10 Reasons Why Google Will Penalise Your Website

With Google working harder than ever to reward quality content and a great user experience, it is going to greater lengths than ever to target websites that it feels deserve a penalty, while at the same time promoting those with great content and a good user experience.

A Google penalty can result in a site suffering a huge drop in rankings, almost overnight, causing damage to the amount of traffic, enquiries and new business.

Below are 10 reasons why Google will penalise your website

1. Duplicate Content – Google does not like websites that have the same content on different pages, they want websites with original, relevant, quality content.

2. 404 Errors – If Google comes to a website and finds pages that don’t work it can cause big problems, broken links, pages that don’t load and other non-functioning elements on a site are a sure way to run into a penalty quickly.

3. Keyword Stuffing – Google looks out for pages that have been written to try and manipulate search engines, content should be written for humans, stuffing pages full of keywords should be avoided.

4. Missing Sitemap – Not having a sitemap will prevent Google from finding all of your content, it is also a generally bad practice that could cause you to suffer in the rankings.

5. Stolen Content – Websites that take content from another source are very likely to be handed a penalty, Google frowns upon this practice and actively targets websites that undertake it.

6. Website Downtime – If Google comes to a website and the site is down it can cause major problems, eventually Google will give up and assume the site has gone.

7. Foreign Links – Google likes to see quality backlinks to a website, if there are links in a foreign language coming to your site, it is likely Google will view them in a dim light.

8. Slow Load Times – Websites that consistently take a long time to load will generally be overlooked by Google in favour of sites with a better user experience.

9. Hidden Keywords, Links or Content – Avoid sneaky tactics, most attempts to trick Google end up in a penalty.

10. Spammy Content – Websites with spammy content, too many adverts and blog comments end up being downgraded by Google.

If you are worried about your rankings or feel your site should be appearing higher in Google, don’t delay, get a free review of your website by completing the form at the top of this page.