Search Penalties

Search penalties are of two kinds, a SERPs reduction or deletion, and a malware search warning or ban. The former are far more common; the latter refers to a search engine's reaction to finding malware (or links to malware sites) on the page or site in question. Malware can also include adverts that are infected; these are generally display ads served from one of the smaller ad networks. Rarely, they can be infected with surfing activity trackers or trojan loaders that attack the computer of a visitor who clicks on one of these ads.

Search penalties are becoming more common as the Internet becomes more crowded and business competition becomes more intense. Website owners sometimes make changes that are intended to increase traffic or sales, but which infringe search engines' quality guidelines. Any attempt to increase page rank or page relevancy artificially is likely to attract a search penalty.

Page rank is a measure of link weight and number, so buying links (as against buying adverts) will attract a penalty. Many site owners and managers did get away with schemes of this type for a long time, but the signs are that now these infringements will not be tolerated.

Adverts are different from links because of the way they are linked. They have to be linked in order for people to be able to click through; but the link is of a specific type that labels the originating point as an advert, which allows a search engine to discount that particular link for ranking purposes. There are numerous ways to designate adverts as such.

Page relevancy is a metric determined by various on- and off-site factors that result in a value being attached to a page to govern its relevancy to a given topic (i.e. search term). Essentially these factors relate to the number of times that search term, or similar terms, appear in locations that amplify the page's score for those terms. Again, manipulating this score artificially in order to raise it will attract a search penalty.

A search penalty can also result from site technical errors, site code errors, site content errors, and site management errors including numerous off-site factors. The way to avoid them is to maintain high standards of housekeeping and operate ethically. If you try to increase traffic or sales artificially, you will appear to be 'gaming the system', and a search penalty is inevitable if you are noticed.

Give some thought to taking advice in this area if you are not an expert; Internet business can appear a straightforward matter but it becomes more convoluted the harder you try. Don't use risky methods in trying to improve your results: there are plenty of rock-solid ethical techniques to ensure you receive the traffic and revenues you should be getting.

Search optimising and penalties

There are numerous ways of attempting to improve a website's ranking that will result in a search penalty; and they are increasing. Apart from basic and obvious operations to reduce a site's suboptimal characteristics, apparently easy ways to increase relevance or page rank are normally risky; honest methods are harder work. Two honest methods are getting valuable links and writing thousands of words of unique and relevant copy after extensive research - and neither are simple, quick or easy. The shortcuts to both risk search penalties.

It's true that search results have been systematically attacked on a large scale by dubious operators who advertise as SEOs. They are entitled to use that appellation of course, since they either do not specify how they will achieve results, or clients don't ask, and they do in many cases get the required results, at least in the medium term. For this reason, search engines may not hold the industry as a whole in high esteem - understandable if you are continually on the receiving end of attacks, and your work is being debased.

Website owners should therefore specify how their Internet presence can be improved; some basic research should be undertaken into exactly how proposed consultants operate; and some form of guarantee might be asked for as to how the project will be progressed. As an example of how the map has changed, these sorts of requirements were not normally debated in the past, and did not usually feature in any contract; but are now a basic and central factor.

An ethical SEO company needs to state their policies clearly and guarantee them, since rapid result methods can clearly destroy an enterprise's credibility.

Problems can occur in all areas due to a difference between what site owners and agents perceive as harmless (and quite normal) operating methods, and what search engines see as a threat. This area of confusion is amplified by two factors: the speed at which the environment changes, and the unwillingness of search engines to speak out regarding all possible TOS violations. They cannot do this since it would provide too much information on what they did or did not know; and where logistical problems prevented offenders being immediately penalised, it would provide ammunition for those calling for faster and stronger action.

Therefore, website owners need advice on what is or is not good practice; and especially on what their agents should or should not do. It is probably fair to say that 19 out of 20 website hosts, webmasters, developers and search marketing staff do not have precise knowledge of what can or cannot be done. There are any number of issues here, in every single department. To take just one as an example, most developers would assume it a legitimate - and indeed obvious - practice to use a JavaScript redirect to send visitors to the correct page, if an URL had changed, if a frame redirect was needed, for a database query - or for anything else it might be handy for. Why not? The answer unfortunately is that, now, in the current environment, a JS redirect cannot be used for any purpose at all without penalty. And, there are similar issues in every area of website operation that are unknown to a percentage of those responsible for their management.

In fact one should not be critical of staff here because it is simply not their area of responsibility, and of course there is no propagated 'master list' of methods to avoid. Search penalties are the domain of specialist search optimising consultants, which is another reason why every commercial website needs one.

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There is a Google Group for Search Penalties, where you can register, post a question, or answer others' queries.