A website penalty, also known as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) penalty, is a key topic of discussion when it comes to website optimisation and ranking strategies in the eyes of search engine providers. The general objective of website owners and marketers today is to ensure that their websites appear higher on the list of Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) and so remain at the top of their consumers’ minds.
To achieve this goal, it is important for website owners and marketers to adhere to certain SEO practices outlined by search engine providers like Google, Bing, and Yahoo! Otherwise, websites risk incurring penalties, which could result in them dropping significantly in SERP rankings and, in the worst case, being permanently removed from the listings.
In its most basic sense, a website penalty is any action taken by a search engine provider in response to the use of tactics on a website to artificially influence the rankings of its SERPs. This includes anything that attempts to take advantage of or manipulate search engine algorithms in order to gain an unfair advantage over other websites in the same result list. This can range from using blatantly spammy or deceptive tactics to mildly violating the guidelines set out by search engine providers.
The severity or types of penalties that can be imposed by search engine providers vary widely and depend on the practices used. Generally speaking, however, these can be broken down into two broad categories: Algorithmic penalties, and Manual penalties.
Algorithmic Penalties
Algorithmic penalties are those that are imposed by search engine algorithms (computer programs) in response to an action taken by the website owner. Examples of such actions could include keyword stuffing and using other methods to artificially manipulate the rankings of your website, or using content that is of low quality or plagiarised. In such cases, the search engine algorithms detect and act upon the fact that your attempts to manipulate them are against the guidelines laid out and will accordingly downgrade, de-rank, or where necessary remove your website from the result list altogether. In some cases, you may even be blacklisted from the entire search engine altogether.
Manual Penalties
Manual Penalties are those that are imposed by the human reviewers employed by the search engine providers to weed out spammy and deceptive tactics. These penalties may be imposed in response to certain practices such as buying links that are intended to improve the rankings for your website, cloaking (showing different content to search engine bots than to human visitors to the website), or excessive use of rich media content that can slow down the website and result in a poor browsing experience.
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When it comes to the best practices and general guidelines to follow in order to avoid website penalties, the following points are essential:
• Provide quality content: Ensure that your website is up to date and contains accurate, unique, and useful content that adds value to consumers' lives. Avoid keyword stuffing and plagiarism, as well as posting low-quality content, such as content consisting only of images and videos.
• Follow design guidelines: Make sure that your website is optimised for mobile devices, easy to navigate, and provides an appealing and enjoyable user experience.
• Avoid deceptive tactics: Do not create pages or use other methods to deceive visitors into providing information or clicking a link that does not deliver what was promised.
• Link only high-quality sources: Only link to websites that are of good standing and offer content that is relevant to yours. Additionally, avoid buying links from external websites in order to artificially boost your website’s ranking.
• Stay up to date: Make sure that your website is kept up to date with the latest industry developments and trends so that it remains relevant and attractive to search engine providers and users alike.
• Perform regular audits: Regularly audit your website to ensure that it is in accordance with the guidelines laid down by search engine providers and is performing well.