Many people believe that their results drop in rankings because Google has penalised them, others believe that these penalties don`t exist and that a drop in rankings can be attributed to Google`s re-indexing. Both sides have valid points, as well as some arguable flaws in their arguments, however, it`s better to be safe than sorry so let`s just consider the possibility of Google penalties.

There have been reports of occasions where results have dropped drastically in a short space of time. Where once searches stood proudly on the first page, they can now only be found cowering in 31st place or lower, even a search for the domain name only produces results that appear at the top of the 4th page. Spooky I know, and it affects all the pages throughout the domain. This is what they refer to as the “-30” penalty, as sites tend to drop an average of 30 positions. Whether the reason for the drop was because of a penalty or a re-index, there is obviously something that Google doesn`t agree with on your site. If by any chance you are an optimist, the good news is this is seen as a relatively light penalty from Google, and can be overcome relatively quickly and easily by making the appropriate changes to the site and then re-submitting it to Google.

The “-950” penalty doesn`t seem to have generated as much attention as the “-30” penalty, but from what I gather the “-950” penalty drops previously high ranking pages down to the last results of the SERPs. It seems to be specific to searches and doesn`t affect the entire site, unlike the “-30” penalty. Sounds harsh I know, but it`s still not as bad as the next penalty.

The “Index Exclusion” penalty is devastating, as it throws the site right out of the Google index. The site must really get up Google`s nose for this to happen. Some major violations would have to have taken place to receive this penalty, such as creating doorway pages, cloaking pages or numerous other “black hat” techniques that Google disapproves of.

Google have not admitted to dealing out any of these penalties, but like many cliché lovers such as myself have stated, it`s better to be safe rather than sorry. The common denominator between all these penalties mentioned is that they all can be avoided (and that they have great names).

To avoid being penalized you can follow a few quality guidelines that Google was kind enough to lay out for us. For instance, you should create and design your site and its pages primarily for the user, not the search engine. Avoid cloaking, using unauthorized computer programs that submit pages, spam, and don`t get involved in any link schemes or link farms.

For those of you that don`t know, cloaking is a big no-no. Google and the other search engines are pretty adamant when it comes to this. Cloaking is when the text or links the user and the search engine see differ, and is done to deceive. Whatever you do, don`t try to fool the user! You make the site for the user, so whatever the search engines see, the users need to see the same. In the webmaster guidelines, Google provide a few specific parameters that you shouldn`t cross, which I`ve laid out for you:

• Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
• Don’t use cloaking or sneaky redirects.
• Don’t send automated queries to Google.
• Don’t load pages with irrelevant keywords.
• Don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
• Don’t create pages with malicious behavior, such as phishing or installing viruses, trojans, or other badware.
• Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines or other “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.
• If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason to visit your site first.

If you`re willing to take a chance, then that`s your prerogative. In most cases breaking Google`s rules isn`t against the law, you just stand a chance of losing any ranking you had in their search engine. I realise the difficulty of being a completely “white hat” SEO, but if you follow the basic rule of thumb of creating and designing your site for the user, then more often than not you will come out of the rank race unscathed. Whether you get to the top or not is a different story.

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