows viewers how to perform actions intended to kill or injure others. For example, instructions for making a bomb designed to injure or kill others.
• Harmful drug use or creation: Content that depicts the abuse or instructions for creating hard drugs, such as cocaine or opioids. Hard drugs are defined as drugs that (in most cases) can lead to physical dependence.
• Eating Disorders: Content that glorifies or encourages viewers to imitate anorexia or other eating disorders.
• Eating disorders are characterized by abnormal or disordered eating habits that negatively impact a person's health (including consumption of non-food items).
• Violent events that promote or glorify violent tragedies, such as school shootings.
• Information about theft or fraud with educational elements, such as showing viewers how to steal material goods or promoting dishonest behavior.
• Burglary. This means demonstrating how to use computers or information technology to steal credentials, compromise personal information, or cause serious harm to others, such as (but not limited to) hacking into social media accounts.
• "Bypassing" payment for digital content or services. Demonstrating to viewers or readers how to use programs, websites, or other information technologies to obtain unauthorized free access to audio content, audiovisual content, full-featured video games, software, or streaming services that would normally require payment.
• Promoting dangerous drugs and medications. Content that claims that harmful substances or treatments can be beneficial to health. 

Correction:

• verify the above information and remove it immediately;
• submit a reconsideration request.

News and Policy Disclosures: Offensive Content

Google prohibits content that contains any form of insult, threat, or intimidation of any kind.

Correction:

• review content, remove completely
• submit a reconsideration request review.

News and Policy Disclosures: Hateful Content

Posting material that promotes or condones violence or incites hatred.

Content that targets specific audiences, groups, or individuals based on national origin, ethnicity, race, religion, age, veteran status, disability, gender, gender identity or sexual orientation, or any characteristic associated with marginalization or systemic discrimination.

Corrections:

— review, remove, request reconsideration.

News and Policy Disclosures: Media Manipulation

Any video, audio, or image that is used to deceive or mislead is prohibited. This includes grossly misrepresenting events that occurred or creating a fundamentally different understanding or impression than intended.

News and Policy Disclosures: Medical Content

Under our YMYL policy, Google prohibits any content that contradicts or contradicts medical or scientific evidence or best practices.

Medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment for commercial purposes is also prohibited.

News and Policy Disclosures: Misleading Content

There's a fine line between clickbait and being penalized for misleading content. Deceptively attracting users with promises of one topic or story, while actually offering something else, goes beyond the scope and is considered misleading.

Given the filters described above, it is possible