I see lot of folks shouting, screaming, out there at Google webmaster, Digital point forums and post threads to claim that their website or blog was penalized for nothing. Damn shit!! I don’t know how do they think Google penalized them for nothing? There is no way Google removes somebody from their index with out a proper reason. Some argue of being penalized with out even actually getting a penalty. So this article is for all those who think that they were penalized, and also for people who tasted Google Penalty ( The kiss of death from Google ). I guarantee that you will find the stuff you are actually looking for right here in this post.

Now, if you are thrown out of Google index, the first thing you need to do is to check if you are really penalized or its just a filter that’s causing the issue.

What is the difference between penalty and filter ?

That’s obviously a very smart question,  Google penalty means your site will no longer exist in Google for some time, however Google filter is something that blocks your page from ranking higher in Google results. Google penalizes websites only if they find some serious issues such as link spamming, links exchange and selling links etc. Filters often come into action when Google updates its algorithms or sometimes when crawlers have minor problems with your website or blog. Most often websites are filtered if crawlers find Duplicate content in a website or a blog.

Note: I don’t think there is a penalty for Duplicate Content, Google uses filters if they find duplicate content.

So How do I check if my site is penalized or filtered ?

That’s a pretty descent question too. All you need to do is to do the search with the following syntax.

site:yoursiteurl.com

Replace yoursiteurl” with your domain name, also make sure you change the “top level domain” of your domain ( top level domain means .com, .org, .net etc ).  If your find your site or blog still in Google, then that means you are not penalized. For more advanced help to check the existence of your site, please visit this thread from Google webmaster help forums. I am sure you will find the link really useful.

What if My blog is Penalized?

Google Penalty

If you don’t find your website or blog for the search done with the above mentioned syntax, then I’m afraid your blog/website might have tasted kiss of the death from Google. The only way to sort out Google penalty is to find why Google posted a penalty on your site. Read Google’s webmaster Guidelines, if you are too lazy like me to read the guidelines here is something just for you. find out the reasons for the penalty, solve them and then request for reconsideration from Google webmaster tools. Don’t forget to activate Email confirmation for Reconsideration request submitted.

Now what if my site/blog still exists in Google?

Well, if you can find your site in the SERP results, then it means your blog is not penalized. Let me talk about the second issue, that is Google filters. Google has no official word about filters, but few search engine experts do believe in filters. Here is an article that talks a bit about Google filters.

How Old Is your Website ?

Do you have a blog/website that is very new. Do have a great Search engine rankings for few weeks before you loosing your SERP results ? Now, if that’s the case, don’t worry you have just finished something called Google Honeymoon. The article linked above will help you learn why your blog/website lost rankings.

SEO:

Search Engine optimization SEO can always help webmasters rank better in search engines. But, checkout  if something went wrong with your SEO. Google hates Black Hat SEO strategies to obtain better SE rankings. Make sure that you follow genuine SEO Techniques to make most from Google. Find more SEO help from a thread posted at Google webmaster forums.

So that’s all I’ve got for now. Hope you find this useful. Any comments and suggestions are welcome.